I’ve been a romance reader since I was fifteen and a classmate handed me Johanna Lindsey’s Hearts Aflame, a book which remains, to this day, one of my favorite historicals. At first, I just read Lindsey, (even then, I understood the importance of authorial voice) but then I branched out into Amanda Quick, and the rest is history.
Nice story, huh? It’s the one I tell when the conversation turns to discovering romance novels. (It’s a popular topic. For some reason, romance readers like talking about “their first.â€) But it’s not true. No, I’d been a romance reader long before that.
I was a romance reader at eight when I read M.M. Kaye’s beautiful The Ordinary Princess, where the princess Amy, appalled by her parents’ marital plans for her (they involve tower imprisonment and a hired dragon), runs away from home and starts a new life as a scullery maid, only to fall for a mysterious man who works in the castle. (Little wonder that, almost two decades later, when I sat down to write a series about an ordinary girl in an extraordinary situation, I named her Amy).
I was a romance reader at nine when I read C.S. Lewis’s The Horse and His Boy more often than any other book in the Narnia series. It’s a romance—not about a horse—but about the teenage peasant Shasta and his ongoing battles with the haughty but ultimately heroic foreign princess Aravis. Together they escape from their abusive homes with their Talking Horses, cross the desert, submit to the will of Aslan (of course), save Narnia, and live happily ever after. The line, “Years later, when they were grown up, they were so used to quarreling and making it up again, that they got married so as to go on doing it more conveniently,†has always been one of my favorites.
I was a romance reader at eleven when I read L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of the Island, the book in which Anne Shirley goes off to college and finally gets together with Gilbert Blythe. Not that it’s easy. Silly Anne doesn’t think she loves him that way, and their black moment lasts nearly half the book after she turns down his marriage proposal and they both start seeing other people. This twist provides us with whole chapters worth of romantic, torturous scenes such as the time Anne receives flowers from both her beau and from Gilbert, chooses to wear Gilbert’s, only to suffer her lover’s disappointment and secretly thrill at Gilbert’s surprised smile. In the end, they too live happily ever after, as we see in the subsequent books.
I was such a romance reader at twelve when my mother introduced me to Gene Stratton Porter’s A Girl of the Limberlost. An unabashedly romantic story about nature girl Elnora Comstock and her sickly, city-slicker boyfriend Phillip Ammon, whom she teaches the wonders of moth collecting in the Indiana wilderness before letting him decide for himself whether to choose her or the vain, petty heiress he’d grown up worshipping. I’ve read this book so often that the binding glue gave up the ghost. It’s now a pile of pages with a rubber band around it.
It wasn’t such a leap to go from these childhood favorites to the romances that proclaim their genre on the spine. Perhaps my early development in “non-genre romances†is the cause of my unwillingness to pigeonhole my favorite genre. I don’t care what it says on the spine; I know a romance when I see it. And I don’t need my romances to limit themselves to some established set of rules about what professions or personalities or sexes the characters can have, or how many books it takes for the characters to get their HEA (Gilbert and Anne took three, and then they had several more in which we saw them living it).
But I do know that I can’t wait to have a daughter who will read A Girl of the Limberlost or The Ordinary Princess, and who will, like I did when I was a girl, delight in the beautiful romances they contain. And I’m adding more to my list of gateway romances all the time, as new books come out that touch my heart the way my old favorites do.
I just sent a copy of one to the daughter of a friend. Keturah and Lord Death, by Martine Leavitt, is a 2006 National Book Award Finalist and a gorgeous romance. It’s an enchanting fairy tale about a young peasant girl who repeatedly thwarts death by withholding the end of a story about…wait for it… true love. (And yes, I get a real kick out of a romance receiving such a prestigious honor.)
And then there’s Valiant, by Holly Black, the bestselling author of The Spiderwick Chronicles—though I might hold off on this one until well after my hypothetical daughter is ready for “sweet†genre romance. It’s a dark, heartbreaking fantasy, complete with sex, drugs, and a gripping Beauty-and-the-Beast romance. It’s been more than a year since I first read this book, and I still can’t stop talking about it.
What were your gateway romances? And what book have you read lately that you’d call a romance, despite where it’s shelved in your bookstore?
No related posts.
The first one I consciously remember reading was the Bonnie series by Barbara Van Tuyl. Or what about A Wrinkle in Time with Meg and Calvin. Or The Prydain Chronicles with Taran and Eilonwy.
Sheesh, even Nancy Drew had Ned!
Romance, romance everywhere! I was always a sucker for it…
Great post!
My gateway romance was They Loved To Laugh by Kathryn Worth. I read this book in elementary school over 30 years ago. It was wonderful. Here’s a discription at Amazon.com:
In 1831 in rural North Carolina, sixteen-year-old Martitia, newly orphaned and timid, comes to live with a large, boisterous Quaker familywhose five sons delight in teasing and laughter.
I guess it was my first historical, too. This book brings back such sweet memories.
Thanks, Diana, for this great topic and for evoking such a sweet memory. I sometimes forget that I have them.
probably Fifty Famous Fairy Tales. I bought myself.
The wonder, the magic. That love was worth untold dangers.
When I was eleven, twelve, I discovered two historical romances; Judith of France and Journey for a Princess by Margaret Leighton. They were my introduction to historical romance. Both take place during the time of Alfred the Great.
My memory is so poor. I don’t know if you would consider Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume a gateway book, because there was no HEA. But I remember always wondering “what if”:?:
(I’ll begin reading Valiant today.)
I think I was about 10 when I discovered The Little House and Anne of Green Gable series. To be honest I’ve never thought about it but they were a wonderful precursor to romance.
Oh, how I love The Ordinary Princess (and The Far Pavilions too)! My gateway authors were Mary Stewart and L.M. Montgomery. They remain some of my absolute favorite books.
The first book I consciously remember registering the romance of was The Shield Ring by Rosemary Sutcliff. Then stuff like The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia McKillip and The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley. The romances were low key, but the story wouldn’t have worked without them.
My first “Romance” was Fires of Winter by Johanna Lindsey. Didn’t touch another “romance” until my godmother handed me The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer during fall break my freshman year of college. Once I’d read everything Heyer had ever written I had to have more . . . which quickly led to Amada Quick, Jo Beverley, Sabrina Jeffries, suddenly I was buying anything and everything historical, and then I was writing my own. LOL!
The Trixie Belden books.
Oh my goodness, Trixie and Jim, the mysterious red-haired boy. *fans self* Plus there were sub-romances between Honey and Trixie’s brother, and between Brian, Trixie’s other brother and their beautiful friend Di.
When it came to the time when they all went to Iowa to her uncle’s farm and there was a dance… I don’t think I ever felt such delicious anticipation about whether Jim would ask Trixie.
I’m still trying to get this complete collection of books for my daughter.
Marianne, I’d forgotten about Meg and Calvin. Yeah, that was romantic. Them standing in the dark in the beginning like that. Ooh… I’m not familiar with the Bonnie books, though. Or Prydain. I think you lost me with nancy, though. I was never a huge fan of those books, possibly because I didn’t think Ned and Nancy had much in the way of chemistry.
OOh, Barbara! I am going to have to check out that book! It sounds exactly up my (childhood) alley!
Bernita, I’m always a sucker for fairy tales, too. Which one was your favorite? I like 12 Dancing Princesses and the one about the girl with the Swan Brothers — now THAT’S romance.
Sandy, I haven’t heard of those or (embarrassed here) Alfred the Great. I’ll have to check them out!
Eh, Heather, I don’t need an HEA to get my romance fix. Two of my favorite romantic movies, The Terminator, and Casablanca, don’t have HEA. So I’d definitely count it!
Tara Marie, I don’t know about you, but I’ve always wanted to marry Gilbert Blythe.
Jennie, another OP fan! Woo hoo! Not many people know the story, but it was one of my very favorites. I remember when they serialized it in Cricket Magazine. And isn’t it funny how we remember those books weread as children so strongly? I still read the Anne books every once in a while. Such lovely comfort reads. I love the way she describes flowers and food!
Kalen, I don’t think I’m familiar with any of those gateways. But how funny that your first romance was a precursor to my first romance? I don’t think I was a huge fan of FoW because of the rape, but I still love the story of their daughter in Hearts Aflame! (And you’ve reminded me that I still haven’t read any Heyer!)
Annie Dean, I feel like I must have missed out on a big part of childhood by never reading Trixie!
I just love The Ordinary Princess as well. Another lovely one that I always go back to is The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery.
Why when Bambi finally fell in love with Faline, of course. (in the original book, not the Disney version)
I loved animal stories as a child. I must have read Bambi a hundred times. Thought he was a very romantic hero.
Hm… I’d say my early romances were those teen books. My favorite was “Tiger Eyes” by Judy Blume when it first came out.
And I can’t forget Star Wars – the blooming romance between Han Solo and Princess Leia. 
However, I was more into sci-fi and fantasy until I read “Emerald Enchantment” by Patricia Grasso. That one got me hooked!
Well my gateway to romance was through tv. I was fascinated by the romance in The Power Rangers between the pink ranger and the white ranger. Sounds odd but from then on I looked for romance in everything
Thank you all for the joy of remembering all those books that were “once upon a time”, but taught a lot of useful lessons. Considering them romances is an interesting insight which would be denied by a lot of people I know with degrees, but I agree wholeheartedly. Looking back,I just assumed you grew up and met someone you’d marry. HEA came if he didn’t drink and/or beat you. Obviously, the romance stakes are higher now days. No wonder guys say they have problems figuring out women.
HEA is nice, but there is another point to be considered about books that endure. They have something meaningful to say about more than love or romance. For example, I still read the Anne of Green Gables series on a regular basis. It’s one of the best descriptions of rural farm life at the turn of the century going that I’ve found.
Annie Dean Says:
The Trixie Belden books.
Oh my goodness, Trixie and Jim, the mysterious red-haired boy. *fans self* Plus there were sub-romances between Honey and Trixie’s brother, and between Brian, Trixie’s other brother and their beautiful friend Di.
When it came to the time when they all went to Iowa to her uncle’s farm and there was a dance… I don’t think I ever felt such delicious anticipation about whether Jim would ask Trixie.
YES!! YES!! YES!! I was such a Trixie Belden fanatic. Jim, honorable Jim, quiet Jim, gently teasing Jim, He who always believed in Trixie’s abilities to solve crimes, no matter how bubbly and cute she appeared on the surface. I wanted to be a member of the Bobwhite Club so very badly–then I could have a neat teenaged guy to pair off with too. Mmmm.
I’d have to go with Annie on the Trixie series – only Brian was lusting after Honey (and vice versa) and Trixie’s ‘almost-twin’ Mart had the something-something going on with Diana. I loved those books back when I was too young to read Judy Blume.
BTW, the Trixie Beldens were being re-released in hardcover – I’ve found the first 14 or 15 and am slowly buying them for my own daughter. We’ve read the first three so far. She’s still too young for Judy Blume, but I’m looking forward to her reading those as well!
Hmm…I’d have to say my first romance was The Ramsey Scallop by Frances Temple. I was only 12 or so and I positively ached for the heroine and hero to confess their love for each other while on their pilgrimage.
Wow, Trixie Belden… that takes me back. I had a whole shelf-ful, but I never thought of ‘em as romances. I still own A Wrinkle in Time and it also didn’t occur to me that it might be a romance. Somebody mentioned Judy Blume… I read a lot of those and I suppose they had romances in them. I also liked the Anastasia books (Lois Lowry) which if memory serves, also had bits of what could be called romance. (As I recall, she also wanted to be a writer when she grew up. That, and live in a house with a turret.)
My first “real” romance was also a Johanna Lindsay… in my case, Once a Princess. I then read her entire backlist, and then branched out from there. The rest is history.
I think you hit most of my gateway romance books. Ordinary Princess, check. Prydain, check. Horse and His Boy, check. Blue Castle, check.
Also on the list, M. M. Kaye’s The Far Pavilions and Trade Wind, the second of which is absolutely a romance novel. (Trade Wind’s rape scene is notorious in certain circles, but the rest of the book is amazingly gorgeous. Far Pavilions is my favourite of the M. M. Kaye books though, and I’d recommend it as reading to anybody who wants some backstory on colonialism in India and the Middle East, as well as an adventurous romantic story.)
While we’re on the subject of Prydain, Lloyd Alexander’s series, Westmark, also did a lot for me in the romance department.
Mary Stewart’s Touch Not The Cat was my gateway to her books.
Also Elizabeth Pope’s The Perilous Gard and the Sherwood Ring.
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley, as well as her Beauty and the Beast and Spindle’s End and Deerskin.
And this is going to sound a little weird, but Second Foundation, with the unrequited love of the Mule for Bayta. And Dune, for Paul and Chani, as well as Jessica and Leto.
Kimberly Nee, yes! Mart and Di, right. How could I forget? *grins*
I haunt Ebay because I want this complete set so bad.