Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Maybe The Raider, by Jude Deveraux. That was my first romance novel. My older sister read it first then handed it to me and said, “Read this.” She was kind of scary at that age so I did what she said.

Problem with a re-read is I know Deveraux’s books don’t hold up. I tried to reread my other favorite of hers “Velvet Song” and oh, it was so bad.

Wow, Old skool? There are those I think I will still like, if only for comfort sake. Jude Deveraux’s medieval series, Roberta Gellis’ Rosalyn Chronicals, Nora, (runs to check the wayback machine *otherwise known as her bookshelves*) Early Mallory Series by Johanna Lindsey, JAK earlier works (1989 and before if they are over 20 yrs old they are old skool) and ...stops and smiles, In honor of SEP’s Simply Irrisistable, Fancy pants, published 1989.  Be nice to read Teddys story beginning and end!

spamword year63: Runs and hides her Birth Certificate…I have no idea what you are talking about!!!!

I have to try and think back to when I first started reading romances and it’s making my head hurt :-)
My first romance was back in 1979 and it was a Barbara Cartland - for the life of me could not tell you which one it was as I was not too impressed. Then the only romances I could find at that age was through my school library which had lots of Harlequins or Mills and Boon as we knew them. So I can remember reading Anne Mather, Charlotte Lamb, Janette Dailey. I know that I read lots lots more but can’t remember the authors.
I actually did not start reading non category romances until the mid 1980’s when I had a job and could buy to my heart’s content.

I might just join you on that as I have a few that I remember loving back in the day, including a really really old Anne Stuart that I’ve carried with me from house to house, state to state, for the past 20-something years—Against the Wind, from 1985.  (Check out this cover.  No really.  You’ve got to see this!)  I also have some old, beloved Iris Johansen and Jude Devereaux titles.  I don’t think I can face some of the old Coulter books, though.

Ah, Jude Deveraux. I still have several shelves of her books and I’m kind of scared to reread them, because I loved them so much and don’t want to spoil the magic. I reread one recently because it sounded like a HABO and I wanted to check, and while I still enjoyed the setting and the twists of the plot, I found the hero to be full of asshattery. My abiding memory of him now is not how he risked his life to save the daughter he didn’t know he had, but how he relieved the heroine of her virginity, in a wood, after she’d just been kidnapped, then left her sleeping and wandered off for a few months, only to be angry that she wasn’t there when he returned (and of course, to be suspicious when he saw her with a baby of exactly the right age to be his).

I’d rather keep my rose-tinted memories of A Knight in Shining Armor intact!

I think the very first historical I ever read was called “My Enemy, My Love” by Elaine… um, something. I can’t remember the author’s last name to save my life. Second was Heather Graham’s “Sweet Savage Eden,” which I remember being a little rape-tastic. They kind of blur after that, but another one I remember as a real favorite was Jude Deveraux’s “The Conquest.”

If we’re being really “old skool,” I’d recommend Anya Seton’s KATHERINE—historical fiction, but a passionate romance at the center of it.  And how about a little love for SWEET SAVAGE LOVE—yes, it’s full of rapey stuff and a complete douchebag hero, but it’s one of the first “bodice rippers.”  I’d also put in a word for one of the first regencies I read, THE ABANDONED BRIDE by Edith Layton.

My oldest favorite old school is “Angel in Scarlet”, by Jennifer Wilde.  Unless you count “Flowers in the Attic” series as romance.

You know you’re welcoming a poopstorm of HaBOs, right? Because I can’t remember the title or even the covers of my first romances. They were all sneakily-read donations to the paltry “library” on hand for the volunteers at the crisis hotline I worked at as a teenager. Thankfully (?) our phone didn’t ring that often, so there was plenty of time to read cast-off romances. This would have been the mid-nineties, but the books were largely from the eighties. Many a hero in a puffy shirt, be it tucked into tight stonewashed jeans or pirate britches, lots of raised, swoopy, gold script. They all blurred together. I mainly remember the sex scenes (hey, I was fifteen) as they were just as much an education as the dog-eared copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves also on hand for when callers had anatomical crises. Historical romance told me of the mysterious glistening “bead” at the tip of the hero’s “flesh sword” (to the hilt!). And Our Bodies, Ourselves explained what in the heck the author was talking about. Damn, I wish I remembered enough to look those books up!

I remember someone handing me a Barbara Cartland when I was in college - I think they came with packages of detergent or something at the time.  All I remember was the heroine’s stupid name - Fenella.  What did Cartland do?  Reach into her spice cabinet and add an a?  The mind boggles - Marjorama.  Oregana.  Of course, the perfect name for one of her insipid heroines would have to be Vanilla.

What?  No Johanna Lindsey?  No Kathleen Woodiwiss?  I’m talking OLD, old skool.  Of Lindsey’s, I’d recommend “Tender Is the Storm,” even if only for the fantastic cover art http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/l/johanna-lindsey/tender-is-storm.htm  My a.ll-time favorite Woodiwiss is “A Rose In Winter.”  I still have a huge crush on Christopher Seton.  Hmmmm…...........considering the books I recommended, maybe I have a thing about men with dual personalities.

In any case, I doubt they’d hold up well now.  The florid prose alone would probably drive me insane.

saw the Judith McNaught historicals and did the super squishy squee until I noticed you left “Whittney, My Love” off. I think that book is my all time favorite. It wasn’t my first but it was the first that was any good.  Clayton Westmoreland melted my butter and still does. In fact, I’m gonna read it now.

Johanna lindsey “Secret Fire” Plus some other JL 80’s and early 90’s books but defintely won’t ever ever read the early pirate/sheihk rapey ones.

Kathleen Woodiwiss “a Rose in Winter” plus her book about the man with the burnt/scarred face(?)
A big yeah @discodollydeb - “Katherine” by Anya Seton hopefully should be a good reread .seton wrote some other books too, including one one settlers in the new world “Green” in the title.

Big No to barbara cartland

yes to a really truly old Mills & Boon early 80’s: “Black Saxon” author forgotten, covering story on recalcitrant norman gel heading off to strengthen union between another stormin norman but ends up with black haired saxon instead.This aging tween loved that cover.No scarey violent rapey stuff maybe sexist dated stereotypes.

Bettina Krahn? mid 90’s   title,  Elizabethan setting, swedish diplomat hero.

Clan of Cave Bear series

list goes on .....dreams .... back to you

can49 : can I list 49 books?

in drafting a definition of “old skool” - would that need to include element to highlight that the book needs to be left on shelf of rented holiday house, or bought second hand etc cos you be too embarrassed to actually buy a new unread copy from the bookshop.?

AND read furtively?

My first historical romance was by Virginia Henley, The Raven and The Rose if I remember the title correctly. And now I’m seriously tempted to check out the two used bookstores near me to see if they have a copy. The girl sitting next to me in my sophmore (high school) English class loaned it to me and I didn’t want to give it back. I also read Jude Deveraux’s A Knight In Shining Armor around the same time (and I still have a copy of that- original edition too) and that one is a bit laughable now but I still love it.

I didn’t start reading romance in earnest until after I graduated high school then spent the next few years trying to play catch-up. But I was never really able to get into old skool historical- I tried Woodiwiss and McNaught and a few others but I just couldn’t get into the classics. I read some historicals (loved Marsha Canham), but I mostly gravitated to contemporaries (Nora Roberts, Jayne Ann Krentz, Tami Hoag) with a few time-travel (Kay Hooper’s The Wizard of Seattle was a favorite) and some futuristics (The Skypirate and Lord of the Storm by Justine Dare).

Now I’m seriously thinking of going through my books and pulling down some of those to re-read this year. Thanks for the fun suggestion.

I’m taking notes.  :D

A trilogy I have fond memories of (and re-read a few years ago) is The Orphan Train Trilogy by Linda Lael Miller.  Ridonkulous, no understanding of corsetry, lots of sex in many positions all over the Wild(ish) West. 

Aw yeah. 

I also have, in fact, read the Fabio Pirate book.  Speaking of ridonkulous.

Windflower is still a classic, but it’s part of the Old Skool crowd.  And how can we overlook The Wolf and the Dove and The Flame and The Flower, two books that began it all?

There were also some early Karen Robards historicals I’d put on that list, but I don’t have them on my keeper shelf.  The other book I’d put there is Judith McNaught’s 1984 contemporary Double Standards, or as I always think of it, “That sexual harassment suit waiting to happen book”.

kbrum, I remember that Elizabethan with the Swedish diplomat!  None of the Betina Krahns on the Fantastic Fiction website sound like it though…

“Black Saxon” is by Alex Andrews, an old, old Masquerade from when that was Mills & Boon’s historical line. 

My absolute favorite Masquerade (I think it was also published in North America by Harlequin) was “A Pride of MacDonalds” by Valentina Luellen.  Campbell hero (Gorgeous cover, too.  It’s somewhere up in the attic…

“efforts64”:  I’ll dedicate sixty-four hours of effort to thinking up my list!

Oops! Book description got cut off…

“Pride of MacDonalds”...Campbell hero meets MacDonald heroine when he is raiding her family’s house.  Both of them are back in Scotland after years away.  Eventually they fall in love and convince their families to let them get married, only to have their wedding used as the springboard for the Glencoe massacre.  Not surprisingly, they decide that if they’re going to have any chance at a HEA they have to leave Scotland.

I reread and reread and reread it…

“effort87”?  Now I have to spend 87 hours thinking of my list?

What about Nora Roberts’ Irish Thoroughbred? It came out in 1983 and it has punishing kisses, roaring pleasure and feisty hair tossing. It’s a classic!

Judith E. French-Fortune’s Mistress
Bertrice Small-Lost Love Found
Catherine Coulter-Sweet Surrender (re-released as Evening Star)
Shannon Drake-Blue Heaven, Black Knight
Megan Daniel-All The Time We Need
And several more I have no idea on the titles…

No one has mentioned Jude Devereaux’s “A Knight in Shining Armour”?!  I’d been reading romances for years and had a strong love for Janet Dailey books from my teens through my early 20’s, but when I read “Knight” I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  Best book EVER!  (at the time)  But like others, I’m kind of afraid to re-read it.  Jude’s books of the last 10 years have disillusioned me quite a bit, so I hate to completely ruin it.  Then again, really, BEST BOOK EVER!

Also, speaking of Dailey, I may go to the used bookstore for some of the Montgomery books to re-read, I loved them… but I won’t buy her books new anymore.

Wait a minute.  Daily was the Calder books, Devereaux was the Montgomerys.  My bad.  Loved the Calders too, but not as much as the Montgomerys :)

The old skool I remember is Catherine Coulter’s The Sherbrooke Bride.  First romance I bought myself and read cover to cover, many times.  I remember it being kind of rapey (though not nearly as much as the next two.)  It’s definitely got the angle where he’s angry because she gets him all aroused, and clearly that’s HER fault. 

I don’t know if I’d still enjoy it. I’ve definitely got fond memories, but eventually I got rid of it (and the other Coulter books) because of the rapey-ness and after a particularly horrible “novel”  (Devil’s Embrace) I read by Coulter.  That one included rape-by-the-“hero”, rape by a group of kidnappers, and “healing”-rape-by-the-hero.  That book is one I really wish I could unread.  And kind of on princple with that, I’m done with Coulter.

On another note, the cover you show for Blaze Wyndham?  My first thought was “menage?”  That was my laugh for the day!

A Knight in Shining Armor is totally crack. Definitely that. And, for some reason, Shanna by Woodiwiss is like crack for me, even though I want to slap that stupid wench every time I read the book. I’m a fan of the Savage Thunder JL - though Silver Angel definitely wins the WTF moment. I love my Rosalyn Chronicles - I actually just reread them last year. If you can reread some Old Skool Elizabeth Lowell, that’s total bonus. She’s “expanded and rereleased” every dang thing she ever wrote.

Also, we all know I have the Treasure Trove of Loveswept (tm) which I keep to remind me that 2/3 of my fave authors started there.

Spamword: plans72 - because I’m planning 72 kinds of awesome for these rereads.

I’ll be Janet Dailey all the way. My romance library was the floor of my grandpa’s closet, so the Calder Saga was a major influence==I wish I remembered which one had the young hot Spanish soccer player in it….I also loved the Regency Summer short story compilation but my fave is an old (1992 I think) Silhouette Christmas with four stories in it—a Mary Balogh, a Debbie Macomber…it was awesome. I’ll check them out.

I have a sudden longing to pull out my Dinah Dean collection
Flight from the Eagle , Tatya’s Story et al….And after Susan Reader’s comment, I suddenly remembered how utterly cracktastic Valentina Luellen was & dug out my copy of   Francesca….. Skullduggery with the Borgia’s !!!!!!
OOOOh I’ve just found Jan Constant’s The Rebel & the Redcoat….....Mills & Boon’s Masquerade line was fantastic ( & I can’t believe how many I have stashed at the back of the bookcase!!!!!!!)

The first non-YA romance I read was Hummingbird by LaVyrle Spencer. It’s a tiny bit rapey (the hero forces the heroine to kiss him at gunpoint) but it made my 13 year old heart go pitter-patter. Besides that one, there are only two others that I have kept after all this time: The Gamble (also by Spencer), and My Fair Gentleman (like My Fair Lady, but in reverse!) by Jan Freed. I still read them every few years, and I still count them as some of my favourites.

spamword: seemed 33. When I was 13, 33 seemed ancient!

Oh, wow, these posts are bringing back memories! I think if I had to list three, the first would be Johanna Lindsay’s A Pirate’s Love, Woodiwiss’s The Wolf and the Dove and Calder’s This Calder Sky. At least those are the most representative of old skool I have on my keeper shelf yet haven’t read in ages. Actually, my first true romances were from the old Silhouette First Love series. I read those like popping candy. I kept a handful and everyone once in a while go back for a quick smile.

Oops, I meant DAILY’s This Calder Sky. Duh.

I feel like you read my mind! I’d already decided this was my New Years resolution!
My list ( on no particular order):
-The Gift by Julie Garwood- actually already re-read this one and it easily held up to my 14 year olds memory of it.
- A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Devereaux
- Perfect/Paradise by Judith McNaught
-Whitney, My love also J.Mc
-Shanna by Kathleen Woodiwiss
-some of the MacGregor books by Nora Roberts
-Seaswept too
-For the Roses by Julie Garwood

That’s it for now. These were the big authors/books that shaped the kind of romance I loved for a long time. Re-reading The Gift really was an eye opener because it was like everything I love in one book! Amazing how what you read when you are 14 really affects everything that comes after…

And how can we overlook The Wolf and the Dove and The Flame and The Flower, two books that began it all?

@Darlene, I think a lot of the bitcherie may have still been reading the “Little House” books when those came out. However, they still have pride of place on my bookshelf.
@kbrun, Anya Seton’s “Green” book was “Green Darkness” my personal first ever & was about reincarnation. It also taught me everything I needed to know about priest holes - YIKES.
And just to show how really old I am… I’m throwing out “The King’s Brat” and “My Lady Benbrook” by Constance Gluyas which my bff & I wept over and adored. I’d reread them in a heartbeat, but my hometown library had an awful flood & didn’t replace them, and my new town library doesn’t have them.

I’ve still got all the early Woodiwisses and McNaughts, and every now and then put them out for grins.  If you are going to the Way Back Machine with Elizabeth Lowell, remember she has a few contemporaries under the Ann Maxwell name as well.  If you are visiting Rosemary Rogers, you cannot miss “Love Play” for contemporary and “Surrender to Love” for historical for sheer over-the-topness.

I wish I still had my old historical Robards, those were some cracktastic reads.  The one where the girl is hiding out with the pilgrim dude?  The one where the crime lord kidnaps her from her dickhead husband?  The one where she falls for her own stepfather?  Crazy-delicious.

A couple of Old Skool names that don’t get mentioned nearly enough:  Laurie McBain and Shirlee Busbee.  I loved their books in high school.

@Donna—Oh dear.  Now I feel ancient.  However, I’m glad you mentioned Anya Seton.  When I was a lass, Katherine was the most romancecentric adult book on my shelf.  I re-read it over and over again.

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.

I’m definitely making a Old Skool reading list after this and putting all the Zebra Gothic Romances on it. I love(!) the gothic romances Zebra Publishing use to come out with. I would have to dig through boxes of Goodwill donations and spiderweb-infested books shelves at used bookstores to find these gems.

I’m in!

My first romance was, “Surrender the Night,” by Susan P. Teklits and I was 14.  It was the hero’s red British army coat and the heroine’s long raven tresses on the cover that sucked me in.  I gave the book away when I was probably about 20, but recently tracked it down again.  It now sits proudly on my keeper shelf, for nostalgia if nothing else. 

On my reading list I’ll include that one, Johanna Lindsey’s “Hearts Aflame” (the heroine has aqua blue eyes!) and Rebecca Brandewyne’s “Upon a Moon-Dark Moor,” which I was too embarrassed to check out from the library as a teenager, so I went everyday and read it in a dark corner.  When the library had a cleaning out sale a few years later, I was able to buy the copy I read.  :)

Great challenge!  I can’t wait to get started.

Stuff by Jennifer Wilde, especially Once More, Miranda, Angel in Scarlet, and Her Name is Dana.

I also like the Georgette Heyer and Barbara Cartland stories.

@Darlene, “MRS. MIKE”!!!! Squee!!! I LOVED that book! I actually tracked down a copy a few years ago when I found out my bff (a Canadian) hadn’t read it, and for her daughter -my darling goddaughter- who was 12, the age I was when I read it. I don’t recall that they loved it, but I’m getting all squishy thinking about it. I hope she still has it….

Rangoon and Stormfire, because for me they epitomize the best and worst of Old Skool. Rangoon is deftly plotted, filled with believable characters, and meticulously researched. And Stormfire…what can I say? The same pen held me hostage to…rape, beatings, a fetish for female martyrdom and misogyny, so that by the end all I wanted to do was wipe the book from my brain.

I don’t if this would be considered Old Skool, but I’m currently reading my first Georgette Heyer: These Old Shades, and am absolutely loving it!

While it’s clearly not as ‘sexy’ as most current historical romances, the tension between the H/H and the pacing and dialogue are just wonderful and have lost nothing over the years.

Define old skool?

And I LOVE Knight in Shining Armor except for the WTF ending!  Also I wouldn’t have thought of including Mrs Mike but of course it’s fantastic.

already89:  There are already 89 books on my TBR list

Please put Windswept Passion by Sonya T. Pelton on your list!  Pleasepleaseplease!  I couldn’t do it justice.

OMG, Mrs. Mike. Man, I loved that book in 7th grade. I checked it out of the school library like six times in a row.

And yes, how about “Those Happy Golden Years”? Or “Fifteen” by Beverley Cleary? Those were my first gentle romances.

Just a few weeks ago, my sister and I were watching some cheesy lifetime christmas movie, and she looked at the actor (I can’t remember who) and said “I still think he’d make a great Ian,” and I knew exactly to whom she was referring. That’s how deeply we both still squee over Ian Thornton in Almost Heaven.

On my list I’d have to add Judith McNaught’s Paradise
Catherine Coulter’s The Sherbrooke Bride
and Judith Krantz’s Till We Meet Again Does that count as Romance?  It should, and it’s EPIC.

OMG I love Til We Meet Again!  I found a copy in a used bookstore last fall and nearly embarrassed myself with a Happy Dance (no one was around, so if a Redheadedgirl dances in a bookstore, and no one sees it, it NEVER HAPPENED).

@Diane I seem to remember a heroine who was called Chlamydia, but maybe I imagined that. I too have read Barbara Cartland, lots and lots of them, courtesay of a very dog-eared collection left behind in the house we moved to when I was 13. I remember a very funny and deliberately bad film of one starring Helena Bonham Carter. I also remember that Babs specialised in the ‘beautiful babe hidden by glasses and a bad dress’ type of plot, and she was also overly fond of pert nipples, but at 13 with hardly any critical faculties, I loved them - and haven’t read any since.

Don’t know if it counts, but my earliest intro to romance was Sue Barton (junior nurse, senior nurse, staff nurse etc etc) and her lovely hunky doctor. Then it was Mary Stewart. Then it was the Poldark series which I read after the BBC series, then it was Georgette Heyer who is the only one I dare read again - and still do again, and again, and agian. I LOVE Richard from the Corinthian, and Max from Faro’s Daughter.

All my early romances were by Georgette Heyer, and since I’ve kept rereading them through the years, I know that they’re still awesome! However, I want to join the activity by reading some of the books on this list; I don’t think I’ve ever read an “Old Skool” in the sense we usually use it, and that’s something I’d like to remedy. Now if only I can find the time to do it in between studying!

@SB Sarah - I’m SO glad you put Silver Angel on your list. It was one of my first and I remember just being blown over by it. Crack is an understatement! Think I read it in a day.

My first romance was: Captive Rose by Miriam Minger. I’ve read my way through three copies of that book. I re-read it about twice a year and still love it - bad Fabio cover and all!

One that stays with me, but can’t remember the title is: pirate romance, Spanish hero, heroine kidnapped/rescued from ‘bad’ pirate, taken to his family’s house in California(?) where his brother starts hitting on her, then he serenades her with a Spanish song and plays the guitar…

try68 - I’m sure there are 68 books I could try just from this blog alone.

Oh wow, the first NR, The Wolf and The Dove…Okay you ladies are pulling out the stuff from my high school years. Would Gothic Romances by such authors as Victoria Holt, and Madeline Brent (Yes I know he was a man, but I loved the story about the girl who grew up in China, was imprisoned they were going to cut off her hand for stealing to feed her ‘family’, and the British man who is there waiting execution marries her…and so on and so on…plot becomes more twisted than yarn after a kitten and a 4 yearold play with it, but that was what made it fun.)

Oh, I know Wolf and Dove was Woodiss, and Irish Throughbred was NR!

I’ve learned the hard way that I can’t reread my favorites, the ones that truly hit me hard, and expect them to read the same way again.  It’s more that I keep them as a reminder, so that I can reread them and remember how they hit me the first time.  One example is Sarah’s Child by Linda Howard, definitely Old Skool, at least to me.  But that story had me weeping (!) the first time I read it. 

I couldn’t really explain the phenomenon, and then I read The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield.  Not really my type of read, but it was for a book group.  OMG!  Check this out…This is the main character (a bookstore owner’s daughter) speaking/thinking of her discovery of Miss Winter, a reclusive, famous author.

I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life, and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy. And yet I cannot pretend that the reading I have done in my adult years matches in its impact on my soul the reading I did as a child. I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Yet it is not the same. Books are, for me, it must be said, the most important thing; what I cannot forget is that there was a time when they were at once more banal and more essential than that. When I was a child, books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic yearning for the lost pleasure of books. It is not a yearning that one every expects to be fulfilled. And during this time, these days when I read all day and half the night, when I slept under a counterpane strewn with books, when my sleep was black and dreamless and passed in a flash and I woke to read again - the lost joys of reading returned to me. Miss Winter restored to me the virginal qualities of the novice reader, and then with her stories she ravished me.

position45: Oh, yeah.  I’ve been ravished by books in at *least* 45 different positions (sitting, laying downing, riding in a car, etc)

All I remember was the heroine’s stupid name - Fenella.  What did Cartland do?  Reach into her spice cabinet and add an a?

Diane, I am not a Cartland fan, but I have to defend her on this! Fenella is quite a common British name, usually with slightly upper-class associations, as one might expect with Cartland.  It is an englished spelling of a Scottish Gaelic name, Fionnuala.  I imagine that Fiona (also common in Britain) and the Welsh form Ffion are also connected, but I haven’t checked that.
:-)

My first romance (and I use the term loosely) was “Sweet Savage Love.” I ended up reading the whole series, and rereading them if I recall, because anything with that much rapetastic sex in it is endlessly fascinating when you’re 13 or so, but they didn’t really hold up for me once I got a little older (read: actually had sex).

I also remember reading some Johanna Lindsay, Laurie McBain and Janet Dailey about the same time, but couldn’t tell you a single title or plotline.

After about ’82 or so, I stopped reading romance altogether except for every few years when a new Woodiwiss would come out.” The Flame and the Flower” and “The Wolf and The Dove” were two of my favorites back in the ‘70s when I first read them. (@Darlene Marshall – yeah, you’re not alone. Come sit with me on the porch. I have rockers. And wine.) I still enjoy re-reading them now and then, once I get past the rapey bits at the beginning, but they’re no longer my favorites. Like some others have mentioned, I still adore “Shanna” and “A Rose In Winter” and reread them every few years. One of my favorite Woodiwiss’, which I didn’t see anyone else mention, is “Ashes In The Wind.” I can’t help it. I just love feisty females dressing up in boys clothes and insulting Yankees. Too fun.

Ah, Mary Stewart… My eclectic 5th grade reading pile that contained her AND Laura Ingalls Wilder.
And, yes, let’s shout out the late great Laurie McBain. As noted a few topics ago, I pulled “Chance the Winds of Fortune” out from under the bed for a reread over the holidays. Lovely.

Oh man, my first romance was The Wyndham Legacy, by Catherine Coulter.  But I’m afraid to re-read it, because as an adult, I find her historicals so rape-y and offensive.  PARALYZED BY INDECISION, sigh.

You can’t do Old Skool without some Rebecca Brandywyne, Shirlee Busbee and Virginia Henley on your list!

First romance: Ashes In The Wind-Kathleen Woodiwiss. Which I read when I was in seventh grade, y’all. For real. It inspired me to read all her other works as well, and Flame and The Flower ended up being my second favorite, even in all its rapetastic glory.

And no, I don’t think I could go back and reread.

As for the person who said NR’s Irish Thoroughbreds—with apologies to La Nora, whose books I universally adore, that was the one series I just could not read. Blame bad editing, I think.

Captcha: those65

Yes, those 65 books on the night table ARE my TBR pile, why do you ask?

The one and only romance I’ve read and liked has been Anya Seton’s Katherine.  My friend lent me her mom’s copy just after I turned fifteen, saying “you’re going to love it”, and I felt a little skeptical, but I believed her.  Of course, she wasn’t wrong.

Hmmm…first romances i read were Victoria Holt—Menfreya in the Morning is the only title I remember. The two that made the biggest impression on me had asshat heroes and some crazysauce plot—one set in Australia, where the hero eventually dies of snake venom (!), and another set in the French revolution that is kicked off by some roofie-abetted rape.

Others that I remember fondly (but am disinclined to read again because I’m pretty sure doing so would ruin them for me): Deveraux’s Velvet series; Lindsey’s Silver Angel; Wilde’s Angel in Scarlet; Rose of Rapture by Rebecca Brandewyne (could you dream up a better romance author last name than that?); and Vixen by Shirley Busbee.

@TaraL:

Come sit with me on the porch. I have rockers. And wine.

I have a magnet on my fridge that shows an old granny and says “When I was your age, we had to walk two miles to get stoned and have sex.”

You supply the rockers, I’ll bring the wine.[g]

My first romance was sneaking my mother’s copy of ‘Forever Amber’ by Kathleen Winsor.  Amber was a hussy of the first degree.  I loved anything by Anya Seton, and reread her books on a regular basis.  Rereading Green Darkness currently.  I volunteered at the local library in my early teens and the librarian gave my the Purity series, shame, passion and I can’t remember the other one (reviewed by the RedHeaded girl).  I don’t have the courage to try those again.  Loved ‘Lady Vixen’ and just purchased a copy on ebay, so I will probably read that immediately. Does anybody remember Cynthia Wright?  I was so in love with Andre Raveneau from ‘Silver Sorm’, a little rapey nowadays, but squishy when I was 14!

I have a magnet on my fridge that shows an old granny and says “When I was your age, we had to walk two miles to get stoned and have sex.”

Priceless! I suspect I’ll have something similar on my fridge soon.

TaraL beat me to it!  ‘Ashes in the Wind’ was my favorite Woodiwiss book and my overall favorite book throughout my teens/early twenties.  I haven’t read it in a while but I do have a copy somewhere. 

Others I remember leaving an impression on me ‘way back in the 80s’ were Harlequins or Silhouettes…
A Frozen Fire-Charlotte Lamb
Savage Atonement-Penny Jordan
The Challenge-Kerry Allyne

I remember reading about 2 dozen books all called “Captive Bride” or slight varations thereof. I don’t remember many titles other than Shanna and The Flame and the Flower. Other than that I read a lot of nurse romances, traditional Regencies, and gothics like Victoria Holt. I also read some classic books like Desiree by Annemarie Selinko and Portrait of Jennie by Robert Nathan.

My oldest romances were Georgette Heyer and Patricia Veryan - and I’m not sure I’d call them Old Skool, but rather enduring classics.

My introduction to Romancelandia proper (improper?) was Nora Roberts and early Jayne Ann Krentz. I’ve just finished a re-read of all my JAK —some of that may qualify as Old Skool, but not like some of the things you’re describing up-thread. I clearly have missed out on a lot. (rushes off to Bookmooch)

Ditto to JoanneF on A ROSE IN WINTER by Woodwiss. I remember reading a Good Housekeeping issue of my Mom’s when I was maybe 16 and the exerpted Rose in Winter was included…my first introduction to romance and its still on my bookshelves for old timey sake.  The old Garwoods like Honor’s Splendor and The Bride.  Can’t forget Lavyrle Spencer… I think November of the Heart maybe?  Damn you, Smart Bitches! Must…reread!

I, too, read “The Wolf and the Dove” and “Sweet Savage Love” way back when I was in High School, and I’m not re-reading them. Enjoy your re-reads but there are too many books in my tbr pile to plan to re-read even old favorites. (Not that TWATD or SSL are on my favorites shelf.) Part of the reason I have so many books on my tbr is because you all keep introducing me to more great books!  My shelves are bursting and I’m not sure whether to thank the readership of this blog on not - who am I kidding?  Thank you! Thank you! Thank You!

For now the only re-read I’m planning this year is “Lady Be Good.” Currently I’m reading “Fancy Pants” for the first time, next comes “LBG” then Ted’s book. But I love when you re-read and review. Big fun ahead for all of us when those “reviews” appear.

Oh golly, I can’t remember the first one, but I am fairly sure I started with Barbara Cartland when I was about 14 or 15 - all heroines had heart-shaped faces and halting…ways of…speaking…as if they…had run…rather quickly…and…were…all…out…of…breath.  And the H/H never kissed until the last page at which point the heroine burst into a million stars.  Messy if you ask me!

Then I progressed to M&B Masquerade - lord how I adored them.  I would get 5 at a time from the library and glut myself on them.  I tried to write one too (and it’s still in a box under the spare bed!), and decided to set it in Cornwall, it’s full of “You’m” and “Missy” and “Launceston”.  The fact I had never kissed anyone and only been to Cornwall once was no obstacle whatsoever.

And then I moved onto stronger meat:

Lady Vixen by Shirlee Busbee - I’ve still got this, I will re-read it AT ONCE.  I remember that I loved it, it had quite a lot of sex and I don’t recall it being particularly forced or rapey.  Let’s hope it lives up to memory…

Others that I remembered:

Forever Amber - Kathleen Windsor

Through A Glass Darkly - Karleen Koen

Wideacre trilogy - Philippa Gregory. I still love these, they beat the tudor ones into a cocked hat.

Danielle Steele - Weeptastic.  But she got into a pattern of impoverished young-but-noble girls marrying elderly kind gents, having apparently sexless marriages and then being widowed before finding twue wuv.  Which got a little tiresome.

M.M. Kaye - The Far Pavilions - more than ‘just’ romance, but another one I loved and Ben Cross in the tv adaptation was the YUM!

I had a big phase of Philippa Carr and only just this minute found out she was also Jean Plaidy AND Victoria Holt (thanks Wikipedia), both of whom I also read though not as widely.

I read Rosemary Rogers and Kathleen Woodiwiss too, I MUST have read Sweet Savage Love - surely?

And recenly I re-read Wild Bells To The Wild Sky by Laurie McBain.  It didn’t live up to re-reading as there wasn’t enough romancin’, and hardly any “woe, I love him, he doesn’t even know I exist”.

Aaaand apart from that I recently re-read Scruples by Judith Krantz but I think I might leave off doing the same with the rest of her works.

Now, has anyone read Pamela Belle?  The Moon In The Water, The Chains of Fate & Alathea are just FABBY FAB.  Get them, read them, they still live up to re-reading I PROMISE!

spamword: college34.  Well, I was 32, but it’s not far off.

Even though a few people have mentioned Harlequins/M&B and Georgette Heyer, almost every book here is a Big Fat Historical.  Is that required for it to be an Old Skool Romance?

I picked up a few BFHs at a book sale recently, that I remembered fondly from my youth, but I’ve been reluctant to read them lest they not live up to memory…

Sunflower, Wildflower, and Rose, all by Jill Marie Landis which I remember liking partly because they are set in the American West but pre-Civil War, which is unusual. 

Then there’s Fern Michael’s Captive Splendors, with its crazy purple and pink cover and anguish and passion and forbidden love (she’s his adopted sister, IIRC).  It’s the third of a series, but the others never engrossed me like this one… The hero, Caleb van der Rhys, has a couple of brothers named Raine and Wynde which even in my youth I though a bit OTT (and not very Dutch, either).

“these39”? Yes, I got these thirty-nine books at the library sale.

I think the definition of ‘Old Skool’ (hate that spelling) being followed here is a bit flexible, to say the least!
I would classify Heyer’s and Mary Stewart’s works as classic British novels that happen to fit into genres that we now call (but didn’t then), ‘historical romance’ and ‘romantic suspense’.
I have the impression that ‘Old Skool’ is usually taken to indicate American novels written specifically for the ‘romance’ market in the 1970s and 1980s, and particularly those that have rather over-the-top plots.  But I am probably mistaken.

Is that required for it to be an Old Skool Romance?

Mostly, since back in the Old Skool days there weren’t a lot of contemporaries outside series romance like Harlequin. It’s also a style wherein the hero is usually an overly alpha angry boner type who forces the heroine, but doesn’t seem to be able to equate that with rape, continues to treat her badly & toward the end he finally pops up with something along the lines of “How can you not know that I love you?” AFTER he’s forced sex, forced marriage, treated her like a whore, called her a whore, refused to believe that the child who is his spitting image is his and more asshattery along those lines.
The heroine loves him & remains true blue despite all the above and whatever WTF travails the author throws her into. This generally will include things like stalkers, kidnapping and being falsely accused of someone’s murder. This is Old Skool.

I’ll join in as I’ve kind of already started doing it :) So far what’s definitely on my list is Dangerous by Amanda Quick (read last week), Perfect Partners by JAK, maybe one or two other AQs/JAKs, probably a few of my Signet/Fawcett Regencies. I reread one of my absolute favorite Fawcetts last year: The Hampshire Hoyden by Michelle Martin, and it *totally* stood the test of time. Makes me wish MM was still writing as I loved her stuff.

Oh, and if you’re done with the book and describe it as sweet, tender, funny or uplifting, you ain’t reading Old Skool.

The Angelique series by Sergeanne Golan. Strong woman, but very Old Skool.

I’ve always been able to re-read books like I can re-watch movies. I think the first romance I read was (about 17 years ago) Jude Deveraux’s Knight in Shining Armor, which actually left me feeling really sad. I picked it back up two or three years ago, and I had that same melanchology feeling. But I love to re-read Julie Garwood’s medieval books, The Prize, Ransom, and Honor’s Splendour. I love Linda Howard’s All the Queen’s Men, and I love Shannon McKenna’s Hot Night.

A Rose in Winter by Kathleen Woodiwiss.  It’s one of the first romances I ever read and still one of the best.  A “beauty and the beast” storyline with a dose of mistaken identity and plenty of bodice-ripping hotness…what more can you ask for?

Good Lord, you guys are sparking waaaaay too many memories!  :)  I read so many Zebra historicals and can’t remember most of them.  I do remember loving Janelle Taylor’s Destiny’s Temptress, one of the only Civil War era romances I’ve ever read.  I’ll have to re-read that one!  Quite a story from what I can remember of it, even if the hero was blonde.  LOL

Another book I read several times and still have somewhere is Courtney Alsobrook’s Mail-Order Mistress.  I’d marry Justin McCade in a heartbeat. 

And, of course, I read every Kathleen Woodiwiss and Jude Deveraux I could get my hands on!

wow. for my whole life I thought the woman’s name was Beatrice.  then with this post I thought hey a typo on a cover. lo and behold, her name is BERtrice.  mind blown

When I re-read THE WOLF AND THE DOVE last year, I loved it. I actually miss changing POVs (referred to negatively as head-hopping) and wish the newer romance books didn’t just confine me to the hero and heroine’s, one per scene, etc. as though I were too stupid to follow. The older books seemed richer and captured my imagination more than many of the new ones. I don’t mind heroes who screw up, however badly (and they were very bad), as long as they regret it, suffer for it, and make up for it. I thought the hero in THE FLAME AND THE FLOWER should have suffered more, but other than that, it completely captured me for the entire time I read it (for the first time, last year).

Whoops, meant Rosalyn Alsobrook!  Courtney Alsobrook was a childhood friend LOL

@LynnM

I think if I had to list three, the first would be Johanna Lindsay’s A Pirate’s Love, Woodiwiss’s The Wolf and the Dove and Dailey’s This Calder Sky.

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

I think a lot of the bitcherie may have still been reading the “Little House” books when those came out.

@Darlene Marshall

I have a magnet on my fridge that shows an old granny and says “When I was your age, we had to walk two miles to get stoned and have sex.”

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

Would Gothic Romances by such authors as Victoria Holt, and Madeline Brent

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.

wow. for my whole life I thought the woman’s name was Beatrice.  then with this post I thought hey a typo on a cover. lo and behold, her name is BERtrice.  mind blown

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:

“You have to endure some pain before you can endure the ultimate pleasure.”

“Spit in the wind, Deidre. Savages don’t ask for permission.”

Today he’d brought his bride home and given her his offering of love. Tomorow he would consummate his claim.

“Diedre,” he warned, a hungry glint simmering in his eyes. “I’m not sweet. I’m the man who’s on the verge of ravishing your body with such force that that storm’s only a whimper in comparison. Unless you’re in the mood to be a virgin sacrifice, you’d better tone down the kiss, or we won’t finish the tour.”

“Sorry,” she said, not feeling contrite.

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 would classify Heyer’s and Mary Stewart’s works as classic British novels that happen to fit into genres that we now call (but didn’t then), ‘historical romance’ and ‘romantic suspense’.

  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.”

“Fear is your enemy, not me.  Get rid of it, Dirdre.  The ritual’s begun.”
“Ritual?” she whispered frantically. The word ran ominously in her ears, while her breasts endured a strange, tingling flush.  “What ritual?”
“Our mating ritual.  One that’s more binding than any paper or civilized law.”

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.

Oooh, I was just going through my books a couple weeks ago, and have two diaper boxes of romances I devoured back in the early 1990s. Was planning to page through them (Johanna Lindsay, LaVyrle Spencer, Katherine Coulter, early Mary Balogh), so this challenge is perfect for me :-)

I can’t believe that somebody mentioned Pamela Belle - I loved her books so much, and still do.  ‘Wintercombe’ is probably my favourite historical romance; I’ve never read one which could supplant it.  I have no idea why they haven’t been reprinted - I had to pay extortionate prices for my copies online.

The first romance I read was called ‘Valentina’, and it was grim - set in the Napoleonic Wars, I remember, and full of nasty rapey men.  Worse, I was only seven (and a precocious reader) and while I was aware of the facts of life, I didn’t know that it was possible for sex to be a) forced, and b) painful. 

I think the first romance I read as an adolescent and enjoyed was Bertrice Small’s ‘Skye O’Malley’.  Appalling, but gripping.

Ha, Jude Devereaux’s Wishes was the very first romance novel I read! I picked it randomly off a shelf at a tiny library while on vacation. I’ll admit I’m a little scared to re-read some of the Jude Devereaux - I have such fond memories of them.

The first romance novel I ever read was Johanna Lindsey’s Savage Thunder.  I was hooked.  HOOKED!  I don’t remember the name of my crack dealer (she was an underclassmen who sat at the back of the bus and had more romance novels in her bookbag than text books)  but I remember that book, my reaction to it and the beginning of my book-a-day habit.  The next one I read was This Wild Heart by Patricia Pellicane.  I only know that because I searched a long time on the internet for it.  For years I couldn’t remember the title or the author, just that heroine was name “Piper” and she had really large boobs.  There were a lot of $1 novels and, yes, Connie Mason.  I will not be re-reading them.  I also read lots of Virginia Henley who merits a re-visit. Her sense of humor and bawdiness is awesome. Nan Ryan is just plain filthy.  Love her.  And there’s the fabulous Laura Kinsale whose writing was so good it actually put me off romance for a while because I couldn’t find anyone else like her.  So, I’m actually behind in Old Skool Romances.  I read my first Woodiwiss a couple of years ago.  I will not speak of Shanna.  I sincerely hate that story and the heroine at the center of it.

Does it have to be historical??  (I prefer contemporary.)  Since I’ve been in such a vampire romance kick lately, I thought I might break out the Lori Herter Obsession series (Obsession / Posession / Confession / Eternity).  It’s been a really long time since I’ve read them, and I’m curious how they’ll read today.

First time commenter! I have very fond memories of first reading my mother’s copy of Katherine by Anya Seton, but remember finding Green Darkness somewhat disturbing because the present-day “reincarnated” hero seemed rape-y. I also enjoyed reading The Thornbirds, especially after being told that it was trashy!!