How long have you...?

There was never a time I wasn't reading. My folks would get rather exasperated about it! When we'd visit my mom's Dad's family; my aunt (2 years older than me) had a complete run of Nancy Drew. I'd hole up in her bedroom & read ND for as long as they'd let me. Acc. to M&D; I should be out visiting. And yes, I should have been, but shoot, what they were doing was boring! The books were better. I really don't care for ND any more; haven't for years! But I still like an occasional Hardy Boys or Trixie Belden.

And I think I was always looking for books with that touch of romance in them; When Jim gave Trixie a bracelet..., when The Witch of Blackbird Pond had a happy ending; Wilderness Bride by Annabel Johnson set among the Mormons leaving Nauvoo & heading for Utah; happy ending there & I loved that book! Oh, Eloise Jarvis McGraw usually had a bit of romance in the ending, such as Mara, Daughter of the Nile Then there were the Laura Ingalls Wilder books; I used to reread the last few quite a bit...Yep, I was always reading romance!

And that's just when I was younger & borrowing (heavily) from the library.  I discovered Woodiwiss shortly after starting college & then I really read all levels of romance! Then my collection got started!

I read that book when I was in elementary school.  Over the summer before a new school year, we were given a list of books and had to read at least two of them.  I always hated it because I never liked the choices.  But The Witch of Blackbird Pond was actually the only book I liked reading.
I always loved when we got the Scholastic flyer and got to pick books to buy.  I did read a Babysitter's Club book when I was like 13.  When I was 16, I was visiting my older cousin and she was cleaning up her bookshelves.  She gave me her Sweet Valley High books.  I can't remember if they were really romances but more everyday teenager stuff.  Anyway I also got a Jude Deveraux book, Eternity, and a few harlequins by Lynne Graham and Jacqueline Baird.  Although I liked reading all those books, it wasn't until I read Suddenly You by Lisa Kleypas at age 21 that I really got into reading romances.  And I haven't looked back since.

It seems like I've been reading forever. I think my first romance book was Gone with the Wind at about age 13. That got me started and I've never looked back. Lucky for me both of my parents were readers so books were always big in my family.

well it was a farmhouse in the early 60's and we didn't have running water (or electricity)  so the cavity was used for storage.  What got my attention was that they were separated from the rest of the books in the house.

By the time I started reading ones with covers needing brown paper wrappers, I was living by myself & always have. A friend (sweet, but a ditz!) suggested one time; her daughter likes to read, maybe I could loan her some of mine? The daughter was in her young teens at the time! I reminded her; what I read isn't for that age! (not to mention the fact; daughter doesn't take care of her own stuff, let alone other folks stuff--no way she was getting her hands on my books!)

And every time I've moved, the fam has let me pack & unpack my books...

I've always been a reader. 'Library day' was my favorite in school. No one else in my family was interested in reading so I tended to make friends with other kids who read. One of my friends, Barb, had a mother who read romances. We started reading some harlequins and historicals when I was 14 - 15. They were OK and I enjoyed them but more often than not they didn't have plots that interested me. I wanted something with more imagination. I started reading PNR (Lords of the Underworld, YUM) until I got my first laptop and discovered e-books. There were so many indy publishers then. I discovered more paranormal and sci-fi smut. I was hooked. I didn't take me long to buy a kindle. The rest is history.

It seems so long ago that my friends and I were sending boxes of paperbacks to each other. Really wasn't though. We were still sending book 7-8 years ago.

Maddox, Lucien, Reyes, Paris, Torin, Sabin....swoon.....I feel a re-read / listen coming on.