Last night on the Twitter feed I had a ripping good conversation with so many people about their favorite Harlequin lines and which authors are absolute never-fail for them. So many people mentioned the Harlequin Presents line, while I’m partial to the Silhouette Desire line.
Authors that make the autobuy list of many on Twitter last night included Sarah Mayberry, Cheryl St.John and Karen Templeton (from Sybil), Sharon Kendrick, Anne McAllister, India Grey, Day LeClaire, Leslie LaFoy, Julia James, Lynne Graham (from Lynne Connolly), Allison Leigh, Christine Rimmer Maya Banks), Nancy Warren, Emilie Rose, Kathie Denosky, Yvonne Lindsay, Anne McAllister, Rhonda Nelson (from Limecello).
Note to Harlequin: meta tags for book shopping would be SO AWESOME. Being able to shop by location (Spain! Antigua! England! Australia! Spain! New Zealand! Spain! CANADA!) or by plot hook (“secretary” “secret baby” “cowboy”) would be SO great.
So many of us started reading romance with category romances. Here’s my question for you: which category got you hooked on romance? A recent title? A book from waaaay the hell back when? Titles and authors, please – or as much as you can remember. Which one was the highway to happily ever after?
For me it was the opposite. About 12 years ago I read a novel by Marilyn Pappano. Upon visiting a used book store to look for other books by this author and striking up a conversation with the owner, I learned that many of the authors I was reading had started out writing category romances. I was like a kid in a candy shop. I spent a couple of years hunting down these books written by many of my favorite authors. And, of course I found new authors along the way. I’m finding more misses than hits these days though.
False Colors by Georgette Heyer in high school. I read everything by her and went on to other Regency authors like Joan Smith and Clare Darcy. I think I started reading Harlequin and Silhouette in college, where I discovered Nora Roberts and a host of others. I was obsessed with Nora for awhile. I tracked down all of her old books by going to every used book store for miles around. I don’t read her anymore , but I still remember my quest.
My first book were the orginal Harlequin Romances for 60 cents, and I started reading them in the 7th grade. My favorite author was Mary Malcomn. I lover her books, and couldn’t wait for the next one to come out.