Romance Novels & Me

A Girl & Her Books

I read my very first romance novel at ten. Thinking about that now mostly has my head spinning about the fact that it's been 21 years since I was ten. Time and age are fickle things, advancing quickly while the daily hours seem to drag on forever. Anyways, it was 2000 and my cousin, who was twelve and therefore very wise and grown up in my eyes, handed me a romance novel she had borrowed from the library. It was a new release and she had just finished reading it and loved it so much that she wanted to talk about it with someone. Knowing how much I loved to read made me the obvious choice and I took it from her gladly. I read it while sprawled out across her bedroom floor over the course of the next two days, not looking up from it for hours at a time. I was totally enthralled.

My memory of what happened in this book are sparse. It was returned to the library and eventually I forgot about it altogether as I was engrossed in other books, a good portion of them more romance novels. Recently I did some digging based off of my vague memories of it and did manage to hunt down a copy. It was The Wish by Marianne Willman. It's not a book I've ever heard anyone talk about since it came out so I'm amazed I remembered at all. I haven't reread it yet but I absolutely plan to.

My Romance With Romance Novels

This first book opened the floodgates. I fell in love with historical romance novels. The reason for this love was twofold. 

1. I'm a total sucker for stories about love and romance. I am one of those people that thinks most media can benefit from more kissing. 
2. I'm a history nerd and historical romances gave me a fun way to earn and explore periods of time that were interesting to me. 

To this day I think that historical romance is my favorite subgenre under the romance umbrella. 

Historicals are also what I had the most access to. A common thing I hear a lot of people in "Romancelandia" talk about it is how they started at a young age and read in secret. They read in dark corners of the libraries and stashed books under their beds. I was really lucky because I was never given restrictions on what I was allowed to read. My mother's philosophy was always that if I could understand what I was reading then I should be allowed to read it and if I couldn't, well, then it didn't really matter. My mother also had a ton of these historical romance novels on her shelf, as did my grandmother. The love of reading and romance in my family has been passed down across several generations. Like I said, I was lucky; while my fellow young romance lovers had to sneak their books, I was given open access to all the Julie Garwood, Catherine Coulter, and Stephanie Laurens I could want.

The Importance of Romance Novels

Romance was formative for me as a preteen and teenager. I was an avid reader, a lover of stories and knowledge. Books were the way I satisfied my desire to learn and romance taught me a lot. The obvious first thing of course is that romance books taught me about sex. There's plenty of closed door romances out there, but that's not what I was reading. The books I was consuming had explicit sex scenes and the fact that I read so much of them really saved my mother from having to give me "the talk." And while I think there can be some issues with learning about sex from old school romance novels especially, I was reading at a time when the tides within the genre were starting to shift. A lot of the books I was reading had a real focus on female pleasure and the consent was clearer. At a young age I learned that sex is not one-sided and that I should expect not to just give pleasure, but to receive it as well. In a world where that is not often emphasized to young woman, I feel incredibly lucky.

Listen, I get it, to people outside of the romance world, reading books with explicit sex scenes at ten years old sounds crazy. I can't tell people what they should allow their kids to read, all I can say is that reading romance at a young age was incredibly beneficial to me. And we can't just focus in on the sex pieces of these books and pretend like there's nothing else to them. I had family members who used to refer to romance novels as nothing more than "porn for women" and I hate that. It's reductive and meant to be demeaning, often keeping people from venturing into the romance shelves at stores and libraries for fear of ridicule. Here's the thing though, as much as I love a steamy romance book, to me the genre is about joy.

Romance Is About Joy

It's about finding someone (or someones) who you connect with and who will love and support you in your life. Romance gives us hope and happily-ever-afters. It tells us that we all deserve to be loved and cared for. And when I say all of us, I really mean all. The genre has grown so much. It's clear that it started as really a place for women and white women at that, but over time it's become so much more expansive and inclusive. It's for all genders and races and sexualities. Romance is for everyone. Love is for everyone. What is more joyful than that?

So now you want to read a historical romance novel?

Of course I have recommendations, I've been reading romance for over twenty years! I have recommendations coming out of my ears.

Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah Maclean

    A fun Regency read about Lady Calpurnia who is sick of not living her life and makes a list of scandalous activities to partake in including kissing and smoking cheroot. Her and her list get tangled up with the Marquess of Ralston and sexiness ensues. This is Sarah Maclean's debut adult romance and the beginning of the lush romance universe that she has laid out in the rest of her books.

The Rogue of Fifth Avenue by Joanna Shupe

    This is the first in Joanna Shupe's Uptown Girls trilogy and I highly recommend them all! It's a Gilded Age romance set in New York City and features a secretive lawyer to the wealthy elite of the city and the Robin Hood-esque daughter of one of said elites. I love the way Joanna Shupe writes about class barriers and the way we perceive people based on their upbringing and wealth. Plus, this book is super sexy.

The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite

    A beautiful love story set in nineteenth century England between a widowed Countess and a young female astronomer who is fighting to have her work recognized. This book really delivers on chihgly competent characters and yearning. Olivia Waite can really make you feel all the feelings. Plus, I love a good queer historical romance.