I have a humiliating confession to make...I'm addicted to romance novels.
Now millions of people read romances, and I'm not knocking them. It's just that I've been a voracious reader my whole life, and my milieu of choice has always been mystery/ suspense/ thrillers. Six months ago I'd have said, proudly, I've never read a Harlequin in my life.
Then Harlequin celebrated its 60th anniversary by giving away sixteen free books.
Ah, free books, I thought, downloading happily. Just in case I run out of things to read. And romance, well, it turns out that most of the fan fiction I've written has been of the romantic genre, so what the hay?
One evening in March I was out of things to read so I opened one of the free Harlequins. It gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling, so I opened another. And just like that I was hooked. I started bidding for lots of Harlequins on eBay and even got my friend Mud to ship me a box from halfway across the U.S. And four months later I've read over 150 Harlequins, average one per day. (And btw, that picture on the left is one of my actual bookshelves, filled with romances.)
I really didn't understand why my reading tastes had taken such a dramatic turn toward the romantic until dearest Noel, the Great Google Goddess, found a story from the Washington Post, "In Tough Times, Romance Is Easy to Love." To quote Megan Scott's AP article, "Love may not conquer all in real life, but its power in relatively inexpensive books is quite a comfort in this economy."
So that's it. Now I understand. When times are tough, the tough read romances.
Whew! I'm normal.
What a relief.
