I’m doing a new project on the podcast and I’m very excited about it.
Starting 15 October 2021, I’ll be recapping the first twenty Sweet Dreams Romances on the podcast.
Remember them? They’re vintage YA Romances, and to my knowledge they aren’t available digitally. Big heaping thanks to local used bookstores for helping me with this project!
I have some vivid memories of scenes inside these novels, and some equally vivid memories of where I was reading them. They were available in the 80s and 90s, and were sold reliably where teen books were sold. And wow, were they a gateway to romance fiction for many, many people.
In each episode, I’m going to look at the cover photography, the plot, and the writers – many of whom are still writing! Sometimes it’ll be me, and sometimes I’ll have a co-host, but we’re going to take a slow gondola ride down the Nostalgia Canal.
The first episode will be out October 15, and will be about book one, PS I Love You by Barbara Conklin – a book many, many readers remember.
Did you read that one? Did you read Sweet Dreams romances? Any in particular you remember most vividly?
Tune in on October 15th for our first recap – and whoo, it’s a doozy.
This got me going down memory lane — my intro to YA romance was the Love Stories series. I just realized that one of my favorite ones was written by Janet Quin-Harkin… AKA the delightful Rhys Bowen. My mind is officially blown.
I never read these; any 80s books I had in the 90s would have come from my babysitters, and I think I got some SVH and a few of those “after-school special” kind of books, like “Don’t Tell Mom” (the main character’s older sister is having issues with alcohol but in denial about her addiction).
I also owned Don’t Tell Mom along with the first one Missing: Carrie Phillips age 15. Scholastic book fairs were full of these $2 books.
I came back to see if someone can HABO on one of these books that has haunted me for years…I must have read it a dozen times and I am SURE it is one of these YA romances. Boy is from wrong side of the tracks and has “tiger eyes”, I am pretty sure. Girl and Boy get assigned or meet-cute to work on a school project where they create his beautiful replace of the nearby woods/lakes, which is destroyed somehow, and nearly destroys their love, etc before the HEA. Anyone remember this?!!!
@Christine Judy Blume had a book called Tiger Eyes. I never read it so I don’t know if the plot matches.
Vaguely remember reading all of the Judy Blumes but can only remember one having a girl wearing a back brace and erm… Forever, which was passed around at school and when I got it I had to hide it under the mattress. I spent several days praying my mother wouldn’t turn the mattress while I was at school.
I’d like to read a review of her books, I’m figuring they’d be pretty dated nowadays.
They made a movie a few years ago based on Tiger Eyes: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1748260/
Davey (F) calls herself Tiger when she meets Wolf (M).
I’m having having flashbacks to how much I loved romance novels as a teenager in the 80’s (Spoiler alert, I still love them.) I was such a nerdy kid and lived on a small island, so real-life romance seemed very much out of my reach. Does anyone remember a book from this time about a girl who had a crush on her neighbour (possibly her brothers friend) and then there was a house fire and the boy had to stay with them? I feel like his name was Ron and he played tennis. Not sure what series that was from.
@Michelle: Oh I think that was a Sweet Dreams. One of the 20 I have is about tennis – Love Match is the title of course – but the circumstances don’t seem to match up based on the cover copy: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2186811.Love_Match
@SB Sarah, thanks for the code!!!!
This is an awesome project. I read so many of these. I read someone else’s comment on this thread about a fave being The Right Combination. Same here! I can remember the characters were Kris and Alex and have to share a locker. My forced proximity gateway book, I guess. But the one that was probably my all time fave was Kiss Me, Creep. Somehow I remembered it was #63. No idea why that stuck in my memory!