Love Affair

I fell in love with romance when I was very young. I think I was 12 or 13. No, wait, I was 11. I read 'Gone With The Wind' in 3 days. Hey, 1100 pages is a pretty big feat when you're 11. To this day, it remains my favorite book. I highly recommend it, it's WAY better than the movie.

Anyhoo, the point is that people never really get over your first love. I sure haven't. I must have read thousands of romance novels. I started with HQ Temptation and Desire. No HQ Presents for me. I went straight to the 'hardcore.' Story of my life. My favorite writers of the time were Barbara Delinsky, Ruth Jean Dale, Kate Hoffmann, and Olivia Rupprecht. (Sidebar: Hurts So Good is a Loveswept that is totally fucking awesome!) As I matured so did my taste. I went from serials to single titles. Here, I discovered Nora and Jayne. Then, as my mind was in its formative years, I discovered historicals and they totally blew my mind. Linda Lael Miller and Susan Johnson. These books were dirty. And graphic. And wonderful. Not just because of the sex although I do have to say that as a hormone riddled teen, the sex was definitely an added bonus.

But more than that I love the fact that there is always a happy ending. I love happy endings. (In books, smartasses. I am NOT a masseuse.) I enjoyed, and still enjoy, couples overcoming adversity and pain and finding something good and true at the end. This was especially important to me because my life had never been a particularly happy one. I was a shy, socially isolated teenager. For me, there was always tunnel and no light. In romance novels, the hero and heroine always managed to find that light. It gave me hope. It helped me to think that maybe, just maybe, I could have that same happiness. That the suffering I was going through could make me stronger.

That's why I write romance. For me, it was a lifeline. I hope that in someday, my words will someday give that same hope and happiness to another person. That's why I write romance. That's my great love affair.

And even after all these years, the sex still ain't bad.