Bitchin' Blog Posts

HaBo: Stuttering Loveswept

by SB Sarah | October 24, 2009 | Saturday at 11:20 am | 64 Comments

Becky writes:

I know it was a Loveswept romance and the heroine had a stutter and was shy. The hero had a son and they were neighbors. I read this when I was just a pre-teen (stolen from my mom’s collection) and really liked it. It was one of the first romances I ever read. Can you please identify or providme with some resources that might be able to help’?

I have a theory that everyone can remember the first romance they ever read. Do you remember yours? And do you remember this one?

Filed: General Bitching, Help a Bitch Out

Tagged: romance, loveswept, help a bitch out, habo

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  1. Katie said on 10.24.09 at 01:46 PM • [comment link]

    Sorry I can’t help with this. I think you do always remember your first. Mine was Forever my Love by Lisa Kleypas. I adore this book. Kleypas seems to try to distance herself from her early works, but I for one love them.

  2. Terry Odell said on 10.24.09 at 01:49 PM • [comment link]

    The first romance I read was a paperback my mom left behind after a visit. I really liked it—it was a time travel, and the hero and heroine had a connection before she figured out how to travel back in time. There was a mystery involved, and she had to adjust her diet—lots of iron and salt—before she could travel.

    Mostly, I remember the hero reminded me of Duncan McLeod, and I was into that series (which eventually started my writing career—long story), I started reading romance.  Wish I could remember the book; I’m sure it’s out of print by now.

  3. Berry said on 10.24.09 at 02:00 PM • [comment link]

    Frustratingly, I don’t really remember my first. I went from reading children’s literature to YA Mystery and eventually crossed into YA romance (I remember this Harlequin-styled series of books that came out like every month that were even kind of themed like Harlequins— I wish I could recall what this series was called.)

    You know what? I am totally lying to you. Well to myself; I just remembered what my first romance novel had to be, because I was about eight years old at the time I read it—Like Water for Chocolate.

    Well. I’m not entirely sure that counts as romance. Mrf. I’ll let the Bitchery decide.

    Also; sorry, no idea regarding your HaBo. It sounds like something I’d liked to read though.

  4. elianara said on 10.24.09 at 02:48 PM • [comment link]

    Sorry, can’t help you find the book.

    The first romance I remember reading is Jean M. Auel’s The Valley of Horses, but I know I that was not my first romance. So I have to say I don’t remember my first.

  5. kimsmith said on 10.24.09 at 03:17 PM • [comment link]

    Sorry, I can’t help find the one you’re looking for.

    But thinking about the first book I read took me on a side trip down memory lane back to my first romance:  The Tiger’s Woman by Celeste de Blasis.  I was thirteen or fourteen, and had just finished Atlas Shrugged and was looking for “bigger” books around the house, and there was this big fat tome hanging around my mom’s room.  I actually picked it up because I was hoping there was a tiger in it (I was into talking animal books), but stayed because Atlas Shrugged’s painful clash of wills in its brief sex scene had awakened a bit of curiosity about the matter—and there, probably in the first hundred pages, was another bit of the mysterious forbidden.  Frankly, I kept going because I was hoping for more of those matings, eventually getting hooked on the heartbreaking relationship developed not just between the two main characters, but the sentimental side stories.

    Like the book you’re looking for, it had a flawed hero; although he was an alpha male, described as ruthlessly powerful in his business dealings, there was a muscle in his leg which would occassionally go into painful spasms and lay him low, much like Dr. House without the vicodin addiction.  If memory serves, just about the entire cast of characters had a flaw of some kind.  The woman had a past she was escaping and had a hard time trusting anyone; she had been hiding out in a saloon as a dancing girl, and she strikes a bargain with the hero, offering herself up as his mistress in exchange for protection.

    But they weren’t the only flawed characters.  The man owned an island populated by people he had collected in his lifetime who were also emotionally or physically imperfect, including an albino child.

    I suppose that book left me with an affinity for flaws.  I know, for example, that there are many people who stutter, or have asthma, or struggle with weight.  And I respect an author when they choose to include this type of realistic burden in their story.  It’s troublesome to me that so many authors endow their main characters with physical perfection.  Or they add a flaw that will be cured by the power of the Mighty Wang or Magic Hoo Hoo.

    I don’t know if I’m saying what I mean very well.  For me, flaws don’t have to be cured by the end of the story; it’s most satisfying when the strength of the relationship makes a flaw endurable.  Many hands make light work, so to speak.

  6. Babs said on 10.24.09 at 03:17 PM • [comment link]

    Wish I could help identify the book but I can’t.

    I remember my first romance, a Harlequin borrowed from my mother (I think it was laying on the coffee table and I picked it up because I was bored)—can’t remember title but it was typical category of the time (early 1980s) with a Greek millionaire getting back at an old lover (I think) by seducing/marrying her sweet/innocent/unworldly younger sister. Oh, did I forget to mention he’s blind due to some accident. Much misunderstanding and drama as older sister/former lover reappears. HEA includes him regaining sight due to some innovative surgery and innocent miss being pregnant.

    Wow. Maybe THAT should be a HaBO…!

  7. bookishheather said on 10.24.09 at 03:33 PM • [comment link]

    I wish I knew the title of the book, but it doesn’t sound familiar. The first romance I read was The Heir by Catherine Coulter. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on another book after that.

  8. Susan said on 10.24.09 at 03:42 PM • [comment link]

    I remember a stuttering hero in a historical—wasn’t Simon in Julia Quinn’s The Duke & I a stutterer—but I’ve never read a stuttering heroine. Sorry :(

    I don’t know what to classify as my “first” romance. The YA novel that made me love an HEA (Journey for a Princess),  Cinderella, which I made my mom read every night for a year (I was four at the time), or the Jude Deveraux that I found in my mom’s TBR pile and read when I was 13 or 14 (can’t remember the title, took place in CA in early 1900s, she drove a car to rescue the hero). These all contributed to making me a life-long rom reader.

  9. Francesca said on 10.24.09 at 03:46 PM • [comment link]

    No idea about the book.

    The first real romance novel I read was Captive Passions by Fern Michaels. I was 15 and a girlfriend at school lent it to me.

    I had been reading Jean Plaidy and Margaret Campbell Barnes for several years before that. They weren’t officially romances, but they seem to get grouped with them. I had borrowed our school library copies of Plaidy’s The Young Elizabeth and The Young Mary Queen of Scots about 100 times when I found St Thomas’s Eve in the bookstore. After that, I was hooked.

  10. Nadia said on 10.24.09 at 03:49 PM • [comment link]

    Terry Odell:  I think yours is Son of the Morning by Linda Howard.

    Don’t know the original request.

    I consider Ashes in the Wind by Woodiwiss to be my first “real” romance novel.  My grandma gave it to me in a sack of historical novels.  But I did sneak a copy of Judy Blume’s “Forever” earlier than that, and it was romantical, right?  She touched his penis!  And it had a name!  Oh, the scandal.  Even as a kid, I was ordering the girl-boy drama books from Scholastic.

  11. Terry Odell said on 10.24.09 at 04:00 PM • [comment link]

    Nadia - thanks. That does sound like it. Will have to see if I can get my hands on a copy, for nostalgia’s sake if nothing else.

  12. lunarocket said on 10.24.09 at 04:24 PM • [comment link]

    wasn’t Simon in Julia Quinn’s The Duke & I a stutterer—

    Yes, I’m reading that book right now in fact.

    I can’t help with the title for the OP either. I also can’t remember the first romance I read other than it was on of my grandmother’s Harlequins and we at the beach and it’s all there was to do at night other than the amusement park.

    The first one I do remember reading was a couple years ago and provided by my sister-in-law and had some guy named Wulfgar. Medieval romance, (ah, I just googled and found it was the Wolf and the Dove by Kathleen Woodiwiss). I didn’t read any more after that, not impressed maybe? Till same SIL brought me all those Cynster novels by Stephanie Laurens. I’m branching out now, more heroes that aren’t clones of one another and heroines who aren’t all perfectly complexioned beauties.

  13. Karen H said on 10.24.09 at 04:27 PM • [comment link]

    My first romance was Johanna Lindsey’s “Defy Not the Heart” that I picked up at my mom’s when I was visiting.  She had a bookcase full of category romances (due to a subscription) that I could ignore because I only read “real” books, former English major that I am.  But FABIO was on the cover and I was on vacation and it was historical (always a favorite of mine) so I read it.  And I was hooked.  I have since found many great authors based on a Fabio cover (or some other good looking hunk) and I’ve found some real duds.  I mostly read romances and I’ve learned so much from them.  I like most genres except contemporaries where the hero is impossibly rich and impossibly, obnoxiously arrogant and the heroine is a doormat, or the murder/torture mystery part is a little too graphic.  And I got over my snobbishness and don’t hide my reading material from anyone.
    My word is bad94—I’m not all bad, only 94%!

  14. Sandy M said on 10.24.09 at 04:47 PM • [comment link]

    I’ll always remember my first romance. It was “A Pirates Love” by Johanna Lindsay, I was 11 and I would sneak it off the bookshelf whenever my mom wasn’t around. In between the rape scenes I was reading things like “The Babysitters Club” and “Sweet Valley High”. It was a nice variety..lol. I recently told my mom that I used to sneak her books back then and she couldn’t figure out how I would get them past her (oh, the things you do for a romance novel)

  15. Ashley Ladd said on 10.24.09 at 04:49 PM • [comment link]

    I don’t remember reading any books with a heroine who stutters. I don’t recall what was my first book or my first romance, but I remember a lot of the early romances I read. I would read my favorites many times. There was one where the hero was Scott and heroine was Lindsay and they were in Scotland. Scott had once dated Lindsay’s older sister but only to keep her away from the man his sister was in love with. I loved that book but I accidentally left it at summer camp.

  16. Deb said on 10.24.09 at 04:53 PM • [comment link]

    I’m with Francesca—I was reading Jean Plaidy (aka Victoria Holt) and Margaret Campbell Barnes (look, the Tudors sit around the table and drink hot milk and have domestic discussions, just like us!), among others, for many years.  Mixed in with all the historical fiction (including my favorite, Anya Seton’s “Katherine”), were books by Georgette Heyer (who wrote historical fiction in addition to Regencies and mysteries) and other books in the historical/gothic genres.  I remember when “Sweet Savage Love” was published—a watershed moment for romance novels—but I don’t remember reading it.  The first book I can remember reading that was billed as a romance was Edith Layton’s “The Abandoned Bride.”

    I have a feeling this thread is going to be all about our “first times” and not much about finding the book with the stuttering heroine.

  17. Gwynnyd said on 10.24.09 at 04:58 PM • [comment link]

    I spent my young years reading SF and mysteries. My mother was very fond of Agatha Christie and I loved Asimov, Heinlein and Clark.  My first romance was a YA called “Caitrin in Wales,” given to me by an aunt when I was about fourteen.  Several years later, when I was at university and picking a name to use in the SCA, I looked for something unusual. I misremembered Caitrin’s Aunt Gwynnedd as Aunt Gwynnyd and have been Gwynnyd ever since.

    My first adult romance was “The Passions of Medora Graeme” by Elsie Lee, who is still one of my comfort-read authors.  My sweet husband tracked down a used copy of this for me a few years ago as I had borrowed and given back the one I had read.

    After that, my group of friends went through an orgy of Cartland, which almost turned me off the genre entirely.  I think we all read every one of her books in about six weeks one summer. Can we all say “formulaic”?  Cartland is very predictable.  It got so we could tell the basic plot by the color of the girl’s eyes and her face shape.

    Then Margaret bought one of the first Woodiwiss books to share ... and there was no going back for me to reading just SF and mysteries.

  18. Throwmearope said on 10.24.09 at 05:05 PM • [comment link]

    The only heroine with a stutter that I can recall is Horatia from The Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer.  Sorry.

  19. Litigious Mind said on 10.24.09 at 05:08 PM • [comment link]

    My first romance was also stolen from my mom. “The Thrill of Victory” by Sandra Brown. And damn if I don’t still have a soft spot for all of her ‘80s reissues.

  20. KatherineB said on 10.24.09 at 05:08 PM • [comment link]

    The only one I can remember with a stuttering Heroine is The Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer…but I don’t recall that the Earl of Rule was a neighbour?

    Hmm. Have to re-check now…

  21. Concerned said on 10.24.09 at 05:24 PM • [comment link]

    The HaBO posts have always been some of my very favorites to read.
    But I’m really concerned with how her request for assistance is being brushed off and once again we are left with yet another of a bazillion trillion million posts and comments about first romances and how old you were.

    It just seems rude.
    If you asked someone for help and they brushed you off in one sentence and then went on and on for paragraphs about themselves instead how would you feel?

  22. Castiron said on 10.24.09 at 05:29 PM • [comment link]

    Also no clue on the original question, alas.

    There were a handful of romances I read in middle school that I remember nothing of other than that one sex scene took place in an indoor swimming pool, but the first romance I really remember was from Silhouette’s YA line, Sometime My Love by Oneta Ryan.  Romance + marching band = Win!

  23. Jenyfer Matthews said on 10.24.09 at 06:12 PM • [comment link]

    No idea on the request, sorry!

    My first romance was probably something by Beverly Cleary - I read tons of YA “love” stories but can’t actually recall any of the titles now. First proper romances were The Flame and the Flower and The Wolf and the Dove when I was about 12, both of which my mother had. Then there was a long dry spell because she stopped reading romance and shifted to Stephen King :)

  24. La Reine Noire said on 10.24.09 at 06:22 PM • [comment link]

    The first romance that I distinctly remember was Until You by Judith McNaught. I was either ten or eleven years old, and I didn’t realise it was a romance until about halfway through when things between Stephen Westmorland and Sheridan Bromleigh suddenly got very steamy in a carriage. By that point, I just couldn’t put it down. ;)

    Since then, I’ve come to prefer other McNaught books (particularly Almost Heaven and Once and Always), but this one will always have a special place since it was my first. And far better than the second one I read, whose author I don’t remember, but involved Crusaders and Very Improbable Harems.

  25. Shelley said on 10.24.09 at 07:04 PM • [comment link]

    No idea on the HaBo, sorry. :/

    But I do remember my first romance novel - I was 11 or 12 years old, saw a Christmas Harlequin(?) anthology in Jewel on a spinny rack, thought the cover was so gorgeous and green and the historical stories sounded so good and wanted it instantly. My parents said no, but come Christmas morning, there it was in my stocking. I was so excited, started reading it and realized they must not have vetted it or missed the key sex scenes. Had to hide it under my bed lest they try after the fact! One story was a total rip off of Sommersby and I loved it. Occasionally I try to find it on eBay or Amazon to see if it was really as smutty as I remember or if my memory is still colored by my preteen sensibilities. It had to be from a Christmas between 92 and 94.

  26. appomattoxco said on 10.24.09 at 07:32 PM • [comment link]

    Can you recall what the cover was looked like? Did it have the wave thing-y, just a colored background or the flowery frame stuff?

  27. Sarah MacLean said on 10.24.09 at 07:34 PM • [comment link]

    Your theory bears out with me!  My first romance was a Silhouette Desire by Elizabeth Lowell called Warrior...about a hot hot alpha named Nevada and the soft, lovely cat tracker who taught him to love. I still have it.  Scotch taped together with love after sharing it with all my junior high school friends.

  28. Kristin said on 10.24.09 at 07:39 PM • [comment link]

    Any idea on the date range? I was going to abuse my library skillz to figure this out.

  29. Kim said on 10.24.09 at 07:51 PM • [comment link]

    I discovered my first romance as a miltary spouse, age 38, at an Army Thrift Shop in the Netherlands.  As we cleaned out the store, we shipped most stuff to Afghanistan, leaving behind a pile of English language books.  After shelving them in alphabetical order, I was intrigue the tartan cover on Cathy Maxwell’s “The Marriage Contract.”  It was the “perfect storm” to hook me into a historical romance - I lived across from the Limbricht Castle, drank tea with the international ladies, and revelled in the multinational culture around me.  Before moving back to the US, my family drove to Scotland and relived every word of the descriptive setting, Highlander struggle, and charming romance in the book.  Now I’m sharing my love of romance in Hawaii, which has a royal palace, romantic folklore, and history everywhere.

    Kim
    Honolulu, HI

  30. Liz said on 10.24.09 at 07:53 PM • [comment link]

    I too have no idea what the HaBo is, but it does sound interesting.  I hope someone knows what it is.

    Technically, my first romance was Wuthering Heights when I was in the 6th grade, but i couldn’t get into it, and ended up getting a C on my assignment.  The first romance that I finished was Secret Admirer by Amanda Stevens—it was one of the Gallagher Justice books.  One of my elderly neighbors gave it (and a bunch of others) to me.  From then on I was hooked on romance.

  31. saum said on 10.24.09 at 07:59 PM • [comment link]

    Tangled Autumn- Betty Neels.

    Its still the bext romance I’ve ever read. :)

  32. DS said on 10.24.09 at 08:18 PM • [comment link]

    Can’t remember my first genre romance.  The first historical novel with a romantic story arc I read was Angelique by Sergeanne Golon.  I immediately raided the adult section of the library for all the Angelique books they had.  I was in the 6th grade.  First gothic novel was Rebecca.  First romantic suspense was The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart.  First Heyer was Powder and Patch.  I could go on and on, but for some reason I cannot remember the first romance.

  33. SonomaLass said on 10.24.09 at 09:45 PM • [comment link]

    I first realized I like romance when I read the Sue Barton books by Helen Dore Boylston , probably in about the fourth grade.  My first “real” romance was either Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice—my father gave me both of those, and I can’t remember in which order.  Then my aunt started loaning me Harlequin Presents to read while I was visiting my grandparents during summer vacations.  I don’t remember any titles, but they were all full of 1970s goodness!

    I took a break from genre romance as an adult, with the exception of Austen—read fantasy, science fiction, mystery, historical fiction, and literary fiction.  I had tried a couple of romances, but I couldn’t take the doormat heroines and alpha asshat heroes.  I only started reading romance again recently, this time starting with Julia Quinn’s The Duke and I and The Villa by Nora Roberts. Now I’m going back into the decades I missed, finding all the non-doormat and non-asshat couples!

  34. Jessica said on 10.24.09 at 10:15 PM • [comment link]

    I have no idea on the book, but this is the series list of Loveswept books, from 1983-1999.  Maybe you can narrow the date range and get something. 

    FictionDB Loveswept page

    My first romance was “Keating’s Landing” by Willo Davis Roberts, stolen from my mom’s bookshelf.  Garwood books came not long after that and I’ve been hooked ever since.

  35. willowispy said on 10.24.09 at 11:00 PM • [comment link]

    The description sounds vaguely familiar, but I think I may have just read too many back covers over the years.

    I distinctly remember reading The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen Woodiwiss after I found it at the bottom of an unused closet at my house when I was about 13. I recall hiding it, and reading it with a flashlight under my covers at night, as well as going for a hike into the woods (and only going a short way in) so that I could finish it without the possibility of my dad catching me reading it. I dug around in the basement in boxes of old books, and found that my mom had stashed The Rose in Winter and Shanna down there…which I read right after, still with the flashlight and cloak and dagger reading habits. My Johanna Lindsey addiction started shortly after. :)

  36. Eileen said on 10.24.09 at 11:43 PM • [comment link]

    I have a Loveswept book where the heroine stutters.  The title is The Fairest of Them All by Leanne Banks.  The cover is black and white.  I have not read this in a very long time and actually the only thing I remember is that the heroine has a stutter.  The stuttering is not mentioned in the blurb in the back, and I actually had to flip through it to verify that there was mention of her stutter. 

    According to the back of the book the heroine (Carly Pendleton) has seven brothers and is a “violet-eyed riverboat captain!”  The hero is Russ Bradford.  It sounds like they have been friends for a very long time.

    Since no one else seems to know it or have any guesses, I hope this helps.

  37. Gram said on 10.24.09 at 11:49 PM • [comment link]

    My first romance had to be something by Kathleen Norris…that’s what happens when you are as old as dirt!  Even though I -seem34- as the word says!

  38. Stephani said on 10.25.09 at 12:30 AM • [comment link]

    My first romance novel’s were given to me by my mom (and I still have them) when I was 13.

    Flame of New Orleans by frances patton Statham
    Spring Fires by Cynthia Wright

  39. Kathy said on 10.25.09 at 12:46 AM • [comment link]

    The Vow (1994) by Mary Spencer——-maybe?

  40. Melisse Aires said on 10.25.09 at 01:19 AM • [comment link]

    The first romance I ever read was Little White Doves of Love by Barbara Cartland. I was 16, at a sleepover, and I couldn’t sleep. so I laid on the couch and read the whole book. After that I started collecting Barabra Cartland.  Lucky for me they could be purchased at the supermarket. And soon we discovered a used book store in down town Billings, MT.

    I might still own those books, they might be in storage.

  41. Lindsay said on 10.25.09 at 01:20 AM • [comment link]

    That doesn’t ring a bell for me at all, good luck finding it! I’m going to have to go with Love, Cherish Me by Rebecca Brandewyne. I was probably 10-11 at most, devoured her, Johanna Lindsey and Kathleen Woodiwiss like candy. As graphic as they were, they didn’t trip me up as much as V.C. Andrews’ Flowers in the Attic and everything that followed.

  42. Kelly C. said on 10.25.09 at 02:10 AM • [comment link]

    Sorry….don’t know this book nor could I EVER tell you the first romance I read.  Guess it didn’t leave an impression, at all.


    anti-spam : working 85…....hahahahaha, as a matter of fact not only have I been working since 1985 but I fear I will still be working when I am 85.  ;-)

  43. Elizabeth said on 10.25.09 at 02:14 AM • [comment link]

    RomanceWiki has a list of all 917 Loveswept titles.  Most of the books don’t have their own pages, but a titles might hopefully jog your memory: http://www.romancewiki.com/Loveswept_By_The_Numbers.  Good luck!

    The first romance I ever read was Dawn’s Early Light by Elswyth Thane.  It was out-of-print then, and remains so now, sadly (first published 1943).  My mother caught me sitting around bored when I was ten, pulled it off the bookshelf, and handed it to me.

  44. Vicki said on 10.25.09 at 02:20 AM • [comment link]

    My first romance was Madam Will You Talk by Mary Stewart when I was eight. I’d finished the children’s section in the public library and was sneaking into the adult section to read it - they wouldn’t let me check it out without permission and I knew better than to ask my mom to let me read fiction.

    Good luck on the HABO. I vaguely remember something like that from late ‘60s or early 70’s but no details.

  45. Deb Kinnard said on 10.25.09 at 02:50 AM • [comment link]

    Mixed in with all the historical fiction (including my favorite, Anya Seton’s “Katherine”)

    I’m with Deb here! My all-time favorite book, and I’ve read, um, quite a few.

    Also totally with DS…I, too, sneaked ANGELIQUE out of the adult section of the library in 5th or 6th grade. I didn’t get some of it but I liked the “great lame man of the Languedoc”. A true romance hero, flaws & all.

    No clue on the HaBO, sorry.

  46. TryingPoet said on 10.25.09 at 04:48 AM • [comment link]

    I can’t help with the ID but first romance was called Two Texas Hearts and I don’t recall who it was by. My mother is a high school librarian and had it in with the swag she got at a Librarian Convention. I think I was about 12 and I don’t think it was supposed to be in my part of the swag…

  47. Kris said on 10.25.09 at 05:31 AM • [comment link]

    @concerned-read the HaBO question…we aren’t being rude.

    I have not read anything with a stuttering heroine, other than when the hero drops his pants and they are left gaping…

    My first romance (and Sandy M. and I must be about the same age??) was A Pirate’s Love by Johanna Lindsey as well.  The second was Shanna by Kathleen Woodiwiss, which is still one of my all time faves, and I am on the 4th reading copy.  :)

  48. Alyssa F said on 10.25.09 at 06:57 AM • [comment link]

    My first romance was a Silhouette Desire by Elizabeth Lowell called Warrior…about a hot hot alpha named Nevada and the soft, lovely cat tracker who taught him to love. I still have it.

    Oh my god, that was my first romance too! *laughs* And I also still have it.
    Loved the book. Hated the ending. Perhaps there’s something deeply wrong with me, but I always thought that it would have been so much more poetic if Nevada had died somehow instead of his character suddenly going all… stereotypically insta-healed by her love… but I still loved the book. I liked Eden’s style. She was smart and gentle and self-reliant, but she wasn’t afraid to go for what she wanted and she wanted him. And you’ve got to love a heroine who saves the hero’s ass in the second chapter!

  49. Alpha Lyra said on 10.25.09 at 08:16 AM • [comment link]

    Hmm, sadly I do not remember my first. Unless

    Pride and Prejudice

    counts (I remember that one well!).

  50. Tiblet said on 10.25.09 at 01:28 PM • [comment link]

    The only book that I know of with a stuttering heroine is “Devil in Winter” by Lisa Kleypas, but it’s not Loveswept and it’s within the past ten years.  I doubt this helps, but it always makes for more interesting reads with everybody’s suggestions. 
    BTW, I happen to agree with concerned.  It really sucks to ask for help and have very few post possibles and instead run off on their own tangents!

  51. Diana said on 10.25.09 at 03:58 PM • [comment link]

    I don’t usually read contemporaries, so I’m not sure what book you’re looking for.  Sorry!  BUT.  You might to check out the All About Romance lists here: Less Than Perfect Heroines and Heroes.

    I know I saw a few descriptions like “so-and-so stutters.”  So, hopefully, this might help!  Just scroll down to the contemporary category to start.

    Also, my first romance: The Wolf and the Dove by Kathleen Woodiwiss.  I was 12.  ;)

  52. kara-karina said on 10.25.09 at 05:20 PM • [comment link]

    Sorry, don’t know the title, but hope you find it!
    My first historical epic romance was Angelique in Rage, number 5 of Angelique series. I was 11, and of course I fell in love, and had to read all Angeliques gazillion times. I still re-read them sometimes 18 years later! :) My first romance as they are now was Johanna Lindsey’s “Prisoner of my desire” which I stole from my mum’s library when I was 13. Oh my! That was some shock, bondage and all.. But since then I can’t put this genre down.

  53. SusannaG said on 10.25.09 at 10:16 PM • [comment link]

    My first romance was also Dawn’s Early Light - my mother gave it to me the summer I was twelve, I think.  I read a lot of Thane that summer - Dawn’s Early Light, Yankee Stranger, Ever After, The Light Heart, and This Was Tomorrow.  (My mother didn’t have the other ones in the Williamsburg series, and they were out of print by that time.)

    I read a lot of Loveswept back the day but don’t remember a stammering heroine, sorry.  The only one I can think of is Horatia in The Convenient Marriage.

  54. Lisa#2 said on 10.25.09 at 10:30 PM • [comment link]

    My first romance was either Tears of Gold by Laurie McBain or Captive Bride by Johanna Lindsey. I’ve been hooked ever since. I’m actually glad I am old enough to have experienced the breadth of romance from the 70s through today.  I know a lot of younger readers won’t go back and read the old skool romance from the 70s/80s but there was a richness in settings that just isn’t available today. Not to mention that some of those old books set me off on exploring different parts of history that I wouldn’t have known about. God bless Susan Johnson and her footnotes.

  55. Elysa said on 10.26.09 at 12:32 AM • [comment link]

    Erm, I think it was Danielle Steele’s “The Promise”—oh so deliciously tragic to my ten year old self!  Now I’m fighting the urge to reread it…quick, somebody talk me down!!!

  56. Jean said on 10.26.09 at 01:48 AM • [comment link]

    The first romance that I remember reading is “The Wolf and the Dove” by Woodiwiss. Or “The Flame and the Flower.” They are both pretty much the same story, with different costumes. But Woodiwiss books were really **hot** for that time period.

  57. Elizabeth Wadsworth said on 10.26.09 at 01:52 AM • [comment link]

    Yep, Horatia is the only one I can recall too.  I think she had a gambling problem, was married to a much older man, and was quite annoying compared to most Heyer heroines.

    As for my first romance novel, I know it was something by Barbara Cartland, but I can’t recall the title—all I remember was something about a bluebird singing “for our love” at the end.  It was kind of a drag, as I recall, but I forced myself to finish it because it was a “grownup” book and therefore cool.

  58. EliG said on 10.26.09 at 03:47 AM • [comment link]

    I hadn’t thought about it in years but the first romance was also Dawn’s Early Light. My grandmother regularly shipped books to me wherever my Dad was stationed.  I still have all of the Williamsburg series safely stored away from a mother and sister who loan my books without having a clue how difficult they would be to replace.  I’ve lost two copies of The Changeover to their indiscrimate lending and the few Loveswepts I’m missing are also their victims. I’ll probably go on a Loveswept re-reading binge if this one isn’t identified.  And I think the Thane’s will be my Christmas reread this year.

  59. Marcia said on 10.26.09 at 07:14 AM • [comment link]

    My first adult romance was The Changeling by Susan Wiggs… but I worked up to it with a lot of super cheesy YA romances. I think the series I loved the most was called Love Stories.

  60. Randy said on 10.26.09 at 07:22 AM • [comment link]

    A long time ago I was sitting with a friend in a restaurant; she gave me my very first romance novel.

    It was Naughty Neighbor by Janet Evanovich (loveswept 537).  I still have the copy she gave me (even though it’s been reissued now).  I laughed out loud at the scene where the couple have sex on the lawn and when they’re finished he smells meatloaf, and says that if he knew she was making meat loaf he would have waited.  I remember laughing so hard I couldn’t get the words “as if” out and so just kept laughing.  After that I was hocked, and now belong to three Harlequin book clubs.

  61. ijinx said on 10.26.09 at 09:09 PM • [comment link]

    stuttering heroine: found in every Barbara Cartland book ever written.

  62. Brooks*belle said on 10.26.09 at 11:42 PM • [comment link]

    The first romance book I read was cheesy and lusty and awful and the only thing I remember from it is that the girl was “taken” by the bad guy with a “member” so large that she took her revenge on him by knocking him out and then tying something around the base of his manly love-wand so that the when he awoke, he’d find himself unable to pleasure any other woman.

  63. Susan said on 10.26.09 at 11:50 PM • [comment link]

    I think Eileen answered this one:

    I have a Loveswept book where the heroine stutters.  The title is The Fairest of Them All by Leanne Banks.  The cover is black and white.  I have not read this in a very long time and actually the only thing I remember is that the heroine has a stutter.  The stuttering is not mentioned in the blurb in the back, and I actually had to flip through it to verify that there was mention of her stutter.

  64. Melisse Aires said on 10.27.09 at 03:29 AM • [comment link]

    Heehee. I always…thought…Barbara Cartland heroines…had…asthma.

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