Why Romance?

Off and on, since I was probably around 15, I’ve picked up romance books every once and awhile. Who doesn’t enjoy a good love story? While not what I read with regularity, I usually enjoyed what I read, particularly historical, as it fed the fantasy element and really helped me to get lost in the story.

 I have been a voracious reader my entire life. When I was in middle and high school, summer break was reading time. I remember one time my mother yelling at me to come downstairs and talk to her because I had been holed up in my room reading the entire day. Another time, I was devouring a Harry Potter book for the first time when my sister got mad at me for reading all day and not helping her with something. Finally, exasperated with me, she made me put the book down at a critical moment in the story. I’m still mad about it.

 All this is to say—I’m a reader. Things changed as I grew older, however. Once I started college, reading for pleasure pretty much went out the window (again, summers were the exception). Then, when I started my first full time job, I’d come home at the end of the day exhausted, and tended to watch more movies and TV rather than read. Even then, I still loved a good story and turned to romance movies more often than not. But I missed reading.

 I started intentionally trying to read more in 2017 and joined the book of the month club and set a goal to read about 50 books that year. I read mostly literary fiction, I liked stuff that was historical in particular or that helped me think from a new perspective. I also got into mysteries through Louise Penny and became invested in a few series that were similar to her stories about Three Pines. But I wasn’t really reading romance. Books that included love stories in them—yes, but not romance.

 Then 2020 happened. I’m lucky and had a job that I could shift to doing from home, so I was still occupied during the day, but I also had a lot of downtime at home. Now, I’m an introvert and a natural homebody—but it hits different when you can’t go anywhere vs. being home by choice. I went a little stir crazy, and soon felt like I had watched ALL THE THINGS.

 So, I turned to my bookshelf. While I still loved the escapism reading provided, my normal genres weren’t cutting it. I couldn’t handle anything heavy. Normally I love books that examine a political or societal issue, but the current news was all I could handle. Between the scary unknown of COVID and a critical presidential election, I needed a light, fun escape.

I turned to romance, knowing that it would have the happy ending, and just wanting to enjoy two people falling in love. I started to devour books at a pace similar to what I had previously as a kid on summer break. I couldn’t wait for the end of the work day after endless hours on zoom to become lost in a world removed from the real one that was currently overwhelming. About a month or two into my new reading binge I discovered kindle unlimited, and all bets were off. I devoured books. Contemporary rom-coms, historicals, small town series, I read them at an alarming pace and couldn’t stop. Romance was all I wanted to read, and like many others, I think we read it because it does bring us joy!

At the same time, I was becoming increasingly burned out in my day job in academic advising in higher ed. I still liked the job overall and I think it’s an invaluable support for students, but the many problems in higher ed. as a whole has been exacerbated by the pandemic, and they were too large for me to feel I could have an impact on as they needed to be addressed at a systematic level. Dispirited, I started to think about what I could do that might being me more joy. What was currently bringing me the most joy in my life were the romance books I was reading, and that made me stop and think.

 I’ve always been interested in writing, and it’s something I have played around with multiple times over the years. As I read more, I began to think about if I could write similar stories, and I already had several plot ideas in my head. When I first voiced the idea to family and friends that I was contemplating leaving my job and trying to see if I could make it as a writer, I encountered nothing but support.

 Now, here I am about two years later, and my first historical romance series is about to launch into the world. It’s surreal and scary, and there has been quite the learning curve (see my next post on learning about the publishing world and choosing self-publishing). But even through the stressful times, overall, I am much happier being in charge of my own career and creating stories that make me happy.

 I can only hope my stories bring you the joy I found (and continue to find!) in so many romance books.