Introducing Romance Lovers Anonymous

For all you fellow Hallmark addicts and late-night romance readers.

Image by No-longer-here from Pixabay and Edited by the Author

I’ve loved reading romance novels for almost as long as I’ve been able to read. This love started, I suppose, with cheesy Disney romance movies where prince charming swooped in to save the day, and evolved from there.

Once I reached high school, my mom started sharing her favorite romance novels with me — starting with Janette Oke’s Love Comes Softly series (complete with the original 1980s cover and yellowed pages — see below.) I devoured all of her Janette Oke books (including the When Calls the Heart series — I’m sure I’ll be sharing my thoughts about those books versus the Hallmark series eventually because I have a lot to say there), and soon I was reading more and more Christian/inspirational romance.

Proof of the ’80s cover and yellowed pages straight from my mom’s bookshelf!

Over time, I also started to develop my own taste in romance and started reading everything from inspirational romance to contemporary romance, to young adult romance (hello, Meg Cabot and Sarah Dessen) and historical romance.

I found that romance novels were my happy place — I would lock myself away in my room over school…