What's made the biggest difference in my romance reading?
But first... Thank you, lovely readers, for visiting with us during this exciting BLOGIVERSARY week! I'm gifting one Amazon $US20 gift voucher for a comment posted below, selected randomly by putting all commenters' names in a hat and pulling one out. Ooh, quick, what are you waiting for? So DO comment, and come back tomorrow when I will post the winner. Good luck!
(Check the comments box below to find out yesterday's Treasure Hunt winner.)
So... what has made the biggest difference in my reading?
Easy. THE INTERNET. I grew up pre-internet (yes, I'm that old, le gasp), and information about romance books wasn't easily found. My best find was the upcoming books listed in the back of the Mills & Boon romances. Or hitting op shops and fetes (my purse was smaller then). The library's always been trumps, bless their cotton socks. Any of this sound familiar? 
When I found Romance Writers of Australia I nearly wept for joy. And, I met famous authors. I had some severe cases of writer worship happening ... (ahem, this still happens). Join, everyone, join, or find your sister organisation (eg. Romance Writers of America, Romance Writers of New Zealand). The conferences and publications are awesome. You meet authors and get free books. Meet authors! Get free books! Make friends!
From RWA I found RT Book Reviews, which was then called Romantic Times, and my bliss expanded. I subscribed instantly; a whole new world of information about the romance genre opened up. Not only were there reviews about every romance you could want, other genres and industry trends, but the magazine linked me into a community of international romance readers.
I loved finding websites such as All About Romance and joining a Yahoo romance readers' list. I discovered subgenres within romance (who knew?). I read my way through the early days of the paranormals, and charted the huge change in historicals from bodice rippers (a thing of the distant past) to fantastic I-Can-Save-Myself-Heroines. Cue fave film Ever After...
I'm now so spoilt for choice in my reading. I can choose a 'book' book or an ebook. I can choose chick lit, inspirational, contemporary, historical, paranormal, romantic suspense, whatever! I can find backlists and the order of a series (eg. via Fantastic Fiction, or author websites). If it's on the internet, you can find it. Fabulous.
Tell me, what's made the biggest difference in your romance reading over the years? Anything like my journey? Can't wait to hear from you.
Love from Miranda. xx
I love to love... the fun we're having with the Blogiversary!
I love to laugh... at how easy it is today to find romance books to read.
I love to learn... other people's stories about their reading journeys. Please tell all?
Picture Credits:
Romance Writers of Australia from: www.romanceaustralia.com
RT Book Reviews from: RT Daily Blog | RT Book Reviews www.rtbookreviews.com
Ever After from: Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998) - IMDb www.imdb.com
Australian Romance Readers Association from: https://www.youtube.com/user/ARRAinc
Good morning, all! Thank you so much to everyone who entered the Treasure Hunt yesterday! We had so many correct entries that I had to put all the names in a hat for my hubby to draw out a name. And the winner of the 'I love red!' pack is...Nicole Hurley-Moore!!! Nicole, could you please send an email with your home address to breathlessinthebush@gmail.com and I'll send that prize to you.
ReplyDeleteAnd don't forget to enter today's comp to win a $20US Amazon gift voucher, thanks to Miranda. Just leave a comment and you're in the running.
DeleteOoh, you lucky duck Nicole. I love that va va voom red gift pack! Hope you enjoy wearing that delish kimino, and all that other luxury.
DeleteKimono, I mean. Can't spell...
DeleteHi Miranda. Reading's great today, isn't it? We are very spoilt. So many choices from so many different ways of publishing. I do take advantage of this. In my buying, that is, not with my reading. Reading has been overtaken by writing, with every spare moment I write. My TBR pile is overflowing!
ReplyDeleteEnisa, my TBR is like the quote from Toy Story: 'To infinity and beyond!' ... And I love every book waiting to be read already. Bring it on.
DeleteP.S. What's next on your TBR?
DeleteNext is the To Kill A Mockingbird prequel. I've heard of people refusing to read it for fear of ruinibg their memories of the great classic but I'm intrigued by what the author thought of Atticus' s early years.
DeleteCongratulations Nicole Hurley-Moore. When I first started reading romance I was a teen so my book shop was actually my mother's bookshelf. Later I would buy from the local book store but there wasn't as much variety as there is now. When the internet came along it did change everything. Today's readers are so lucky to have choice. With Amazon, Kobo, Nook, ibooks, Google books and more to find your books in digital or paperback what is not to love? All I can say is go forth and read.
ReplyDeleteCassandra, you are preaching to the converted. I also love the way the e-readers seem to often come pre-loaded with classic *for free*... or you can download them for free. Something for nothing, in this expensive day and age! And then, this last weekend, I think I downloaded about twenty free romances. Be still my heart. So indeed, we're all spoilt for choice, and there's no excuse for not reading. How fabulous.
DeleteCassandra, I forgot to ask you what you most like to read these days? Do tell.
DeleteHi Miranda, thanks for your post. I started reading Mills and Boon at about eighteen because my mother was a merchandiser and used to bring some of the books home. The internet has made a difference to life as we once knew it hasn't it... My kids wouldn't know what it was like to go to the library and borrow a book or study. They just download and Google. I must say I love the advantages of the internet for networking, research, finding books and authors... well everything really.
ReplyDeleteAnd I managed to find a copy of your mother's first book, Karen Davis.
DeleteAnd I have that first book (a Silhouette Romance) along with her first mainstream on my keeper shelf, Karen.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteKaren, how lucky you were to have the beautiful Lynne Wilding bring you home books, books, books. And I have some of hers on my shelf. Very precious to me.
DeleteRobyn, it's always such a find to hunt down a treasure... and Enisa, like me, you're keeping those treasures on your shelf. Everything to enjoy.
OMG! Thank you so much!!! :D
ReplyDeleteHi Nicole! It's lovely to see one of our regular commenters winning a giveaway. Congratulations!
DeleteThank you! xxx
DeleteCongratulations, Nicole. Enjoy!
DeleteI can just imagine what you'll be wearing when you write up your next novel!
DeleteI think we might all need to see Nicole in the red kimino. ;) Enjoy!
DeleteThanks everyone! xxx
DeleteSorry, kimono... I've been spelling it wrong... Oopsies.
DeleteI think one of the biggest changes to my reading has to be migrating to Australia in 1990. Mass market paperbacks were very expensive when I was growing up in Malaysia and the only romances I could find to read were Mills and Boons. Romances were definitely not easy to find in our local library - as a whole society was quite conservative, so book covers with half naked men and scantily-clad women would have been frowned upon. You can probably imagine the expression on my face when I first saw a Fabio cover on a Johanna Lindsey paperback in a little bookshop in Canberra city. What did I do? Well, I promptly bought it with money a relative had given me as a little goodbye gift. Great investment. I think I must have borrowed at least 15 full-length romance paperbacks on my first visit to the library here. I thought I had died and gone to readers' heaven.
ReplyDeleteSuch great memories!
Euphrasia, thanks for stopping by! And yes, I can indeed imagine the startling thrill of seeing Fabio after having such a conservative book cover beginning... I think of Fabio and automatically think of Johanna Lindsey too - impossible to imagine anyone but him on those pretty sexy covers! And aren't libraries the ant's pants? They are fabulous treasure troves for romance, they really are. They know *what readers want* and they try to provide, year after year. I am in awe of them. Such a terrific way to enjoy romance when the budget is a bit tight, or you're not sure about an author you haven't read before. I love libraries.
DeleteP.S. Euphrasia, are you still a library reader, or do you tend to buy romances now? And given your alter ego writes Regencies, do you like them the most?
DeleteMiranda,
ReplyDeleteI read many books containing various degrees of romance as I was growing up, but it wasn’t until I started my own writing that my ideas about literature changed.
Before Romance Writers of Australia (RWAus) started, I used to be a member of the local Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW) branch. At one of their meetings, there was a discussion to which an author contributed her romance writing experiences. This writer had attempted to pen manuscripts for Mills & Boon (M&B) numerous times, but always fell flat on her back, (not in the literary sense) each time.
She said that it was so hard to write for M&B... Well, I wanted to know what she was on about, and after I left that meeting, I went on a book search, locating an M&B that had been printed in 1972. In it, the hero kissed the heroine on the nape of the neck. What was so scary about that? That became a turning point for me, because I had to prove how wrong that FAW author had been about writing love stories.
Many books and copious notes later, I ended up at the first RWA conference where I was truly daunted. From the Late Lynne Wilding to the Emma Darcy Duo, attendees were told how hard that road to publication had been for them. Still, I've hung in there, shedding the negatives, but gaining support from like minded people in RWA along the way.
Also, some time before the first conference, there had been a notification in our local paper, asking people interested in writing about romance to go along to Burwood where a group of romance writers planned to gather and share experiences. That was the start of RWA as Enisa will tell you. Unfortunately, commitments at the time made my attendance at that location impossible, but my luck changed when one of my work colleagues read a newspaper in which he found a photo of the Emma Darcy duo sitting on grass. They were surrounded by their books which formed a heart shape. When I saw the photo and article, I was hooked and booked into the first RWA conference!
During the ensuing years, I undertook a crime writing course and went along to a w/e crime writing workshop. NEVER AGAIN! Already, there is so much violence around that I came away feeling down, something that never happens after one has attended an uplifting, romance writing workshop or conference. That crime writing workshop was to have been my free time, not my working time, so I was amazed to find myself psychoanalysing one of the speakers who ‘got his jollies’ out of watching audience reactions to his false photographs of exit wounds. To do this, he and a friend had chopped up chicken livers and placed them on the alleged deceased’s back before photographing them. Eventually, these photos were submitted to a true crime magazine. Some people have no conscience.
Turning fact into faction is not my scene. Give me a good romance any day, even a romantic suspense novel, and it doesn’t really matter if there isn’t a HEA within cooee of the finishing line, just as long as there's a road to romance and escapism from the real world for any given time.
Hi Robyn, waving! Lovely to see you here. And boy howdy, haven't you done your chops as a romance reader *and* author. You know what's what. I always come back to romance, even when I read other genres (yes, I know that's a shocking admission, but I do...). I think I might avoid the chicken livers, though, urgh... horrors... Why and how is that fun? Give me romance, any day, over chopped chicken livers pretending to be True Crime photos. (?!?!) Have you got any favourite authors, Robyn? Would love to know. Do tell.
DeleteMiranda,
DeleteI could prattle on about favourite authors but I'll cut right to the chase. If I were to be handed a bundle of books then I'd sift through them and pick out Anne Gracie's novel. I deliberately waited until the ARRA Book Signing so I'd only have to carry it one way, but what a treat to have in my suitcase!
Heading over to the paranormal, I found Kylie Griffin's books. After reading her first one, I told her that she was getting close to Anne Gracie. I'm not thinking about anyone else right now as I have to stay focused, write, and read...
One of the biggest changes that has influenced my reading is the emergence of Australian rural romance. I always enjoyed small town stories, mainly written by American writers like Debbie Macomber. But now we have so many talented Aussie authors writing about romance in our own rural backyard that it's hard to keep up with them all, and I love it!
ReplyDeleteOh, Marilyn, SO TRUE! There's something about small town and rural settings that is just wonderful. The community. The way everyone knows everyone. The way everyone helps everyone. Debbie Macomber is wonderful at doing this in her small town American stories, and now we have the absolute PLETHORA of Aussie authors doing it for Australia. Any fave authors or recent read recommendations, Marilyn?
DeleteDon't forget to come on back tomorrow, everyone. There'll be an exciting new post, and you can check to see if you've won the $US20 gift voucher. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteAnd the WINNER of today's Blogiversary is..... (drumroll....): ROBYN ALDRIDGE! Congratulations, Robyn! Please send your email addy to breathlessinthebush@gmail.com and we can send you your $US20 voucher!
ReplyDeleteHave fun stocking up on some romances! Happy reading, and congratulations from all of us at BITB. And keep coming back all week, we're not done yet...! Plenty more fun to be had and prizes to be won.
Thank you so much. I'm coming in late today as I keep being interrupted. (It's a bit hard to put a do not disturb sign on the door when the door's been removed for fixing! Still, it's nice to be wanted.
ReplyDelete