On The Outside Looking In
Whenever fans of romance books talk about their "first time" in the genre, inevitably the names Mary Stewart, Victoria Holt and Kathleen Woodwiss come up. Sure, other authors are mentioned but these three seem to be in the library of every right-thinking, card-carrying romance reader. Everyone knows their work. Everyone can talk, at great and sometimes exhausting length, about where they were and what they were wearing when they first picked up these authors’ books. About gothic romances and the glory of the Flame and the Flower.
I have no idea what any of you are talking about. Really, no idea. I’ve always loved to read but came very late to romance. Like 1998. Before that I read everything but romance. Yeah, I was one of those. Then one day, during a particularly brutal time at work, a fellow worker bee gave me three romances to read: The Bride by Julie Garwood, Perfect Partners by Jayne Ann Krentz and Daniel’s Bride by Linda Lael Miller. She promised a happy ending and a solid story. She delivered. Or, maybe I should say, the authors delivered.
So, 7 years later and I still haven’t read even a paragraph written by Holt, Stewart or Woodwiss. I’m sure they’re all great but I’ve decided, instead, to have my own trio of romance authors to be my "firsts" in this genre. Now, I’ve read every book written by all three of these ladies. Loved some and others not as much. Am loyal enough to continue to buy as long as they continue to write. This is probably how the rest of you feel about Holt, Stewart and Woodwiss.
What I was wearing when I read these books? Any book ever? No idea.
April 17th, 2005 at 1:57 pm
I love Woodiwiss. I named my daughter after Shanna. However the writing is very much from the early period of romance and by that I mean it’s very, very flowery and purple. However it doesn’t take long to get past that and fall into the stories. I don’t read Woodiwiss any longer, but a few of her books are immovably on my keeper shelf.
April 17th, 2005 at 2:05 pm
I completely relate to what you are saying. I started reading romance in about 1996. A friend loaned me Nobody’s Angel by Karen Robards. I started out with Miller, Krentz/Quick, Garwood, Heather Graham, Mary Balogh, and other authors who were huge at the time. I’ve never felt the need to explore the “classics” of the genre. I’ve heard enough about them from people online to know that most will not appeal to me.
April 17th, 2005 at 6:35 pm
I know that I read some Holt as a teenager, but I honestly can’t remember anything about it. I’ve read the Mary Stewart Arthurian books, although nothing else by her. And I’ve never read Woodwiss at all. (However, given that I may be doing my PhD on perspectives of the romance genre, I’ll probably have to find Woodwiss at some stage given her influence.)
I started reading romance by reading my mother’s books - she loved Lucille Andrews, Essie Summers, Mary Neels. I have soft spots for them, but I wouldn’t call them my favourites or talk at exhausting length about them. Although I do remember that Anne Mather’s ‘The Leopard in the Snow’ was the first romance I read that had sex in it. Not Mum’s style, though, so she didn’t buy any more like that
April 17th, 2005 at 8:42 pm
I just found three Woodiwiss books in hardback at the library book sale for fifty cents apiece and picked them up because I remember them with fondness. The funny thing is, I’ll probably never read them again. I read some Woodiwiss when I was younger (I hasten to add I’m not old enough to have read ASHES IN THE WIND when it first came out!), but her style is just too flowery for me to enjoy nowadays. I find this to be true of most of the early romances I loved. I still have all my beloved Shirlee Busbee books (my first romance ever was her DECEIVE NOT MY HEART) and my Valerie Sherwood romances (the reason I began writing colonial Virginia romances!), but I can’t seem to get into the darned things any more. My taste in reading has changed, sadly enough, and the old romances just don’t do it for me. But I let them keep their places of honor on my shelves anyway.
April 18th, 2005 at 12:07 am
You’re not alone, HK. I’ve never read those ladies either.
April 18th, 2005 at 12:12 pm
I cut my teeth on Barbara Cartland at the ripe old age of 11-12. I read Woodwiss and Holt when between 12-14, by 15 I’d moved on to King and Koontz and when I got a drivers license and found the UBS it was Garwood and Deveraux and Lindsay. Like Ellen, my tastes have changed but I’m still a huge like diehard fan of both Garwood and Deveraux–they were the ones who made me laugh, so honestly, those are the ones I consider more my firsts.
April 18th, 2005 at 5:57 pm
I came to the romance genre in 2002 *G* And I was 18. So, I’m definitely very young to the genre. But for years before, I had been reading books that I didn’t know were “romances”. Victoria Holt was my first foray into the “adult” section of the library (for years, as a child, I thought I’d get into trouble if I strayed from the children’s section) and I didn’t even consider them to be “romances”. I’m a fast reader who didn’t know anything about the genre and so that’s how I ended up reading most of the “classics”. Though, I’ve never read a Woodiwess or Nora Roberts. For some reason I can’t muster up enough interest to read their novels.
April 19th, 2005 at 8:44 pm
I also came late to the romance game…around 1998. My firsts were historicals…Garwood and Johanna Lindsey and Julie Quinn. I mostly read action/adventure, military, fantasy, and science fiction before that. Read one Woodiwiss and didnt like it and never read Stewart or Holt.