Sarah: Recently, Freebird had a really interesting homework assignment. He had to list the things that influenced him from most to least – things like parents, friends, the internet, etc. Then Hubby and I had to do the assignment, too, and list the things that influenced us when we were his age.
Of course, when he and I were kids, there was no internet. Both of us listed “books” as the thing that influenced us most When We Were Young
This got me thinking about what influenced me as a romance reader. What books or shows or other things influenced my tastes as a reader?
So what influenced you guys?
Amanda: Barbies.
I’m not joking.
Redheadedgirl: Cinderella.
Amanda: That and my nana watching her “stories.”
Redheadedgirl: The Little House books. History and how people lived and romance and family and adventure.
Elyse: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast
Redheadedgirl: YES
Elyse: Gothic castle. Redemption of a beastly hero. Everyone deserves love.
Cinderella too. And Sleeping Beauty. Basically Disney owns my soul.
Redheadedgirl: Also he gave her a library as a grovel gift.
THAT GROVEL IS SUFFICIENT
Sarah: Scarecrow and Mrs. King.
I was the only one who knew how to program the VCR to record things while we were out of the house, and so I amassed quite a collection of Scarecrow and Mrs. King episodes on a big old stack of VHS tapes. I loved that show. I loved the mysteries, but I really loved the very slow burning, unresolved tension between the leads. I also liked that Mrs. King was an ordinary divorced mom who didn’t let anyone give her any crap about her life.
The theme to Scarecrow & Mrs. King still gives me the shivers, too. Like my inner 12 year old perks up and gets all eager to grab some Triscuits and ginger ale and head for the couch.
(All spies wear sweater vests and beige turtleneck sweaters in a size too small, right? Of course they do.)
And Beauty and the Beast — the TV show. BaTB was my first fandom obsession, before there was the Internet, which nurtures fandoms as part of its DNA I think. I had graphic novels. I had the soundtrack – and I bought a used CD copy off eBay last year because my original was a cassette. It took me awhile to realize that the episode descriptions were all about the mystery but the episodes themselves were also romances, too, with a tenuous possibility for a happy ending. And in my headcanon, she doesn’t die, though I was still introduced to Dylan Thomas’ poetry.
(That 80’s dress when Linda Hamilton first appears on the balcony was to young Sarah the HEIGHT of glamour.)
The X-Files was a similar influence, but only the romantic parts. Once I found a listing of all the shipping moments in various episodes, I’d watch them and fast forward through some of the “too scary” parts and get to the fragments of schmoopy parts. (That page still exists! IT IS ON ANGELFIRE. Oh, helloooo, nostalgia.)
So my biggest influences were tv shows that were romances disguised as something else, be that mystery or crime drama. I think my love for those shows matches my intense dislike of insta-love (slow burn! SLOW BURN. WORK FOR IT, DAMMIT) and my frustrating affection for very slow-building attractions that builds in tiny moments amidst everything else.
Redheadedgirl: Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves
Forreal.
Sarah: Oh HELL yes.
Redheadedgirl: As an introduction to the glory that is Alan Rickman, that was a good one!
Sarah: It was like two different movies because of Rickman. There was Costner and Morgan Freeman just emo-scowling everywhere, and then there was Rickman, who was clearly in some other film
Redheadedgirl: Forever Knight was the first show that got me interested in fandom.
OH MY GOD
HOW COULD I FORGET HIGHLANDER?
Sarah: HIGHLANDER OMG.
THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE.
Redheadedgirl: The movie is okay, but the show? THE SHOW WAS A GLORY OF EVERYTHING
EVERYTHING!
Sarah: Mystery wrapped around a romance – hellooooooo catnip. Wait, there was a show? I never saw the show!
Redheadedgirl: Oh lord, Sarah
Sarah: Hello eyebrows.
Redheadedgirl: Have a look at all of these.
The show was everything great about 90s adventure shows.
I mean that genre in general. No wonder I love the old skool crazysauce: it’s what I consumed during my adolescence.
Amanda: I think the whole nana watching her soap operas and me with my Barbies were deeply connected. She’d babysit me while I was younger and had a ton of romances with Fabio covers, by the way. But she’d sit in her chair and watch soaps and then I’d go home and I’d use my Barbies to act out whatever crazy shit happened.
But I also liked how Barbies could be whatever the hell they wanted and honestly, all of my “storylines” with my dolls had a romance central to the plot. As I got older, I actually started watching soaps. Shout out to General Hospital. They’re so addicting. When you first catch an episode, you have no clue what’s going on, so you have to watch the next day and then the next one and the one after that to fully grasp all the storylines. If I ever see GH on TV, I will try to avoid it like the plague or else there go all my afternoons. And come on…everyone is in love with everyone on soaps.
My mom also worked a lot, so she’d drop me off to “before care” at school and I’d stay for “after care” once school let out. In the mornings, they’d play Sailor Moon in the cafeteria for all the kids to watch while the ate breakfast. And while Tuxedo Mask was a mysterious hunk, I was all for the bad guys (see our villains post), Alan and Prince Diamond.
Sarah: And in soaps, they only get ONE episode to be happy. Maybe two, using the L shaped sheet that covers her but leaves him naked all the way south to the thin part of the treasure trail
Y’all. Can you imagine the reaction if before-care breakfast at school had television on, let alone Sailor Moon?!
Amanda: It was super depressing, haha. I would be at school before the sun came up and then was there until around 6pm.
And the cafeteria at 6am was always freezing and eerily quiet.
Sarah: That makes me sad. I mean, working means that happens, but wow.
Amanda: My mom worked far away, so she had a heavy commute in South Florida. But I got to hang out with this awesome woman, who I think was a teacher’s aide and her name was Mrs. Moxie!
Sarah: That’s a GOOD NAME
Amanda: And she’d help me put cream cheese on my bagel because for some reason, they always gave me a damn spoon to put it on with.
Sarah: WTF
So before-care, Mrs. Moxie, and Sailor Moon: formative influences! That’s rad.
What about you? What influenced you as a romance reader? Can you see any parallels between the shows you loved and the books you love now? (And should I re-watch all the episodes of Scarecrow and Mrs. King? I shouldn’t, right? No, I shouldn’t.)
One of my earliest “romantic” memories from cartoons was Speed Racer (and Racer X.) And Trixie’s ambiguous status as sister? Girlfriend? Never worked that one out.
I can’t be the only one still in love with Goliath from Gargoyles.
@Gigi
When I first saw you comment I thought “Wait, when did I post this?” (I go by Gigi elsewhere.)
I grew up on a mix of Shojo and Shonen amimes like Candy Candy (Terry was a twat!) and Captain Future (adventure with romance shoehorned in).
Jazzlet – The book not by Jean Plaidy might be “Katherine” by Anya Seton. Wonderful book.
As for influences, romance novels were definitely frowned upon by my mother, so of course I read (and hid) many. The Sue Barton nurse series by Helen Dore Boylston was a big influence, then there was …Barbara …Cartland… My high school friends introduced me to Kathleen Woodwiwiss and I devoured “Wolf and the Dove”, and “Flame and the Flower”. Then came the Harlequins, the Loveswepts etc. Also, lots of gothics, a favorite is Curse of Carranca by Elsie Lee.
I loved the original Nancy Drew books, but the 90’s “Nancy Drew Case Files” series (the one where every cover is pastel sweaters and pleated jeans) was the one that really got me interested in romance.
The first romance novel I read was the infamous “Devil’s Embrace” by Catherine Coulter. Kidnapping! Rape! More rape! I “borrowed” it from a friend’s mom during a sleepover and kept it hidden in a typewriter case under my bed. I didn’t realize how batshit that book was and it informed my preferences for decades.
Also, I kept a scrapbook of TV Guide pictures of MacGuyver and Sully from Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.
Oh my gosh this thread is FUN.
@Carrie Lofty: Wait, you mean this? 😀
@Lynnd: YES LADYHAWKE YES. Oh my GOSH, that movie.
@Hera: No, you’re definitely not the only one with a thing for Goliath. Elyse is with you.
I was introduced to romance through YA fantasy. I read them over and over again focusing on the romantic parts: Tamora Pierce’s Lioness Quartet, Llyod Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain, Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword. I still reread the copies in my parents’ basement every time I go to visit.
Oh, and of course – Anne of Green Gables! The snark and conflict leading to a HEA for the characters over the course of the seven books is amazing.
For me, I was definitely inspired by Disney (Beauty & the Beast/Mulan FTW!). My first “shipping” moment was probably for Felicity Merriman and Ben Davidson from the Felicity American Girl books. I also had a thing for the Logan/Mary Anne romance in the Babysitters’ Club books and Laura/Almanzo on Little House on the Prairie. You can count me as another person who was heavily inspired by Sailor Moon in late elementary school. I liked Tuxedo Mask fine, but I had a definite crush on the bad boys like Prince Diamond and his even sexier brother, Sapphire. I feel like some re-watching/re-reading is in the cards for me soon…thanks ladies!
I don’t remember the genesis of my interest in romantic plot lines; like my obsession with horses (still true to this day!) it seems to have appeared so long ago that locating a point of origin is an impossibility. Some influencing factors, however, include but are not limited to:
-reading EVERYTHING. My mom chose to let me read whatever I found lest her banning something made me even more interested in it (I love my mom). This lead to early, early Scarlett O’Hara exposure, but I wasn’t all that interested in the romance in that book. It also lead to a 5th grade devouring of the (entire) Clan of the Cave Bear series (I think this might be why I never saw the big deal with Judy Bloom).
-An instant, complete, and obsessive love for Dirty Dancing. That was the first movie I fell in love with so completely (in 4th grade).
-Barbies. It was always about the romantic plot lines!
-She-ra dolls.
-A slightly older best friend with a much older sister who had boyfriends.
DEFINITELY agree on Beauty and the Beast. I have a romantic suspense/chick-lit crossover coming out in May that was inspired by the Disney animated movie and (oddly) the 1987 Linda Hamilton/Ron Perlman TV adaptation.
Tiger Beat magazine hearthrobs such as Scott Baio, Shaun Cassidy, Leif Garrett, Andy Gibb, Ralph Macchio, etc… in the innocent “romantic dreams” of a 70s pre-teen/80s teen.
**oops, can’t spell heartthrob!
Oh geez, where to start…
The Little House & Anne of Green Gables books were earliest, I think. L’Engle came next, followed by Star Wars (…what? Empire came out when I was 11 – it was formative!). Some Judy Blume (Forever) and teen romances (Sweet Dreams & Sunfires) led to Harlequins and Clan of the Cave Bear at 14.
Schmoopy 80’s movies like Ladyhawke, John Hughes, St. Elmo’s Fire, Highlander, and The Legend of Billie Jean.
And comics – my favourite was Scott McCloud’s Zot! Love triangle, nerd-to-hottie, teen sexual angst, crazy villains… so much awesome.
TV wasn’t as much of an influence – my parents had a “no TV on school nights” rule that lasted until I was in university, so I missed out on all the 70’s and 2/3 of the 80’s TV. I wound up watching most of them in reruns, and I don’t think I missed much 😉
I grew up without television, and while my parents let me read anything, neither of them read any romance, so I was a teen before I ran across any, and my preferences were already formed. I guess I wound up imprinting on Hector from The Illiad, because I really like a loyal, honorable, competent guy who is devoted to his family. I don’t know why I lucked out, it’s not like classical literature has a shortage of douchebag heroes. Idk, I’ll read anything, my real life tastes don’t seem to inform or curtail my reading interest any, which makes it hard to detect influences.
You know, I think I liked tragic, thwarted, or unrequited love stories better than HEAs as a child! The Prisoner of Zenda was excellent.
My “formative years” were the 1970s and I lived in the woods in south Georgia with no cable, pre-VCR. So my formative romantic influences were the Disney movies that got replayed on “Wonderful World of Disney” and Hollywood musicals that I saw on PBS. To this day a good dance number works for me. 🙂
As to books, my parents were both mystery readers so once I got bored with “kid books” I started raiding their shelves. Ngaio Marsh and Dick Francis remain favorite authors of mine.
Marsh’s relationship through-story of Alleyn + Troy was always catnip: two professionals who respect each other? Yes please. And given that the books date from the mid-30s to the early 80s, they form a handy work-around to the notion of “conventional roles.” Yes, Troy is a wife and mother, but aside from that she is a world-traveling, world-famous artist.
Francis has a few books where a love story is a very strong secondary theme. My personal favorite is “Flying Finish” but there are several others.
I discovered science fiction, fantasy, and romance novels at about the same time (preteen). Right off-hand I’d say the SF/fantasy were more formative because even in 1977 I could tell that the gender roles in romance novels were not my cup of tea.
First off, Adrian Paul – YES. He and he alone made Highlander the tv show worth watching.
My other big influences – hmmm.
The Count of Monte Cristo, which I read twice in fifth grade. Adventure, mystery, revenge, romance, swords.
The Parent Trap, with Haley Mills. God, I wanted a sister to appear out of nowhere like nobody’s business.
Warner Television’s black and white Westerns; Maverick, in particular.
And most of what Darlene Marshall has to say in her comment, though I never saw Sheena.
I LOVED Scarecrow and Mrs King! It wasn’t big in the UK, so not many people have heard of it.
I also liked Dempsey and Makepeace. All my early stories were based on those two shows.
@grumpy cougar
Lol yay for the awesome moniker:) I watched nothing but anime growing up though my feeble old mind can’t recall any of the others except Candy..Terry was not a twat he was just misunderstood and tortured. Ok maybe he was a bit of one but to my then seven (eight?) year old mind he was incredibly dashing and romantic and ruined me for beta heroes forever.Though I might mention that I watched this dubbed in Spanish, maybe some of the twat-iness was lost in translation 😉
@chacha1: Hey, thank you for reminding me of Dick Francis as a formative romance influence! (Flying Finish is still a comfort read for me.) His heroes were mostly much the same but the love-interest women were different and interesting. He even had a polyamorous love story, I dunno how it would hold up now, where a guy whose wife is too ill to want sex starts an affair, and then when the wife finds out, he has to realize he loves and respects both women and figure out a way to have that work for all of them.
I know someone mentioned Star Blazers, I’d also include Robotech with the Lisa-Rick-Minmei triangle that drove me crazy when I was younger.
The teen romances — Caprice/Sunfire/Seniors/Wildfire etc — they were my proto romance reading in those days.
I was also big on the Remington Steele and Hart to Hart shows, even watched the primetime soaps on occasion.
Daytime soaps and DC comics (i.e. New Teen Titans and Legion of Super Heroes) were also a *big* part of that too — large sprawling casts with the occasional couple I’d latch onto.
andrea2 YES! Katherine by Anya Seton is the book I was trying to remember, thank you!
I used to RUN home from school so I could watch the old TV shows, The Ghost & Mrs. Muir as well as Nanny and the Professor. The way that the Captain looked at Carolyn Muir and how Professor looked at Phoebe Figalilly??? . . .swoon . . . .
Before I even read the article, my first thought upon reading the question of ‘what shows influenced my tastes as a reader’ was the TV show Scarecrow and Mrs.King! So how stoked was I to see that actually referenced by Sarah!! To this day I still love reading books that that fall into the action/adventure/romance type categories, especially if they involve spies.
Also, I’m with Amanda on the soap opera thing. I started watching General Hospital in the 80s and only reluctantly gave it up about 10 years ago when I had my kids and could no longer justify 5 hours a week on soaps. For the longest time I tried to keep up with daily episode recaps, but even that got to be too much. I know though, that it’s like smoking once you’ve quit – if I were to sit down and watch an episode even now, I’d be hooked all over again.
Yes to Mary Stewart novels and Absolutely for Highlander (for Adrian Paul as Duncan Macleod and Peter Wingman as Methos!) Duncan’s tango with Amanda atop the Eiffel Tower – fun, lovely, romantic.
Also soap Young and the Restless I watched every day before heading to University classes in 1970s; The Brooks Family, the Abbots and Chancellors. In one episode, Doctor Snapper Foster and his wife Chris were in a clinch
and probably had one of the first TV discussions of the importance of Breast Self-Exams.
The Sound of Music. When they dance – it was magic for me how they looked at each other. Also Gunsmoke. Miss Kitty and the Sheriff had it going on.
This is a question I’ve been pondering quite a bit lately having had a bit of a eureka moment a couple months ago while watching Father Goose for the fist time in years. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but there I was enjoying the snappy back & forth between Cary Grant & Leslie Caron when I suddenly realized, THIS is why I love romances with grumpy loner heroes. I loved this movie when I was young and suddenly there was every romance I adored in the 80’s and 90’s. JAK, Linda Howard, Elizabeth Lowell they were all writing slightly less witty versions of Walter Eckland. And @KellyM is right. You can never mention Cary Grant enough. When he appeared on the Oscars shortly before his death, I looked and my mom and said “Totally doable.” And mom being mom agreed.
The paranormal romance addiction? I totally blame that on Dark Shadows and no, I don’t mean that crappy Johnny Depp movie. I mean the real deal. Jonathan Frid, David Selby, David Henesey, Roger Davis and a very young Kate Jackson. I would run the .98 miles (meaning we would’ve had to pay for the school bus) home from school to catch the last 2 minutes.
My biggest influences for romances is probably Disney. The cartoon Robin Hood, The Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast being at the top, closely followed by Mulan. It’s strange, because I remember myself watching a lot of Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty, but I don’t think they influenced my tastes too much because they are so insta-love.
Also, Bring It On. Nerdy guys who play instruments rock.
Sound of Music for sure, and Anne of Green Gables. When Anne finally realized she loved Gilbert….swoon. That started my love of plucky heroines. Lots of soap operas (Santa Barbara was a fave) and a steady diet of 80’s teen movies were big influences too. Sweet Valley of course, and I devoured the huge Victoria Holt and Jean Plaidy collection at the school library. I finally realized I was a romance junkie when I moved up to Virginia Henley in the 8th grade.
Judy Garland, Gene Kelly and all the old MGM musicals. After church we would come home and while my mom would be preparing lunch with my dad, me and my sister would plunk down in front of the TV and watch whatever musical was on. If it wasn’t a musical it was the old Tarzan movies. I loved shows that always had a couple as the focus – yes Scarecrow & Mrs King, Remington Steele, and General Hospital – Luke and Laura’s wedding was so overtop awesome!
When I started going to the library on my own I always selected books that were “happy”. I found Mary Stewarts The Crystal Cave series in grade 7, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, and Ivanhoe in grade 9 (even though I liked Rebecca better than Rowena cuz she was strong). I remember when I was in high school I told an English teacher I hated the books we had to read cuz everyone dies – she tried to convince me Romeo & Juliet, Tale of Two Cities, Wuthering Heights were considered great romances whereby I told her without even knowing what an HEA was that no they weren’t. While they are great literature and I enjoyed reading them, they were depressing as stink. Guess I was a true romance fan even 35 years ago!
My parents weren’t terribly interested in each other, so I looked to our next door neighbors to see what a perfect, happy couple could be. And what a couple! Possibly ruined me for real life.
She was an Australian. He was an American Air Force serviceman stationed there during WWII. They fell in love AT FIRST GLIMPSE. He saw her sitting on a bench across a crowded city park in Sydney. They both knew in that instant. But then he saw a small child run up to her. His heart crashed, he turned and walked away. The next day he went to the park at the same time, hoping to catch another glimpse of her.
She too went to the park for the same reason. The second she saw him, she leapt up from her bench, ran over and said, “The child wasn’t mine! I was babysitting. I’m single.”
That was that. They were happily together from then on until they died more than 50 years later. And they were the nicest people you can possibly imagine.
That said, generally I don’t like insta-love books at all. Hate-to-love and marriages of convenience are my catnip. But I do also adore (and collect) real-life bios written by people who move to other countries, and that’s definitely influenced by this couple’s experiences.
So, if we’re talking childhood romance influences I’m going to have to make a clear cut between before Clan of the Cave Bear and after Clan of the Cave Bear, because wooo, boy, did that make an impact on a young adolescent me. I read The Thorn Birds around that time as well and, well, we all know.
As a kid, I’d have to say The Little Mermaid and Aladdin were foundational, as was Labrynth. Bookwise? Besides “Little Women” (Team German Professor!), “Jane Eyre”, and “Gone With the Wind”, I’d have to say the Thoroughbred series by Joanna Campbell. Yes, they were all about girls and their horses, but also, sweet romances with boys who worked on the farm. And! As the series went on, original couples got married and had horse-crazed kids of their own. It was my first introduction to the HEA and themed series installments, like the Christmas stories, etc. Man, now part of me wishes these were available digitally…
I’ve loved reading the comments! When I was young, my dad had a friend who was the principal of a high school, and we ended up with boxes of books culled from their library. Besides meeting my husband, having my daughter-that might be the best thing that has ever happened to me. I have always loved to read, but money was tight-and our local library quite a hike. Anyway, Rosamund Du Jardin was a big favorite of mine-I still love her books. I love the couple of Toby and Brose. The Outsiders, while not a romance-was a huge influence on me. Mary Stewart-I read The Crystal Cave when I was 8th grade, and have devoured everything else she wrote.
Molly Costain Haycraft started my life long love of historical romance. One of my school friends gave me Shanna, by Kathleen Woodiwiss when I was a junior, and down the rabbit hole I went 🙂 When I was a freshman in college, my roommate and I came back to school as soon as the dorms opened-I think a week early? All we did was read romances, trading them off. We had the best time! I think we were big into Rosemary Rogers.
@Hera Super yes! Talk about a slow-burn romance.
@Julia aka mizzelle Yes to Robotech! I was also all about that love triangle, but as I get older, I find I’m just waiting for Minmei to get the heck out of the way. >.<
TBH, I think it wasn't until I middle school that romance was a Thing I Paid Attention To, and that was right about when I started raiding my mom's shelves. 😉 Like Sarah, a lot of my media influences are those slow-burners. To expand on the above re: the classic 80s anime, Robotech. So many great romances in there (Max & Miriya, Roy & Claudia), but my most formative were definitely Rick & Lisa from the first series and Rook & Rand from the third. Both were super slow-burn (Rook and Rand never even consummate anything) relationships, where you would never see the two together on a surface level, but through working together and seeing each others' hearts (sorry for the cheese) and just going through a lot of shit together, they become… entwined. Aaaah.
Looking through the comments, the Anne of Green Gables show – holy carp, yes. And the Sound of Music. I used to rent that twice a month, driving my poor younger brother up the wall. There was also a ton of young adult books: Tamora Pierce, Sabriel, Mercedes Lackey(!), The Blue Sword, the first couple of the Princess Diaries, a ton of others I'm forgetting… Maybe The Last Unicorn? Not the unicorn and the prince, but Schmendrick and Molly Grue… Disney, claro.
Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters was a huge, HUGE formative influence on my reading. I had to change high schools several times when I was a teenager, and one of the things that helped make it bearable was when I scored a study hall that let me hang out in the library for a whole HOUR. I slurped up all KINDS of books in that library, and was particularly drawn to Barbara Michaels, Elizabeth Peters, and some Victoria Holt as well. Also, I’m pretty sure this was when I found my first Mary Stewart–Touch Not the Cat, which to this day stands out for me as my favorite Stewart. I liked that one so much because “oh hey these characters have telepathy!” Because blossoming SF/F nerd, yo.
(You may make the obligatory interesting note about a school library having all of those authors in their stock. 😀 )
And boy howdy was I surprised when I found out later that Michaels and Peters were in fact the same author! At which point I facepalmed and went “duh, this is why I like those books so much and found them so similar”.
Michaels/Peter pretty much laid down my requirements for what I want in a love story: a tasty slow burn, what I call the “I’ve just spent the first half of this book being cranky at you and holy shit you just actually SMILED, when did you get gorgeous?” moment, and my ideal level of suspenseful adventure with a side helping of love story. (My love of Michaels/Peter later led me to Susanna Kearsley, since a blurb namechecking her on Kearsley’s The Shadowy Horses IMMEDIATELY got my attention.)
Sign me up also for a L’Engle reader in those days. A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet were the big obvious SFnal titles–but I also have very distinct memories of reading And Both Were Young and The Moon By Night.
What else–gotta namecheck Tolkien, of course. Read The Hobbit as a 6th grade AP English class assignment and ate that right up with a spoon. Then found out The Lord of the Rings was a thing that existed, and I went YES PLEASE I’LL HAVE SOME.
Likewise, I gotta namecheck Terry Brooks, since his original Shannara trilogy was a huge influence on me not only as a fantasy reader, but also in my very earliest attempts at writing. As folks will be able to see once I’m finally able to hand out the annotated ebook of my first crack at a full manuscript!
VC Andrews? Anyone? Bueller? Surely that wasn’t just me. Also a large number of YA dealing with sex and pregnancy and booze (looking at you, Norma Klein), all read before I was really old enough to be considered YA. Thank god my mama gave zero fucks what I was reading. As well as the Anne of Green Gables, Nancy Drew, Wrinkle in Time, Baby Sitter’s Club, etc.
I’ve seen a lot of my favorites mentioned here already – I probably started with Beauty and the Beast (though now I prefer Robin McKinley’s version where he stays a beast), and soooo many of the Thoroughbred series! My Barbies were always being forced to ride my Breyer horses, and later they were inhabitants of medieval fantasy lands, complete with tiny swords and fake blood. Oh! I loved a YA book called A Boy on a Black Horse – probably still why I like horse-mad heroes who are mysterious and broody.
In terms of TV, I watched a lot of what my parents did – Mad About You and Dharma & Greg were favorites. We loved Farscape, Firefly and Star Trek Voyager. I didn’t watch a lot of the CW shows, but seeing both The Princess Bride and 10 Things I Hate About You at a sleepover made an impact on me. I think I wore out my VHS of the latter!
I came at romance books from a side angle. Lots of Tamora Pierce, Robin McKinley, Mercedes Lackey and Anne McCaffrey as a teen. I remember one story in a McCaffrey anthology that had a small sex scene between two riders as their dragons were mating. I just have read that part over and over, but I would have turned up my nose at a regular romance novel! In my early twenties I read a lot of fantasy and sci-fi that had romantic sub plots, but you’d still find them shelved outside the romance section. I’m glad I finally made the leap over and have discovered so many great stories.
Don’t laugh, but the first Terminator movie was a hugely romantic experience for me. Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese – I found them so swooningly tragic.
As a child I was also very into some books my grandmother owned and deemed “safe” – no sex – to read for me: Madeline Brent, Mary Stewart and Gwen Bristow. Also Elizabeth Peters Amelia Peabody series.
Gosh–first influences…I loved historical fiction, and the library had quite a few tween/YA novels from the 1950s and 1960s where the boy lead and girl lead would exchange a chaste kiss after saving the Revolutionary War spy from being captured by the British/saving the wagon train from being eaten by wolves/saving the merchant ship from pirates etc.
Then as I got a little older, I found my aunt’s Emilie Loring books–originally from the 1930s on, but republished in paperback in the 1960s and 1970s. Looking back as an adult, I get the extremely problematic treatment of people of color, and the fairly problematic treatment of many female characters other than the heroine…but I have to admit that the spunky, smart heroines (with truly excellent wardrobes) and handsome, kind, gentlemanly (but still manly) heroes still warm my heart. A lot of the romance heroes at that point–this was the 1980s–were in the Alphole mode and it was really refreshing to see heroes who would sooner get hit by a truck than ever say or do anything cruel or thoughtless, but weren’t at all priggish. In a lot of Emilie Loring books, it is the hero who figures out his feelings first and then waits for the heroine to get it, which was a contrast too.
And yes, Barbara Cartlands. My mom let me read those, I suspect because there was very little sex, only between respectably married people, and the prose was so purple that I read several of them before I figured out what “soaring on the wings of passion” actually referred to.