Recently, I made an ass of myself – in the most consensual, I-was-totally-on-board way – by being romance author Andie J. Christopher’s inaugural guest for her new Instagram Live program Drunk (Romance) History. Essentially, I drank sangria and got increasingly goofier and foul-mouthed as I told her about one of my favorite old-school romance books, Teresa Medeiros’ Fairest of Them All.
It was awesome. Not just because of the mid-Saturday drinking and being able to hang out virtually with Andie. But because it also allowed me to wax rhapsodic about my babies: My two-layer deep keeper shelf of old-school romance novels.
I’ve been reading romance since I was 12-ish. I’ve been buying it and relying it as a form of self-caring escapism since I was 14. Once e-books became a thing, I switched much of my purchasing to that platform. But my old-school keeper shelf is evidence of my early dedication to this incredible, female-centric art form.
In her podcast Fated Mates, historical romance author Sarah MacLean said: “I think romance does so much important work in the world…. Romance taught me that women had agency, that heroines were proactive, that you can expect parity in a relationship, that you could expect love and devotion and intellectual stimulation from a partner, that you could expect sexual agency and sexual pleasure from a partner and that kind of lesson is so important.”
That quote was so meaningful to me, that I cried. 😅
This stack of books, read at a crucial period of growth as a maturing girl then young woman, taught me so much about what to expect as a woman, what to expect from the men I was with. I also read fantasy and horror and mystery and scif-fi and literature. Just as I was able to close those books and walk away with important lessons without thinking I needed to fly to the moon or turn into a giant bug to put those lessons to work, I was able to differentiate in a romance novel what was heart-poundingly entertaining and what was valuable insight into the human condition.
“ Just as I was able to close those books and walk away with important lessons without thinking I needed to fly to the moon or turn into a giant bug to put those lessons to work, I was able to differentiate in a romance novel what was heart-poundingly entertaining and what was valuable insight into the human condition.”
These old school books lack diversity. You’ll notice I have few books by authors of color. Sherry Thomas’ “My Beautiful Enemy” was published in 2014 and Beverly Jenkins’ “Forbidden” was published in 2016 – by then I was purchasing most of my books on my e-device. I was so accustomed to seeing myself absent from all the media that I consumed that I never even recognized that I and women with dark skin were missing from the books I read.
Issues of consent are real, too. I began to re-read the first book I ever bought for myself, a much-loved book in which I know whole passages by heart, but I had to put it aside. It was just too much for now. But I can appreciate what that author did for me then, writing with our “then” understanding, trying to appease a middle-American audience who fervently believed good girls said “no” but wanted heroines to be getting it, yes. I appreciate that the author, ultimately, showed me a journey where a heroine determined her course and a hero valued her pleasure.
These are some of my most-read favorites:
Teresa Medeiros, Fairest of Them All
I sold Andie on it by telling her, “This has butt stuff.” It was shocking at the time because NO books had butt stuff back then. It’s the gentlest, sweetest, most illusionary butt stuff you can imagine. But it’s HAWT!!!! Medeiros had this fantastic knack of writing intensely emotive books – truly funny, truly weepy – that were just so damn fun. And hot!!!! This book is about a beauty who shields her beauty to avoid an unwanted marriage, and then falls in love with the man who believes he’s married an ugly duckling who will break his family’s curse. You can get the drunken Cliff Notes here.
Nora Roberts, Tears of the Moon
Nora’s so good at writing big, sweeping books, but this is a little, tiny, hugely heartwarming tale of two people who’ve grown up together in a picturesque Irish village. She’s a handywoman and he’s the cook at his brother’s pub and they discover, out of the blue, that they have the burning-hots for each other. The sex of convenience becomes SO MUCH MORE. I want to bone the hero of this book, a dreamy Irish wanna-be musician, so hard. Apropos of nothing, Nora signed this book in 2005.
Bettina Krahn, The Husband Test
Bettina, like Teresa, could write in any genre and make it awesome. She wrote pirates like nobody’s business. This one’s set in medieval times and it’s a little Sound of Music-esque: The heroine loves being a nun, even though she’s bad at it, and hopes to prove herself by being the best husband judge the convent’s ever seen. When she’s sent to the hero’s broken-down estate to judge him, they both are drawn to each other, even though they both intensely resist it. Because of course. This is one of those books where the heroine pitches in to the community and ultimately makes the world a better place – I love those books.
Julia Quinn, When He Was Wicked
This book was part of the Washington Romance Writer’s retreat swag bag when Julia Quinn and Eloisa James came to our retreat – when I tell that story, I feel like I’m talking about the time I saw Mumford and Sons in a little club with 15 other people. Anyway, this best-friend’s-widow book grabbed me and wouldn’t let go – I stayed in my room to read it and missed the first half of the retreat! Bad boy Michael (gloriously hot Michael) is the new earl after his best friend and cousin died prematurely, leaving behind a widow that Michael has loved since he met her on her wedding day. He can’t have her – and she’s shocked when she discovers he wants her – and sometimes-prim Julia, who isn’t always my cup of tea, writes yearning SOOOOOOO GOOOOOOD in this book.
Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Dream A Little Dream
I’ve met SEP five times and I’ve cried every single time. Her writing… If the job of a horror writer is to make you scream and the job of a mystery writer is to make you puzzle, then a job of a romance writer is to make you feel. Viscerally feel the sensation of falling in love. No one does that better then SEP. She creates complicated characters and gives them joy and anguish and humor and irritating habits and makes them fully fleshed creatures we can deeply empathize with. In Dream A Little Dream, the heroine and her young son are as destitute as they can be – her scraping the thinnest layer of peanut butter out of a jar is a detail I can never forget – when their car breaks down in front of what looks like an abandoned drive in. The drive-in’s surly, damaged and HOT owner, whose half-heartedly trying to fix the drive-in up, wants nothing to do with them. Of course. This is a fantastic gut-wrenching book of two broken people finding peace together.
Laura Kinsale, The Shadow and the Star
I’m pretty sure I picked this book up for its Fabio cover. But the incredible insides…Kinsale was a literary romance writer, always pushing herself and the genre to its limits. One of her books was written in Middle English. Another was about a man’s debilitating brain hemorrhage – he loses his speech, ability to reason, control of his movements — and the woman who nurses him back. The Shadow and the Star is about a man who was sexually violated as a child before he was rescued by an aristocratic family. Now, he seeks peace and knows how to commit stealthy violence. He meets a Jane-Eyre-type woman – although she’s beautiful – who finds her strength and peace in propriety. It’s an incredible and unlikely pairing and a beautifully written book. Kinsale writes sentence that you want to lick.