RedHeadedGirl has been going though the Old Skool romance time travel machine, ever since she found her own lost Help a Bitch Out book. Meanwhile, I’ve been thinking about the older romances I’ve read and loved, and whether they hold up to a re-reading now that it’s been years since I last read them.
So I’ve compiled a reading list of my own for 2011, which I’m calling the “Old Skool Favorites”, books that I read and remember enjoying (even if I can’t remember the title or author and have to dig through the webby recesses of my brain to find a clue to track them down) and want to re-read to see what I think of them now. Maybe I’ll ruin a few of my fondest memories, but my re-read of Midsummer Magic, the first romance I ever read, didn’t turn me away or leave me with a “What the hell was I thinking?” feeling when I finished it.
If you’ve been reading the genre for awhile, you probably have some old favorites that you haven’t re-read in a long time. Every wonder if they stand up to a revisit, if the memory you hold is the same as the book you hold in your hands today? Sometimes, the way-back old skool romances we remember aren’t great because they are good stories – sometimes they’re awesome because of the unfiltered crazysauce within them. Sometimes they’re comfort reads, or they’re connected to a time period that is flooded with nostalgia, which then spills over on to the book, whether the book itself was fantastic or not.
With the Old Skool Favorites challenge, I’m going to re-read my old-skool favorites. I’d love it if you’d join me and re-read yours. You can blog about it or email me, but I think it’s important to know where the genre has been (who it’s been with!) and how it’s changed over the years, and how we as readers have changed too. I hereby and eagerly invite you to join me in a re-read of your oldest favorites, whether they are ridiculous or wonderpants.
My reading list so far, which I will definitely add to as I find more books in storage:
What would be on your Old Skool reading list? Want to join me in a re-read?
Whoops, meant Rosalyn Alsobrook! Courtney Alsobrook was a childhood friend LOL
@LynnM
Are you my long-lost twin?
Also, Shanna by Woodiwiss. She’s way hit or miss with me. Those two are the only ones I’ve ever really liked.
I remember Lindsay’s Silver Angel platinum-blond harem crack.
Aside: I need to turn in a HaBO that’s probably the most sketchy yet.
@Donna
@Darlene Marshall
Yeah, I’ll take that magnet and a seat on that bench.
And please please please let’s not forget Valerie Sherwood… Lorena and Lenore. *le sigh* MORE THAN ONE LOVER OMG. Never happen in romance now.
@Lyssa
Busted. Mistress of Mellyn and Tregaron’s Daughter are on my DIK shelf.
That all said, I’m not doing a re-read unless somebody can identify the HaBO I will send in when I get around to it.
Erm…I was reading them concurrently.
Shanna, Wolf & Dove, Ashes in the Wind and Rose in Winter by Woodiweiss are musts. Rose in Winter is the one that got me dinged by my parents when they finally noticed the stuff I was reading at age 11. Ian Thornton of Almost Heaven is – just – no words. That book broke my heart when I read it. That and Once and Always w/Jason Fielding (?) are my fave McNaughts. Have to have them on re-read shelf. Sweet Savage Love taught me the word “loins”. I freaking loved that book. And of course A Knight in Shining Armour, the first time-travel novel that didn’t make me want to throw it against the wall. I don’t think the River trilogy or the Velvet one by Devereux will hold up tho. Lots of asshattery and rape-age in those books. And I love the first few Lindsey Mallory & Viking books. Proof of my love – I guarantee I still have these books in the closet boxes o’ books. There’s a bunch of Garwood from the early 90s that I think I’ll still love if only for nostalgia’s sake and to see how many times she can use the word “infidel”
I had many good hours reading these books when teenage life pretty much sucked. Some definitely won’t hold up, but others will remain precious no matter what.
I’m loving these comments!
@Aislinn Macnamara My Enemy, My Love book is by Elaine Coffman.
Crap. I meant to say I was reading Little House (over and over and over and over again) while alternating with Old Skool magnificence and a dash of FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC (which is, IMO, a tween’s rite of passage).
Have to post again *sigh*, this site is a bad influence on me.
I had never noticed that before! Holy Crap. How do you pronounce that?
One last book for the list ‘Satan’s Angel’ by Kathryn Atwood. I wasn’t particularily discriminating in my early days.
I can’t remember what was my first romance book, but I do recall reading a lot of Victoria Holt and Barbara Cartland in the early days of my introduction to romance (it’s what I could find in the library before I was able to get rides to the used bookstore). Then there were the golden years of the historicals and bodice-ripper covers: Amanda Quick/JAK, Julie Garwood, Judith McNaught, Jane Feather, Laura Kinsale, Megan McKinney, Elizabeth Lowell, Johanna Lindsey, Catherine Coulter, Teresa Meideros, Iris Johansen, Elizabeth Thornton, Anne Stuart. I use to love reading Linda Howard and Diana Palmer too.
I still re-read Quick/JAK and Howard quite often. I sometimes spend an entire weekend just re-reading all the books by an author on my keeper shelves. It’s interesting how some of my favorite authors I use to read are still some of my favorite authors today even if they have changed genres.
I read loads of historical fiction when I was a teenager. Anya Seaton, MM Kaye (The Far Pavillions was fantastic ), I loved Georgette Heyer and still do. I agree with the votes for These Old Shades. Read it again recently and shivered just as much as I did a few decades ago especially that soiree scene. The hero is the most ruthless alpha but that just makes the ending all the more moving. The dialogue in that book is particularly sharp. I also read and enjoyed a few Laurie McBain – Devils’ Desire and Chance the Winds of Fortune. Haven’t read them for years so now I’m going to have to go and do just that and see if I still enjoy…….
Julie Garwood definitely a must! The Bride, Lion’s Lady, The Gift. Oooh, can’t wait to re-read. Savage, arrogant heroes and spunky, defiant heroines. Greatness.
I’d also love to track down the Sunfire YA books that I loved so much in the 80s! I had probably 20-25 of them, but must have given them away at some point because they are nowhere to be found. I adored so many of those books and used to re-read them regularly. Strangely, I had already begun reading adult romances when I discovered the Sunfire books, but I still loved each and every one of them, even though nothing beyond kissing ever happened. (Which is good, since the stories involved 15 and 16 year olds!)
I forgot Impulse by Catherine Coulter, and Shadown Dance by Susan Andersen. I’m never bored, even if I don’t have any new purchases or library books.
My first romance was The Secret by Julie Garwood, but that was just back in 2003. I still read and love love love Garwood. I read a few Old Skools (Lindsay, Coulter) when I was first getting into the genera, but couldn’t handle the rape-tastacy. My first somewhat graphic sex passage was actually in a fantasy book I read as a kid – White Mare, Red Stallion, but I was horrified by sex scenes at the time (though I always enjoyed romance themes) and promptly head the book behind other books on my book shelf.
@Moriah, I knew I couldn’t be the only one with Wilder & Woodiwiss side by side on their shelves! And, I’ll take my seat on the bench, but be warned; my refrigerator magnet says: Sarcasm! Now served all day.
Also, oh yes, the WTFery that is Valerie Sherwood!
My first romance was Foxfire Light. I still have that book somewhere. I loved it so much.
The first one that kept me up all night reading was another Janet Daily that I can’t recall the title of, but I have some fond memories of. It involving a former waitress that was given the fortune of a former patron that she became friends with. His “half-breed” illegitimate son (Halk, Falcon, Vulture, some sort of bird I think) thinks that she was his mistress for a bit and sneaks into her room a for a bit of adult bonding time. There was druggings involved and hiding out near the Four Corners. I thought it was a very hot book at the time.
The rest of the Old School romances (and the so old school that I can’t find in my collection) are fodder for HaBo. My memory is horrible.
Over on Twitter I was told that Sunfire YAs count as Old Skool, so I’m going to track down a few. Maybe Nicole, Amanda, and Marilee. Ooh—looking at Amazon, I think I’m going to need Emily and Sabrina, too.
Now that I think about it, I think I get a lot of my love for cross-class historicals where the guy is the one from the wrong side of the tracks from Sunfire.
@Darlene Marshall said—
My YA favorite romance reads back in the Old Skool days were Mrs. Mike, Mara, Daughter of the Nile, and The Witch of the Glen.
—Oh Darlene, I’m so glad someone else remembers MRS. MIKE which I first read in the 8th grade and have never catagorized as a romance in my head, although looking back it obviously involved a great deal of romance (I love when the heroine says to her friend that the hero’s eyes “are so blue you could swim in them”), but there’s some very harsh parts of the story too—including the death of the heroine’s two children. Still, a great book for those who haven’t read it (and a wonderful look at northern Canada in the early 1900s).
BTW, I am lovin’ this thread…how could I have forgotten Shirlee Busbee or Rebecca Brandwynne (did I spell that right?)
Spam filter: dark45—you’re right, I’m on the dark side of 45.
Although Jean Plaidy and Margaret Campbell Barnes aren’t exactly romance, they were my first introduction to this type of book. I still reread Jean Plaidy with great regularity. Every now and then, I go on a Plaidy kick and devour a block of her historicals (Tudors, Georges, Victoria etc.)
When I’m feeling old skool I reach for Angelique, but if I want something sweet and old-fashioned I go for Betty Neels or Grace Livingston Hill.
My earliest real romance read was Captive Passions by Fern Michaels. Somehow, I don’t think it would stand up to rereading. Same goes for Whitney, My Love, which I used to adore.
My first romances were mid ‘70’s HPs, and I have plenty of early 80’s category on my shelves. But from the “Old Skool In Spirit If Not Age” category, moons ago a member of the The Bitchery told us about the asshat hero Sterling Jakes, from of Olivia Rupprecht’s “Date With the Devil” (Loveswept, 11/91):
Among his bon mots:
HELL YEAH, I own it. Actually, I’d love for RedHeadedGirl to take a whack at this one.
spam filter: behind69. Um, yeah. (Duh.)
I agree Agtigress, which is why I didn’t include the wonderful Helen MacInnes, whose books I devoured as a teenager, because I still think of her as a “spy” novelist,& not the romantic suspense novelist she was.
BTW thanks to all those of you who reminded me of A Rose In Winter……that one definately needs a reread !
Judoth McNaught’s Once and Always.
Lots of lovely memories here. I’m moving house shortly, and a couple of boxes of long-ago romances will be disinterred because of it. Packing up may take longer than I had planned. I’m sure Shanna is in their somewhere, but the Georgette Heyer’s have been out and proud on my bookshelves and re-read regularly over the years.
Please don’t do anything on MM Kaye’s The Far Pavillions, though. It’s an OK read only if you don’t know that the first half is lifted from Rudyard Kipling’s Kim and the second half is lifted from John Masters’ The Lotus and the Wind.
Okay, now you’ve got me wanting to go up to the attic and dig out my whole box of Johanna Lindsey books. I have been dying to re-read Warrior’s Woman!! I remember loving that book, but when I read the back of the book, I’m sort of doubting myself. I must read this again, but I’m afraid I’ll burst my own little bubble.
The first romance novels I read were from the 70s, and of course I’m largely blanking on specifics, but much as I loved them I never had the impulse to reread any, very interchangeable. All the heroines were breathless, and the heros were jerks, and the villains got to have crazy kinky sex. I may be the only person on the planet to miss the appeal of Woodiwiss and Steele, but they never did a thing for me. Barbara Cartland is awful, but…hilarious…if you know….what I mean! And I know you…understand me, because we’re…soulmates! I can’t believe Fenella is a real name, btw, I was totally with Diane on that one. I loved the old JAK, and Nora, but the first romance I regretted not hanging on to was a SEP that I found in a bathroom when I was stranded at the Charles de Gaulle airport some time in the early 90s. I was so thrilled to have a book in English, and I loved the story, but I finished it before the plane took off and it seemed that karma required I leave it behind for some other miserable soul. Then I couldn’t remember the author – for some reason I thought it was a Coulter, who I enjoyed, but never thought her other books were as good. I found and reread it recently, it was the first Chicago Bears one, and thought it held up. I’m looking forward to this challenge.
Tamara, I still have my purple-covered copy of “Date With the Devil” too! Where else can you find a woman who hides inside a dead tree after being terrified by the sight of the sleeping hero’s “protrusion?” But his silver tongue convinces her “to succumb to the inevitable.”
They sure don’t write them like that anymore!
Waaay back in the time of gothics a good portion of them were contemporary. Susan Howatch, Evelyn Anthony, Margaret Summerton, the divine Mary Elgin, and tons more. Helen MacInnes never had enough romance.
Mara, Daughter of the Nile still holds up.
And for the longest time Against the Wind was my favorite book.
I’d choose My Lord Monleigh by Jan Cox Speas, Lightning that Lingers by Sharon and Tom Curtis, Hummingbird by Lavyrle, Madeline Brent if I could find him. So many wonderful books.
OTOH, so many revolting ones once I try to reread them. I’m a snarky bitch in my old age.
I want that fridge magnet about sex and stoned. It would give my poor son conniption fits.
hour62—that’s too easy—I could read for 62 hours without stopping
This has been a “scroll” down memory lane for me. I loved Johanna Lindsay, Kathleen Woodiwiss M.M. Kaye and Bertrice Small. Also, I read some forgettables, such as: the Daughters of the West series, Tarifa and a series of books about a blockade runner (I think) during the Civil War and his lady love.
Wow! Too many books to keep track of in the comments! I noticed Jayne Ann Krentz and Catherine Coulter. I love their current stuff and I have just started getting items from their backlist. I have only been reading romance for 2 years so I don’t have a lot of old school stuff. However, my doctor has a book share basket and I picked up Comanche Sunset by F. Rosanne Bittner. It is now in my TBR mountain.
@kati….I loved These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder! Also, my niece, who was about 10 or 11 at the time, and I read Fifteen together. We loved it! As she got older, we always talked about her boyfriends in terms of whether they were a Stan Crandall or not. Finally, she found a Stan Crandall and married him. She is very happy!!!
My mom had this idea too! She just sent me a copy ofJudith McNaught’s Paradise, which was her first, so we could read it together.
Mine was the Wind Dancer series by Iris Johansen. Seventeen years and hundreds of romance novels later, it doesn’t get hotter than sex in a stable for me. I still can’t believe that my mother let me read those! Hopefully they hold up to a revisit, my childhood memories would be crushed if they don’t.
@AnneStuart, I have Mary Elgin’s “A Man From the Mist” and “Highland Masquerade”. Love them! I like the way she played with the gothic conventions but (once the sun is up and the fog clears) goes beyond them.
And somebody mentioned Sergeanne Golon’s Angelique books… aah. Angelique and her husband (Peyrac?) struggling though all those books to get back together, and Angelique in the harem and mistress to the king and… It’s funny, those books were full of all the “rapetastic” elements, but what I took away from them was that Angelique was totally in charge of her life. She knew what she wanted and wasn’t going to let anybody stand in her way. I found the books in my middle school library, and I can’t imagine who thought they were appropriate for 12-to-14 year olds!
“green39”: After 39 years (well, actually not quite that many), the memory of these books is still green.
I can remember when Judith McNaught and Jude Deveraux were new authors…and now here they are being throught of as old skool! Ack! Oh well. Some of my favorite old skools have already been mentioned but just to give them a few more votes and add a new one or two…
Shirlee Busbee – Tiger Lily
Rebecca Brandewyne – Rose of Rapture
Valerie Sherwood – To Love A Rogue
Laurie McBain – Devil’s Desire, Moonstruck Madness, When the Splendor Falls
I just reread [Silver Angel/i] a few months ago. I’ve had it forever, probably one of the first romance novels I bought. I moved about 6 months ago and forced myself to give away/sell a large number of books, but not that one. I had to read it again once I found it.
Gotta agree, that it is crack. I should not like this book but somehow I still have a special place for it…
I agree with the Julie Garwood votes – Honor’s Splendour is one of my favorite historicals. The part at the beginning of the novel when she warms his feet…..be still my teenage heart. I loved Ransom too. Two lairds AND sisters??? It just doesn’t get any better. Those two will definitely withstand a re-read.
I also agree with the McNaught votes but Kingdom of Dreams is my favorite by far. The rest were too rapey for me. I really liked Whitney My Love EXCEPT for the rape – I am not sure that I could re-read that one. I could at least try though……
here are a few of my favorites from my secret romance reading teen years:
Montana Sky by Nora Roberts
Gentle Rogue by Joanna Lindsay
Only His/Only Mine/Only Yours series by Elizabeth Lowell (I have to admit I loved her historical romances and wish she would write more – I haven’t been as thrilled by her new contemporary thriller stuff)
In addition to Passion’s Golden Bounty (found for me on another thread by the fabulous bitches here), there are 2 that have moved with me time and again.
The first is The Prudent Partnership by Barbara Allister. I first read it in high school, and thought it was quite scandalous (having yet to find myself in a similar situation). A Signet Regency Romance from 1984, the cover is quite tame. The story is a good one, though, and I still find myself reading again quite often.
http://www.amazon.com/Prudent-Partnership-Barbara-Allister/dp/0451157583/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1294808003&sr=1-1
The second is Outlaw Lover by Lindsey Hanks (a mashup of two separate authors). While the actual writing of the story leaves something to be desired, the concept is quite charming. This one is a Zebra Heartfire Romance from 1990.
http://books.google.com/books?id=WT4P8Rvmgu0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Outlaw+Lover+by+Lindsey+Hanks&source=bl&ots=kLT2cV2FEN&sig=rEUelPXiRFM4dfXUc-UgX214ivQ&hl=en&ei=bjEtTe-1KYH48Aby4vGOCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f;=false
Okay I have two books that broke me in to adult romance novels, Sweet Valley High and the Babysitters Club didn’t really pop my cherry, but because my brain is basically a sieve I can’t remember the title or author of either book. I’d actually like some help getting the information if possible so I can see how they stand up. These two were really crucial in my exploration of the genre and I’d like to see how well they stand the test of time.
Unknown Book #1
A young girl flees her east coast home for the frontier to become a teacher after her Godmother/Aunt/Random Lady in charge of her dies and says a condition of her inheritance is to marry the woman’s son. Who promptly forces her into a marriage before she is able to escape. When she gets west she works as a teacher but there is some confusion at first because they didn’t know she was so young and attractive (loved that part) and she has to stay alone in a house across from the sexy Rancher/Farmer/Jack of all trades. Basically they fall in love and the evil Brother/cousin/douche-bag comes back but the town rallies around her and she ends up with the hottie. What has stayed with me is a scene where the main chica is in a root cellar with the Hero and he backs her up against the wall and fondles her goodies. I was scandalized and squeeing all in the same breath. Best part my dad bought the book for me at the market. I told him it was a historical novel that would help me in my history class.
Unknown book #2
I think it’s set in Regency England and a young girl gets in the carriage of a known “Rake” (I feel like that may have been in the title) by mistake. Misunderstandings and a possible forced marriage ensue. All I remember is the heroine is spunky and counter to what was expected of her at the time. The Rake was dashing and a very naughty version of Mr. Darcy. After reading it I spoke in a very bad British accent for a whole week until my best friend told me she would disown me if I didn’t stop.
I also love the Fire Trilogy by Linda Ladd.
Frostfire (Tyler MacKenzie & Gray Kincaid)
Midnight Fire (Carlisle Kincaid & Chase Lancaster)
Dragon Fire (Windsor Richmond & Stone Kincaid)
Dragon is my absolute favorite, as Windsor was orphaned in China, and thus learned martial arts from the monks who found her.
Frost is good, with Tyler a con artist trying her best to get back her family’s southern estate.
Midnight is my least favorite, because Carlisle seems like a whiny know-it-all.
Oh, no-not unless it was entirely for snark purposes. My first romance was Rebecca Brandewyne’s No Gentle Love, and that book was absolutely horrendous. At a time in my life where I thought V.C. Andrews and Sweet Valley High were the pinnacle of literary achievement, I thought that book was awful. Oh, and a Charlotte Lamb, which I couldn’t tell you the name of for the life of me, but the hero was a total asshole and the heroine was a raging bitch. Those two books almost put me off romance forever-luckily, I started reading Black Dagger Brotherhood and Kelley Armstrong, and discovered that romance could indeed be wonderful, leading me to branch out to Lisa Kleypas, Julie Garwood, Christina Dodd, and, of course, La Nora. I have to confess, I absolutely detested the few Bertrice Smalls I tried, and I’ve had mixed results with Coulter and Lindsey (Lindsey’s Prisoner of My Desire creeped the fuck out of me with its “if we rape each other enough we will fall in love”), and I do tend to avoid novels that look rape-y-it’s rather triggery to me, so I would just rather not read some old skools if that’s what they’re all about! BTW, I was actually rather pleasantly surprised when I read A Violation by Charlotte Lamb and found it dealt incredibly sensitively with the topic of rape, especially for its late-80s period- considering how close the hero in the other book of hers I had read was to a rapist. That’s why I always try multiple books by the same author, because some I might love, and others I might hate-especially in romance, where author’s styles can change so significantly, I think it’s a must to try a couple different ones from each author before deciding yay or nay.
Can’t believe I forgot Tiger’s Eye by Karen Robards. Took me forever to remember this one, too. The binding on my original PB fell apart. I do have a reissue in my possession, though, and blazed through it in 2 days (it’s a bit longer than the usual romance).
I highly recommend this book. 😀
I don’t know if these are Old Skool but I started reading romance with Barbara Cartland and a German author like her when I was about ten. The first “real” romance I read was Karen Robards at 13. I think it was Dark of the Moon (?) – its set in Ireland and she masquerades as a boy, is taken in by three brothers as a farmhand, found out when she has her first menstruation and she is in love with the oldest brother. They are rebels against English rule, she falls into the hands of the villain, they have to rescue the oldest brother from the noose and in the end emigrate to the US.
Then followed Jude Deveraux, Johanna Lindsay, Kat Martin, Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, Julie Garwood, all shared with me by my mother. (I never got into trouble for what I read luckily.)
I loved the Cynthia Wright books. Those are the ones I really would like to reread. I will have to find them again though because my mother gave away all her romance books. 🙁
I started with the romance genre early… pilfering thing from my mom’s room when the babysitter was on the phone when I was in grade 5 and 6.
“All the Sweet Tomorrows” by Beatrice Small
It was the second in the series and I hadn’t read the first, I was a little shaky on the time period, but the sex scenes left me sitting on the floor of my mom’s closet with my mouth open. I couldn’t believe that three people could have sex at once.
“Texas Rich” by Fern Micheals
Although the “hero” was a jerk who ran around on his much younger wife, at the age of 12 I just thought he was misunderstood. I loved how he had a Texas drawl.
“Savage Ecstasy” by Janelle Taylor
Years later in Native Studies 100, I realized that this book was all kinds of wrong, but at the age of 12 I just thought it was hot.
“His Magnificent Lady”?? An historical romance. A British heiress comes to the US to find her brother who has been kidnapped and is being held for ransom. With her rugged American guide, she has the hate turned to steamy passionate relationship that is characteristic of the genre, but as it was the first romance novel I read, I thought the author was very original. The heroine gets shot, he blames himself, he adores her scars and in the end they all lived happily ever after. I thought it was wildly romantic, and the best book I had ever read. I’m almost glad I can’t remember the title because a reread would be crushing.
It’s not old enough to be old-skool, but someday it will be: “The Prize” by Brenda Joyce. A nobleman-turned-pirate novel. It is my favourite reread when I play hooky from the world.