2T Repeat Performance

In December 2016, the lovely Magical Musings crew decided it was time to close down their blogging shop. I had three wonderful years with them. This is another of those posts.

photo credit: Edgar Barany via photopin cc

It’s Gotta Have Heart--Favorite Things #3--originally posted January 27, 2015

Let's get to know each other! In my first year as a Magical Musings blogger, I'm exploring my 10 favorite things. This is number three.

My husband and I were having a discussion the other day about couples. We've gotten to the stage in our lives when we've rubbed a lot of the painful edges off each other--not quite to where we look alike but I can see the day looming coming.

You can find a recap of the couples discussion on my personal blog, but the point I'm exploring today is a bit different.

Couples in books.

photo credit: cdrummbks
via photopin cc

Growing up I read a lot of science fiction (Isaac Asimov, the Danny Dunn series (which just came out on Kindle in November!!)), fantasy (C.S. Lewis, Five Children and It), magical reality (Zilpha Keatley Snyder, the Freddy the Pig series), historical fiction, and mysteries (Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe).

About my late teens I found the romance section. Remember your first introduction to romance? Me, it was a Harlequin I can't find again (darn it!), Kathleen Woodiwiss, and Johanna Lindsey.

I was hooked. I thought I'd be reading only romance for the rest of my life...

Well, no. Eventually I found traditional romance didn't give me all the things I looked for in reading. Action, adventure, mystery, wonder...these things are subgenres now but then I had to widen my search.

photo credit:BGSU University Libraries
via photopin cc

Who did I find? Janet Evanovich (Stephanie Plum, mystery/humor). Jim Butcher (Dresden Files, SF/fantasy). Elizabeth Peters (Amelia Peabody, mystery). Just recently I started on James Rollins (Map of Bones, Sigma Force series--thriller?), and I'm enjoying the stories immensely, but I'm not totally convinced I'll read the whole series.

Why?

Because strangely, the rest all have romance somewhere in their makeup. HFN or HEA; it may not be more than a small part of the story, but there's attraction somewhere in there that has the potential for committed love and is not just James Bond hitting on the Girl of the Week. (Revolving-door romance does not qualify for me. I'm not sure Rollins will give me that. I'm not sure he'll give his heroes their one-and-only, or if he'll give them a revolving door.)

Point being, when I looked at the books I read, I discovered that small or large, I need romance!

What about you? What was your stepping stone into Romance? Does a story have to have romance for you to read it?