Promises in the Attic by Elisabeth Hamilton Friermood

And the book that brought me back? Dreamfeverby Karen Marie Moning. After that I read every bodice ripper I could get my hands on until I was fifteen, at which point I completely quit reading romance for the next twenty years. She gave me her copy of Sweet Savage Love by Rosemary Rodgers, and told me – specifically - to read the scene where Steve has Ginny locked up and forces her against her will and introduces her to oral sex. Her name was Pam, and she read bodice rippers. When I was thirteen, my parents hired a babysitter in her twenties. So I really never had the experience of having to hide what I was reading from my parents.

In fact, I don’t think my parents ever thought about policing my reading. My parents had all kinds of books in our house, including The Happy Hooker, The Joy of Sex, The Godfather, etc. I think in middle school I started reading Barbara Cartlands, but I really can’t remember very much about them, except that I always fast forwarded through to the parts where the hero finally kissed the heroine… who I always thought was kind of a moron. I honestly have no idea when I read my first romance. My romance reading interests broadened throughout high school and college, but the love of gothics and romantic suspense I shared with my mom definitely paved the way. As a teenager, I had a serious Phyllis Whitney/Victoria Holt habit going. From that point, I was hooked and I picked up many an old gothic romance at library book sales. I read it when I was eleven or twelve, and I remember the dark moodiness of the story drawing me in. She loved (still loves) Phyllis Whitney’s books, and the first one I remember her giving me to read was Window on the Square.

My love of romance novels definitely started with reading my mom’s gothic-tinged romantic suspense novels.

Did we read romance in secret or with a group of friends or other people? Did we hide our reading from others – did we need to? – or were we open about our choices? And overall, what made us fall in love with romance novels?ĪAR staffers discuss these and other burning questions in the first of two blogs about our first experiences with romantic fiction. Most of us remember when we first started reading romance, who introduced us to it or how we discovered it ourselves, and – perhaps even – which book we first read.

Promises in the Attic by Elisabeth Hamilton Friermood