Another obsession...

My romance novel collection
Notice how the books are color coordinated. My big sis made me do that. She's a design artist and would probably love to get her hands on this bookshelf to match the colors perfectly. I haven't read the books on the top three shelves, and until I do, it won't be the perfect rainbow shelving she envisions for my library.
This is a perfect rendition of my husband. He looks exactly like this, except he has dark hair and brown eyes and doesn't wear tights, or vests with belts over short sleeved turtlenecks, and he's a couple inches taller.
This is a typical day at our house. Me on the right and my darling daughter on the left, gossiping and sharing a spot of tea for breakfast. I think we need a bigger house. We have outgrown this one.
This is the perfect rendition of me. I look exactly like this, or so the husband thinks - except - I have dyed black hair and sparkly blue eyes and my feet are bigger and I use a cell phone, not that dinosaur sitting on my filing cabinet. Oh, and I'm not a triplet. There's only one of me.



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As mentioned before I tend to become obsessed about certain things in my life. A few years ago I was visiting one of my oldest friends and noticed a stack of romance novels sitting in the corner of her bedroom. I was so surprised that she read, "bodice rippers", or so they used to call them. I didn't say anything about it thinking that everyone needs a secret or two of their very own. Three years later we were talking about our favorite books and I asked her for some suggestions. She told me about a series by, Julia Quinn about the Bridgerton family. Eight brothers and sisters looking for love and each one being the focus of a book with the siblings stories sprinkled throughout. I decided to give it a shot and see whether I would like reading romance. What appealed to me about reading this type of book was a conversation I had with my friend about romance novels always having a happy ending. I had read my share of doom and gloom, mainly Ann Rule, the queen of creepy true stories of people gone bad. I was tired of always looking over my shoulder wondering when the boogie man was going to finally snatch me up, or sleeping with the light on, one eye open, and the door swung wide so I could see whomever it was that was going to take me to my maker much sooner than I ever wanted.

Happy Endings? A love story? Hot... sexy...gorgeous...take charge...biggest penises on the planet guys...who lived to make their woman's every dream come true?

Sign me up!

So, I went out and bought my first romance novel titled, The Duke and I . It was funny, it was sweet, it was romantic, it made me want to have crazy honeymoon sex with the husband all over again, at all hours, and it was really, really good. The author,Julia Quinn, has been likened to a modern day Jane Austen in the romance world.

I then went on to read the rest of the brother's and sister's stories and moved on to Lisa Kleypas, Eloisa James, Celeste Bradley, Gaelen Foley, Suzanne Enoch, and many more. I turned off the television and focused on romance novels set during Regency times for a solid year. I read on average a book a day, and let the house go, let my kids forage in the yard for their own food (note to self: plant fruit trees like Dad did so they have something to forage) and chased the husband around after a particularly good romp in the hay scene that made me randy for him all over again. He took to hiding in his home office after a while, with a lingering headache to rival any brain tumor, and the fastest legs in town when I tried to corner him. The poor guy was exhausted from my obsession. He'd see me coming and the only word out of his mouth was, "Again?"

I joined Romance Writer's of America and started writing my own romance novel after reading approximately 200 in succession to get my feet wet and to get a feel for the genre. I'm on page 293 of my first draft and going strong. I thought I would post a couple of pictures of some of the romance novels I decided to keep in my library from the hundreds I have read.

Do you think I might be a little bit obsessed?