I stopped reading romances not long after my mother stopped writing full-time, because there was no longer a steady and abundant flow of them coming into the house. I can’t remember doing much purely pleasure reading through high school and college, and I know I read almost nothing for fun in grad school or law . . . → Read More: Reading Romance Part II — In One Sitting

I started reading romance novels when I was eleven and my mother was trying to make a living as a romance novelist.   For market research, we would visit the local bookstore on release day each month and pick up all the best category romances in the lines my mother was writing for.   Categories are those books published monthly; shorter than single-titles, printed in smaller batches, at the time they probably sold for about four bucks a pop.   You could also get them in the grocery store near the magazines — still can. Continue reading Reading Romance Part I — Raised on Romance