You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
This HaBO comes from Jaclyn, who wants to find the first romance she read. Content warning for the description below:
I’m looking for the very first real romance novel I ever read. It was given to me by my grandmother when I was no older than 14. She said, “Here, read this. You’ll like it.”
Boy, did I!
I would have read this book around 2008, but I’m sure it was older–based on its aesthetics. It had a lavender cover with a butterfly on it I think (I’m positive about the color).
As to plot: it was a doozy. The hero rides around in trains illegally (is there a name for this?) because his wife and children died and he’s a drunk now. The heroine stumbles into the same car as him one night and it’s freezing out. She’s on the run from her evil stepfather with her infant son. (TW: the kid is the stepfather’s too, I’m sure you can figure out what that means).
The hero decides he has to take care of her and the baby, so he returns to his former life. I think he was a rancher? The villain steals the baby at some point, but they get him back and everyone is happy in the end.
What was the most GASP shocking to me was the love scene in a cabin. I’ll never forget he referred to her breast as a scoop of ice cream. The term “lapping” was probably utilized.
It was a very confusing moment in my young life.
Ice cream boobs!
Catherine Anderson’s Baby Love?
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5372323-baby-love
Dang it, I finally recognize one, but I’m too slow. Another vote for Baby Love.
“It was given to me by my grandmother when I was no older than 14. She said, “Here, read this. You’ll like it.” ”
@Jaclyn: I. Have. So. Many. Questions… (just don’t quite know where to begin)
Yes! It’s Catherine Anderson’s Baby Love! I read it this year!
Awesome! I finally recognize one, but I’m too slow. Another vote for Baby Love.
Haven’t read this book, but riding trains illegally used to be called “riding the rails” and was very common during the Depression when the unemployed and homeless jumped into freight cars on trains in order to travel to cities where they would look for work.
Toooooo slow- it’s definitely Anderson’s Baby Love.
My first thought was, don’t they call that being a hobo? Then I thought, this HAS to be catherine anderson. BTW I know this because my grandfather is the one who introduced me to romance via janet dailey et. al. So awesome.
When I was quite young (in the 1950s), we used to go down to White Rock to the beach. White Rock is just north of the border with the United States. All the trains on the rails along the beach were going quite slowly because they had to stop at the border for customs. At five, having heard so many stories of people riding the rails, I jumped a train. I had not seen my dad so panicked or running so fast since I had let the handbrake off on his car and it started rolling downhill with me and my brother in it. He managed to catch up just as the train was speeding up and grabbed me off. I should probably stop the story here.
Jaclyn here. It IS Baby Love! (Seems like an obvious title I should have guessed in retrospect) As for Grandma Linda, I think she could just tell I was a dramatic, yet mature child, who’d appreciate some crazy-sauce. Thanks, Bitchery!
@Jaclyn-Your grandmother is awesome.