The Very First Romance Book I Ever Read

It was an otherwise ordinary day in 8th grade literature, and I was barely able to keep my eyes open through the lesson. It wasn’t because I was tired that I was so distracted. In fact, I was bored out of my mind, which always frustrated me because it was by far my favorite subject.

To be fair, I still hated grammar. Honestly, who makes rules for a language and then breaks every single one of them. It makes me ’tism hurt! But other than grammar, I liked learning about language and reading or writing or studying literature for an entire class period every day.

It wasn’t until I tested into the gifted program a few weeks later than my frustration was finally explained, but I digress.

When I was finally finished with the drudgery of whatever that assignment was, I pulled out the book I’d been waiting to read all day. It was a book my mom had casually handed to me after what I’m sure was an excessive amount of pleading.

Gabriel’s Bride by Samantha James, a squat worn paperback book published in 1994. It had been passed around the little circle of romance readers in my family, of which I was desperate to be a part of.

I can’t be completely sure what made the romance books they habitually read so appealing—certainly not the half naked women and shirtless men on the covers *cough cough*—but I was a middle schooler discovering myself and fervently claiming to skip the sexy scenes.

Sitting in that school room, though, the god awful fluorescent light yelling at me front above, changed my life that day.

While reading has always been a lifelong passion, the romance genre became a special interest alongside the fantasy I was already escaping into. Something about the security of a happy ending made all the trials and tribulations of the characters feel safe. I could go on the journey with them, watch them fall in love, and experience their struggles all while knowing at the end they’d be together.

The princess would have her knight in shining armor.

I went on to read more and more romance books, and while I never did see my own initials on the inside cover of the books we passed around (initials that marked who had read it), I was able to fall in love with authors like Nora Roberts and Julia Quinn, to visit Ireland and Scotland and Regency England.

Nowadays I read a bit more than damsel in distress style historical romances, often looking for contemporary stories, a good bad boy trope, sapphic love, or some other type of story more readily available with the rise of self-publishing and indie authorship.

Despite how my tastes have changed in some ways over the years, I’ll never forget or fall out of love with the very first romance book I ever read as a quiet little thirteen year old who probably had no business reading that…

Or any of the other fanfics I was reading at the time.

But that’s a story for another day. 😉