Romance authors like Alyssa Cole and Tessa Bailey talk about the book that started it all for them.
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00:00The book that got me into romance is something that I found in my 4th grade teacher's little
00:11closet library, so thank you, Ms. Feskin.
00:14The book is called Anne of the Wild Rose Inn, yes, I still have a copy, and it was a middle
00:20grade romance, young adult romance, and it is set during the Revolutionary War.
00:27The heroine's family owns an inn, and you know, there's intrigue and drama from the
00:33Redcoats and the Patriots, and although I did love romance stories, this is the first
00:39actual, I guess, book that was a full genre romance format that I loved, and yeah, this
00:46is what really made me want to write romance.
00:49The book that got me into romance was Lisa Claypass's The Wallflower Series.
00:54I know I was supposed to pick just one book, but I can't.
00:56That whole series made me fall in love with romance.
00:59Growing up, all I really cared about when I was watching a movie or reading a book or
01:04even listening to stories about real life people was the romantic plot, the romantic
01:10subplot.
01:11That was all that fed me, so when I found books that basically the entire thing was
01:17about the romance, I just realized I had found my home.
01:20The book that got me into reading romance was Hidden Fires by Sandra Brown.
01:25I found it in my grandmother's luggage at a family reunion, and I couldn't put it down.
01:31There was something about it that just spoke to me so deeply.
01:34The book that got me into romance was Full Tilt, which is, I think, a Janet Abonovich
01:40book that came out in 2003-ish.
01:44I was 12 at the time, and I snuck it out of my sister's room, and I hid behind my desk
01:50in my room, and I read it in one afternoon.
01:54That was the first romance I ever read, and I don't think I ever really look back.