Instead of scheduled posts and review this week, we have decided to join Dear Author and other blogs as part of a blogger black out in light of the recent incident concerning Kathleen Hale and #Haleno.
We wont be posing any new release reviews for the period between today until Monday but we plan to do a post over the next few days about our love of reading and favorite authors. We want to celebrate and focus on the good and positive aspects for blogging and reviewing books and we hope you could take part with this. So to set things off what is your favorite author or the book that helped to fall in love with a genre or love of reading!
I was a big reader as a kid, but stopped in high school and college. A friend of mine in my last year of college game me a handful of books one day to try out. They were Bitten by Kelley Armstrong, Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison and Guilty Pleasures by LKH. After that, I was hooked. I spent hours at my local library, I quickly discovered Patty Briggs, and Ilona Andrews, and Keri Arthur, and Kresley Cole. Then I started reading contemporary romance and historicals and sci-fi and fantasy romance books. I feel in love with reading again, and haven’t looked back since. 🙂
Same here! Ever since my teacher recommended me to read The Neverending Story which was a big book for me to read at the time! I’ve never looked back. I glommed old Mills and Boons historicals and then later old skool historical romances as well as authors like Nora Roberts and Lisa Kleypas. But I totally fell in love with paranormal romance and UF by authors like Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews and Patricia Briggs and I love that the genre has grown and evolved into so many ways.
Gone with the Wind was my gateway to reading. I was also very lucky to have a great English teacher who introduced me to Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and so many other classic types of romance that I started reading more historical romances.
I have always read, voraciously. I discovered romances young–found a copy of The Sheik that I still own, almost thirty years and four countries later–and shortly after category romance, and I’ve never stopped reading it since.
I still read other things on occasion, mystery, some science fiction, some non-fiction, but by and large, I read romance in most of its sub genres. I think I only avoid UF (not much of a fan, I am not sure why) and inspirational.
I can’t remember not reading. When I was little my parents bought me books instead of candy (this was no hardship as my mom was a fantastic baker :-)). I had a whole collection of Little Golden Books. When I started in school we had Scholastic and our school library. One of our elderly neighbours started me on Laura Ingalls Wilder and Lucy Maud Montgomery. My parents always joked that they never had to worry about losing me in a store. If we got separated, they could always find me in the book section :-).
I started reading romance novels in my teens. I was probably about 15 when I discovered Kathleen Woodiwiss. That began my love affair with romance novels. When I was in university and law school, I got away from romances except for immediately after exams when my friends and I would go to the bookstore and find the books with the most lurid covers on the shelf. Otherwise I mostly read SFF, mysteries and historical fiction.
I started reading romances regularly about 10 years ago when I first discovered online blogs which primarily focussed on romance novels. I am not sure whether it was a Loretta Chase or a Laura Kinsale novel which really brought me back to reading romance on a regular basis, and reminded me why I really love this genre.
I have been a reader for as long as I can remember. My mom read to me from the time I was a baby to when I started reading for myself. I have wonderful memories of siting in mom’s rocking chair with my baby brother reading to him from my favorite books. You never saw my mom, aunts or grandmother without a book somewhere near them especially romances. It was a natural progression for me to pick up romances also. Actually, I still have the very first Harlequin Romance that was bought just for me, A Voice in the Thunder by Elizabeth Hunter. That poor book definitely shows it’s age. LOL!
I’ve always been a reader. I cannot imagine even a day passing without having at least one book to read, and I have been that way all of my life. When I was about 2 years old, I read my favorite book (“Chicken Soup with Rice”) aloud to my mother’s friend’s son — I never looked back. I still love that book, but now my favorites are books by Patricia Briggs, Ilona Andrews, and Nalini Singh; or Carla Kelly, Judith Lansdowne and Jeanne Savery.
I’m a librarian now (no one who knew me as a child is the least shocked by this), and, for me, the most thrilling, most rewarding aspect of my job is finding just the right book to spark the joy of reading in someone who has never experienced it. It’s almost like discovering the wonder of books all over again, myself.
Rock on, readers!
I started reading romance in 1983 as a young teen. I really would not recommend the first romance I read to today’s teens. It was a rapey historical, Heart of Thunder by Johanna Lindsey. The heroine actually shoots the hero as he rides away. She tries to get him in the balls, and misses only by an inch or so. At that age, all that drama appealed to me, but the last time I tried to read it, over a decade ago, it was much too much of what I call: “I hate you/ Let’s have sex!” Still, it got me hooked on the genre, and I remember it fondly for that.
Can you fix the italics in the previous post for me? Please please pretty please? Only the title of the book was meant to be in italics.
Pingback: Blogger blackout – Book Thingo
@Janine Ballard: Fixed! 🙂
This is childish. I am deleting/unfollow in all bloggers to are taking part in bloggers blackout
@Janine Ballard: LOL, I remember reading Rosemary Rogers in high school. A few years ago I was cleaning out my mother’s house and came across a box of my old books and decided to take a peak at some of them, including Sweet Savage Love. What a hoot! Sometimes I do wish we could have more “epic” stories like this in historical romances – minus all of the rapey and abusive parts of course (I didn’t enjoy those bits of Rogers back when I first read them).
@Claire Cutler: Thank you for letting us know.
*cue amazement*