This HaBO request is from LJ, who is searching for the first romance she’s read, and she has a handy list. Giving a bit of a trigger warning for violence, by the way:
I need help discovering the first romance novel I read… seems to be a trend here at the Bitchery 😉
BACKSTORY: Our family was on a five week long holiday in September 2000. Flying all the way from Australia, we were making the most of it: travelling through England, France, Germany, Vienna, and now Italy (horrible, I know!). The 15-year-old booklover (me) was DESPERATE for some English books to read. Thankfully, the villa we were staying at in Tuscany had a bookshelf of rejected holiday reading, and it was here I read a truly cracktackular story – some of which is still burned into my brain!
Details may be fuzzy yet closer than they appear.
COVER: I think it was a sea blue colour with gold font, but every book I’ve looked at gloaming through shops and bookstores have given me no results.
STORY: *deep breath* There are three female characters to this story, each with their own plot and hero – I think. Their stories intertwine and in no particular order:
Heroine 1 – the hero has to break in, rescue the heroine, and escape a heavily guarded house on the beach from the mob? A gang? Cue explosions, a gun fight and possibly sex on the beach (ew).
Heroine 2 – could be mixing this up with one of the others but *spoiler alert* at the end of the book she is giving an impassioned speech, gets assassinated, and dies. I particularly remember the blood bubbling up through her mouth as she tried to keep speaking, damn that’s dedication! There was something about her knowing this would eventually happen, which is mentioned earlier in the book as she seems to be a campaigner of some sort. I’m thinking it may be set in the 60s, hippies free love and all that, but could be wrong.
And saving the best for last:
Heroine 3 – she has a magical hoo-ha and when having sex with her hero in an apartment bathroom? bedroom? (we are reading this part from his perspective) she uses *those* muscles to make him, ahem, orgasm I think almost straight away. Just the description has stuck with me and the 15 year-old-me couldn’t work out what he meant – ah innocence!
I don’t think my mother really knew what I was reading, just as long as I was happy, having been grumpy with no books; then she was ok with that. It would be interesting to read it again now as a 30 year-old to see how much went over my head.
As with all HaBO requests – I really, really, really want to read the whole thing again!
Thanks, Bitchery!
Wow. Just…wow. That’s a lot to digest: potential hippies, beach fights, magical hoo-ha. What d’ya say, Bitchery? Can we help her out?
I think it’s an early Andrew Greeley; not sure exactly which one.
Perhaps Lord of the Dance, then? The description says it has three generations of women, mobsters, and murder.
Heck, that could almost be Outlander. Almost. 😉
I sooo know the discarded-English-novels-in-foreign-country scene- that old paperback, musty, chlorine/sea salt scent.
If there were only one heroine instead of three, I’d be tempted to say it was Jayne Ann Krentz’s Silver Linings — blue and white/gold cover, escape through guarded house to sea, and similar sexcapades — but definitely only one heroine who does not get assassinated.
It is an early (probably 70s)Jackie Collins . I read it but can’t remember the title .
Catching up on some HaBOs, and a quick look at the wiki page for Jackie Collins brought up a book called Lovehead (later renamed The Love Killers). Three ladies, and there’s an assassination during a speech. Maybe?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovehead
Yes that’s it !