by Shirley Hailstock
Everything I need to know, I learned from a romance novel. Have you ever heard that before, or something like it? It's true. As August is National Romance Novel Month, I thought about some of the romances that I've read and what I learned from them.
Books have taken me places I never expected to visit. When I first started reading romance novels, I wanted to see all those places where the books were set. Setting played a huge role at that time.
My first romance was a book called Time and Again by Jack Finney.
It's a time travel and one of the places mentioned in is The Dakota Apartments in New York City. I was so in wonder of this place, that I had to see if it really existed. And of course, it did. This is the place made famous as the home of John Lennon and then infamous because he was killed outside it. What I learned from this novel is that I loved time travel novels. It bridged the gap between the present and the past.
Right after college, I started reading Harlequin romances. (Who has time to read anything other than a textbook when you're a science major?) Again setting was prominent and I so wanted to go to Spain and Greece. Those settings were the baby books of their time.
Everything I need to know, I learned from a romance novel. Have you ever heard that before, or something like it? It's true. As August is National Romance Novel Month, I thought about some of the romances that I've read and what I learned from them.
Books have taken me places I never expected to visit. When I first started reading romance novels, I wanted to see all those places where the books were set. Setting played a huge role at that time.
My first romance was a book called Time and Again by Jack Finney.
It's a time travel and one of the places mentioned in is The Dakota Apartments in New York City. I was so in wonder of this place, that I had to see if it really existed. And of course, it did. This is the place made famous as the home of John Lennon and then infamous because he was killed outside it. What I learned from this novel is that I loved time travel novels. It bridged the gap between the present and the past.
Right after college, I started reading Harlequin romances. (Who has time to read anything other than a textbook when you're a science major?) Again setting was prominent and I so wanted to go to Spain and Greece. Those settings were the baby books of their time.
I never made it to either country, although I had plans to go to the Greek Islands. Plans for that changed at the last moment taking me to Scotland instead of Greece.
It's interesting what I remember about some of the books I read. For instance, as we crossed the English Channel in route to France, I read my first Harlequin Desire.
And I also learned that like me going to find The Dakota, many of my readers went looking for places I put in my books. All of the ones they looked for were factitious. But you know yourselves as readers. You get caught up in an author's world or a family of characters and you have to find out everything about them.
I understand. After discovering Brenda Jackson's Madaris's series, I couldn't get enough of hr world. I wanted to meet all the brothers and cousins and I hanker for the next one as soon as I finish the last.
What are the books that you love, learn from and can't get enough of?
This is a very nice trip down memory lane, Shirley. The summer I was 14 I spent two weeks with a close friend whose mother and sisters loved romance novels. I read my first 'Harlequin' then - nurse/doctor series from Mills & Boon! Romance novels have certainly changed since. I have to say though, that two novels about love that made me cry were "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro and "Atonement" by Ian McEwan. Love, in all its forms, really does 'make the world go round ' doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteOh gosh, is "Never Let Me Go" about the clones? I never read the book just saw the movie trailer and that was enough for me! I was crying right then are there.
DeleteAtonement is a magnificent novel. But I'd say that about all his novels.
DeleteI read both of those books. I read never Let Me Go after I saw the movie, because I wanted to know what was missing from the film. Atonement was the same. Powerful stories.
DeleteAs a teenager I read the Highland series by Jude Deveraux. I've wanted to go to Scotland ever since. One of my favorite authors is mystery/thriller writer John Sandford. Not only is he entertaining, but I always feel like I learn something when I read one of his books.
ReplyDeleteI like learning from books too. Often I will binge on an author to see if I can learn what he/she is doing.
DeleteI read Time and Time Again, loved it. I think the Janet Evanovich series had made me want to travel to Stephanie Plum's town and go to the funeral home and meet Gramma. LOL
ReplyDeleteI lived in Janet Evanovich's real-life town. It's a section of Trenton, NJ called Chambersburg. Janet was spot on with the setting.
DeleteThanks for your post, Shirley. Got me thinking. I think I've always read mainstream fiction that included "love stories." Nancy Thayer and Luann Rice were always favorites. Then when I connected with RWA, I came across Barbara Delinsky and Susan Wiggs, just to name two, and realized their single title books were romances. And they wrote series with connected characters, which I love. My world of romance expanded from there. And I also recall what I called teenage romances in the books by Rosamond DuJardin. I think that's her first name...anyone else remember her?
ReplyDeleteRosamond DuJardin!!! Wow! I read all her books. I still have them and can tell you characters and plotlines. You're the only other person to ever mention her.
DeleteShirley, having grown up in a very small town, our library was my lifeline to the outside world. I remember it was interesting when I first began to travel, and I recognized places where books I'd read had been set. Thanks for the reminder of the impact our books can have.
ReplyDeleteI still want to visit some of the place I've read about. I'm about to go to Martha's Vineyard. I have several novellas set there and I've never seen it in person.
DeleteI like your list, Shirley. I don't really like sci-fi too much so anything with sci-fi ish elements like time travel kind of throw me off when it comes to romances. But I did LOVE the movie "About Time" and the book "If You Could See Me Now" by Cecelia Ahern about an invisible friend is one of my absolute favorites so I will check out "Time And Again." Thanks for the post! :)
ReplyDeleteI understand tastes and things we gravitate toward. I'm fascinated by time and finding a time-travel is like getting a second chance to change things. I know I have to suspend believability and I also know that time travel won't work, but the fantasy of it intrigues me.
DeleteI don't remember any particular romance novel, Shirley. But I started reading them when I was in high school. I remember the forbidden aura to them because they were my sister's and I hadn't asked her permission and because I knew my mother wouldn't approve of them (my sister had them hidden from her). I think my sister knew I was sneaking them but she couldn't say anything in case I wasn't, and then I'd tattle to our mother about her reading 'smut'. One book in particular had to handled carefully because there were loose pages from being read so often.
ReplyDeleteI never had to hide anything. I once took my sister's confession magazines and got under the covers with a flashlight, like a form sitting in a bed couldn't be seen. I read the entire magazine and was disappointed. They were just stories. There wasn't even anything racy in them. Later in life, I wrote confession stories.
DeleteI love Rosemund Pilcher's September and Winter Solstice set in Scotland. I almost feel as though I've been there.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm traveling to a new place, I like to get a story or two set there to read on the plane ride over. I read Angels and Demons just before we got to Rome, and it was almost a tourist guide of places to see.
Hmmm, I've never done that. I read Hawaii before going there. Once I mentioned the book to a person in Hawaii and she told me how much Hawaiians hate that book. Lesson learned.
DeleteShirley, what a great post! My kick to romance was Gone with The Wind when I was 11 or 12. I read it every summer. There was a book called "Wind from the Carolinas" which my mother and I both loved. Before my mother died, I found our copy and both re-read it. We BOTH found it so boring we wondered what we'd ever seen in it. Frankly, I devoured everything I could beg, borrow from friends or scrounge from the library for years before I started writing. I still have a TBR pile way too high. For me, Kathleen Woodwiss, God bless her soul, will always be one of the authors that set the bar. There are so many more, Beatrice Small, Jude Devereaux and the list goes on. I have very loud, groaning shelves all over the house filled with these treasures. (And the Shed, and the garage...if I had an attic or basement...look out!)
ReplyDeleteEven though I read my first romance after college, I never read books by Kathleen Woodiwiss. I own them. I tried to read them, but they were too dated for me. I've read Bertrice Small. I knew her personally and also met Kathleen Woodiwiss. I read one Jude Devereaux, the time travel (Knight in Shining Armor which every one likes), but the heroine turned me off. I did like that at the end of that book, they changed history.
DeleteGone With the Wind, I read once, but stopped counting the times I've seen the move after I got to 35 times.
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ReplyDeletesteps. There have a tendency to be numerous mystery shopping organizations which will pay you to shop, eat from eateries and be a piece of center associations.
Trolling on the Harlequin Heartwarming blog? Is nothing sacred?! 🙃
ReplyDelete