About

I read my first romance novel unwittingly.  My aunt lent me her Love Come’s Softly series by Jeannette Oak, and because it was Christian and I was 12, I didn’t realize it was also Romance.  I just knew I cared a lot more about what happened to Marty and Clark than anyone in Flowers for Algernon or in The Yearling or in any of the other depressing novels I was reading in school.

It wasn’t until I was a sophomore in high school and a friend lent me her aunt’s Velvet series by Jude Devereux that I read a “real” romance novel.  I was hooked.  My friend became my supplier because I knew what my dad would say if he saw me with one of “those” books, so I certainly couldn’t let strangers at the library see me with one. 

When we moved before I graduated, I was cut off and didn’t read another romance novel until I was desperately trying to finish my master’s thesis.  The Sheik got me through chapter one, Pamela Morsi got me through most of the rest of it, and LaVyrle Spencer made the final edits possible.  I should have thanked them by name in my list of recognitions, but of course, no one could know I was reading Romance.

Like most dirty little secrets, however, I’ve found the room is generally full of people hiding their pink clinch-covered books from would-be critics–this would have to be since romance is the biggest selling genre.  Which got me thinking. What do we know that the rest of the genres are missing?  Clearly something significant about the human condition and what’s important to women if we’re writing and reading more books than anyone else.

So this site is for all of you furtive people out there reading your happily-ever-afters in secret.