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 Rendezvous by Amanda Quick, 1991, romance, historical, Regency, opposites attract, mildly graphic love scenes Once I’d started reading historical romance with Julie Garwood, I did sort of dive into that particular pool headfirst. I remember reading a lot of mostly medievals in those next few years of the early 1990s. All the while still reading some contemporaries and searching for that elusive perfect fantasy/science fiction romance combination to appear on the horizon. There were occasional fits and starts in that direction with the new Leisure/Love Spell line but not a lot of enthusiasm on my part for what they were producing.
But back to reading historical romances, I slowly began to dip my toe into the Regency era and it was definitely slow going. Regencies are an acquired taste, long and short or what we in romance call the Traditional Regency Romance. For some strange reason, I have it in my head that Rendezvous by Amanda Quick was the first time I encountered oral sex in a romance. Except that can’t possibly be right, since I’m pretty sure I started reading Garwood before Quick and I know that had to be in Garwood’s books somewhere.
Of course, it might’ve been the male/female power-struggle aspect that the Quick books are infamous for that made a particular scene or two or three stick in my head, so to speak.  I’m not talking about forced seduction or anything like that, mind you, but rather simply two strong-willed people going at it in all areas of their relationship. Literally, in all areas of the relationship. Again with the attitudes and how they’re used, you see.
 Rendezvous - this is the cover on the paperback I have but without the stepback And I have to say, Quick’s relationships were intriguing. Like her or not or just say she’s formulaic but she saw a major area of the romance mythology that could be exploited and went for it. In doing so, she became a master of the genre or simply proved she already was one. She knew that at their heart romance novels are basically creation myths built upon existing legends which in turn meant that they had to have the foundation of two strong people to build something greater than themselves. Then she looked at one of the most popular, time tested romance myths around, the Gothic with its wrongfully accused heroes and sometimes heroines, and she in turn decided to exploit that for all it was worth by turning the Gothic construct on its head.
By simply and logically having the two people believe in each other against all odds from the get-go.
And it worked. Or rather works because anytime readers can say they can repeatedly, periodically binge on a single author’s work, something is going on. Periodically as in routinely about once every year, give or take. Maybe more often if a new book catches my attention and gets me started early.
Well, of course it works. Why wouldn’t it work? That was the entire point she was making; that she made over and over again in book after book. Right into best-seller status.
 Rendezvous stepback - I include it to ask if the the Quick were the first stepbacks in romances? Doesn’t mean they don’t have to fight it out with each other or that they automatically believe they’re supposed to be together. Or at least one of them usually doesn’t. But what it did mean is that we got the Gothic construct without all the misunderstandings gumming up the works and could get right to the challenge of working out the relationship – while at the same time get on with solving whatever mystery might exist, too. Win-win from a romance point of view.
I definitely wanted more of what I later came to call the mating challenge style of romance plot – which is basically two equally matched titans going head-to-head in a battle of wits if not a downright physical battle. (The physical battles added on will come much later with the advent of paranormals and science fiction romances.) But at that time, my ever increasing cravings presented a problem on two fronts. Not that many authors were doing them yet for one. For another, at this time, I didn’t even realize Amanda Quick and Jayne Ann Krentz were the same authors and Jayne Castle, well, I’m not sure that AKA existed at all yet. Heck, I might’ve run across Krentz in categories before or maybe not. If so, she hadn’t made an impression on me. The Quick books did, however, but even so, I’m not sure she was writing the same type of stuff yet in her other AKA’s. I also hadn’t found her older futuristic romances. Yet. Plus, I wasn’t all that interested in contemporary single title or categories because I’d suddenly found a new interest.
Make that obsession.
Which ironically combined all that had come before.
Honorable, if not cuddly alphas. Mating challenges. A bit of mystery. Fantasy if not science fiction. A setting out of time and place. Humor. Hot, hot, hot sex scenes.
Oh, boy. Wonder who’s up next?
 The Bride - original paperback cover & yes I have a copy with this truly odd cover on it - if you've read the book you know why - but the one I've almost worn out has the flowers on it  Sometime during 1989, I picked up a copy of Romantic Times at the local independent bookstore, when we still had a local independent bookstore here, because I distinctly remember that was where I first read a preview of The Bride by Julie Garwood. So, I did something very out-of-character and found that book. I say it was out-of-character because before that I didn’t like to read historicals. The Bride was not only my first book by Garwood but the first historical romance I ever remember reading and actually enjoying.
I loved it and the rest as they say is history.
I remember reading an interview with Julie Garwood on AAR where she talks about not even realizing her first romance, Gentle Warrior, 1985, was a romance when she wrote it. I believe her because when I read The Bride, I realized I was reading something very different. It so didn’t fit the mold of the books around it on the shelves.
Don’t misunderstand. Many of the elements in her historical romances were also present in most of the romances published all around her at that time. So, what was different?
Attitude. Plain and simple.
It always comes down to simple tweaks in attitude to me. It isn’t the big stuff but the little things that matter to me. People don’t always believe me when I say that but think about it. Action, of all kinds, is something that’s going to be in all stories because we all do it. We’re always going to do it. Good, bad or otherwise. Attitudes, though, the reasons why we do things, those change with the times. You can dress them up and give them fancy names, but it still comes down to attitudes that show through in the stories.
 The Bride by Julie Garwood, 1986, medieval, historical, romance, Scottish, arranged marriage, mildly graphic love scenes, Readers do notice the small distinctions, too. I honestly believe those are what make or break comfort zones for them.
Garwood didn’t know romance heroes were supposed to be jerks and so she didn’t write them that way. The publishers let them slide through and so-called cuddly “alpha” heroes were born in the romance novel and not only that but they were popular.
Even better. ;-)
Okay, granted, she probably wasn’t the only one writing them but she was the one I found first and this is my story. So, there.
Oh, I was supposed to say something about the sex in the books, too, wasn’t I? Hmmm, I got nothing. It’s not that there wasn’t any sex in Garwood’s books because there were full-fledged love scenes in her books, sure. Quite hot ones, actually, in a mildly graphic way, I suppose. It’s just that the sexual content isn’t what stands out to me about Garwood’s books.
With Garwood, it’s her heroes that one remembers. Period. ‘Nuff said.
Moving on.
 Journey To Love by Glenna Finley, August 1970, contemporary, romance, mystery, suspense, Far East, ocean cruise, travelogue, dog, marriage of convenience, passionate kisses & implied love scene right at the end One major misconception is that all romance readers took the bodice ripper route during the 1970s. I’m one of the ones who didn’t. Other than continuing to read books by Hill, Loring and eventually Glenna Finley, I mostly read mysteries with a light sprinkling of category romances mixed in. In fact, I’m pretty sure from the late 70s all the way through the mid 80s was really my Agatha Christie phase, the period when I collected most of her books in paperback. Oh, I may have occasionally picked up that rare single title historical romance during that era, but I didn’t find them appealing. I mostly didn’t like the plots or the characters. Probably because I was more into shorter mysteries at the time and more apt to look for something like a Harlequin Intrigue, if they even existed back then. Which was part of the problem.
I was also slowly developing an interest in fantasy and science fiction which had no outlet in romance. At all.
But my one other passion was buying up Finley’s books the moment they arrived. I’ve talked about Finley in the past but usually in terms of the way her books featured travelogue type romances and had relatively strong mysteries in them. What I haven’t talked about was the bedroom door aspect of her romances because she was an expert at getting the pair just inside that bedroom, giving the reader a wink and a smile so to speak and then… basically closing the door in the reader’s face by ending the doggone book. And I ended up liking it, which was always so confusing.
Sigh.
But I do remember, and not with a lot of fondness either, reading or attempting to enjoy many romances from that same era that weren’t what I’d call simply lacking in sexual content but stripped of it. Because there is a difference. Remember those movies I was talking about earlier in the Grace Livingston Hill and Emilie Loring posts? The best ones are written so that there are layers for everyone to enjoy but they don’t insult anyone’s intelligence in doing so. It’s the same thing. It’s the difference between pretending nothing is going on when it obviously is or could be, which is only frustrating to read, and writing the story so that some readers never even notice anything could’ve happened in the first place. It’s the difference between the bedroom door being slammed in the reader’s face just before anything could possible happen even though it should’ve already and the same door being gently eased closed with finesse and expertise so that we’re in on the secret and can use our own imaginations if we wish to. It’s all about the proper use of those touches of the hand, glances of the eyes and even the occasional kiss, chaste, passionate or otherwise.
 The Romantic Spirit by Glenna Finley, August 1973 - this one is my favorite by Finley because it always makes me laugh with it's whacky plot of the housesitter who finds an unexpected roommate, an urn of ashes, luckily there's a handsome hunk nearby to help, ahem, dispose of the problem Hill never let one know there was anything to miss. Loring never did either although sometimes on rereads one might wonder if there isn’t another layer there in certain scenes. And then there’s that next level, which is that old bedroom door thing that Finley did so well.
It was torture I tell you and yet I still have the entire collection of her books. That should tell you something. What exactly, I am not sure.
On the plus side, Glenna Finley was the next Emilie Loring she was billed as. She, too, wrote that combination of romance and mystery and if anything, she had even better mysteries, filled with suspense and adventure. And travel. Lots of travel. On the other hand, though, there was another element that entered the picture during this era that’s pretty typical – the career woman heroine working for the hero in some capacity and then falling in love with him.
Well, not that that had never ever happened before in the history of published romances. Don’t get me wrong. It had. But with Finley it was almost in every book. And if she wasn’t working for him, she was working with him. Or his rival in some way. It was simply part of the formula. In a lot of ways, her books fell into the same patterns as medical romances, which if I remember correctly had travelogue elements to them also.
The one question I’m left wondering about is what ever happened to this author of 47 romances because it’s like she just vanished into thin air. I had to link to my own post about her because there just isn’t anything about her out there except places that sell or catalog her books. Weird.
 Trail Of Conflict by Emilie Loring, 1922, contemporary, romance, mystery, marriage of convenience, Western, ranch, brief kisses The next romance author I remember getting handed routinely from librarians as a relatively young teen was Emilie Loring, which I didn’t mind at all to tell the truth. Her books were actively published from the 1920s-1970s but that’s a tad misleading since she died in 1951. It’s widely known that what happened is that there were 30 novels written and published by her directly before her death but a lot of unfinished manuscripts and notes were found by her sons afterwards, which they then edited and finished into 20 more novels that were published under her name over the next 20 years. When you considered that she didn’t start writing until after she turned 50, it’s an incredible story of a dedicated romance author.
Over the years, I’ve told other romance readers many times that Loring’s books are similar in tone to Regency romances only set before, during or after WWII and located mostly on the upper East coast of the United States. Many of her plots are as much novels of manners as Regencies are, including anything from arranged marriages, marriages of convenience, mistaken identities, secondary romances, spies, espionage, and social seasons of the country club set. Some people have their Georgette Heyers to think back on and fondly remember reading from their early years. I have my Lorings.
Personally, I’m not sure I missed out on anything.
Emilie Loring’s novels are very cinematic in that carefully crafted scenes of sexual tension and high society glamorize a basically elitist existence of a debutante or heiress. Every Loring novel has a romantic “problem”, something keeping the magic twosome apart. The Loring heroine follows conventional rules of her societal order, such as charity, historical, or sports pursuits. The glamour of these to the average reader must have been palpable. These pure ideal cut across the sexed-up pulp romances made more popular later on.
via Emilie Loring – Associated Content – associatedcontent.com.
 The Solitary Horseman by Emilie Loring, 1927 - my one major collecting regret because it was my favorite Loring and I traded it away For one thing, they were contemporaries for their time and were about my own country, not some other. For another, the heroes were to die for and I’m not talking about alpha jerks here. I’m simply talking about honorable, gentlemen hunks all around and there were still balls and gowns and all that stuff. I mean, seriously, what was to miss?
She was definitely an expert on implying a lot but seemingly not letting anything happen at the same time, much like those early movies. I liked her books but it wasn’t necessarily for the romance which in many ways was next to non-existent, except for those little hints here and there. No, I liked her books for the very real mystery that was present in them. They weren’t always murder mysteries but they were mysteries that the heroine was heavily involved in solving. Not so much doing the heavy lifting but definitely applying brain-power to, even if she did usually end up in the classic damsel-in-distress role. Eh, it was a trade-off and for a young teenage girl, trading off what might or might not be happening for a real mystery wasn’t a bad deal at all.
If there is one thing I regret after all these years it’s that I unfortunately traded away most of my paperbacks of hers and am having to rebuild my collection. I’m not even sure I’d want all of them back but there are one or two that I’d truly like to find again. The Solitary Horseman being at the top of that particular list.
 Ladybird by Grace Livingston Hill, 1930, original hardback cover - my parent's copy, which I now own, looks exactly like this except it's blue... oh, and showing a lot of wear and tear from years of rereading As far as I can remember, my big book reading started at around age eleven, circa 1970, and the very first adult romance, although that’s probably a misnomer because I’m pretty sure young adult romances didn’t exist back then, I ever remember reading was a hardback copy of Ladybird by Grace Livingston Hill that someone, maybe a pastor’s wife, gave my mother. I read and collected many of her books during that decade of my life and they were interesting in their own way. My biggest memory of them, though, are pages and pages and pages and pages and pages – I kid you not – of descriptions of rooms, houses and landscapes, not so much what happens in the stories, which is probably why I don’t get all uptight over what other people consider purple prose. At least it moves the action along. Most of the time. Sheesh. (eyes crossing here)
Keep in mind that Hill wrote from the 1870s all the way up to the 1940s. There was also such a thing as censorship and attitudes and double standards and all that stuff back then. None of which stopped them from putting sex in the books, I suppose, although Hill was what we’d call an inspirational writer nowadays so I really don’t believe we’d find anything sexual in her books regardless.
 Ladybird by Grace Livingston Hill, 1930, romance, inspirational, journey, adventure Others from some of the early decades of the twentieth century I’m not so sure about, though. I suspect they were simply a heck of a lot more creative about how it was hidden. Put it this way, if you’ve ever watched some of the movies from those decades that played with words to hide things that were never seen on-screen you know exactly what I’m talking about and the movies had much stricter codes enforced on them. Think about it. Authors could get away with a lot inside those books without anything ever happening on the pages. We call them euphemisms and purple prose and today’s romances aren’t the only books afflicted with them. So, yeah, I’m really starting to wonder about that “no sex” rule, when exactly it went into effect and how they wiggled around it at times.
Don’t believe me? There’s a website called BookScans devoted to collecting and archiving the covers of vintage paperbacks (those from roughly 1939 -1959). Browse it sometime, just remembering that it archives by publisher and then by number and doesn’t have a search feature. It’s an eye-opener because it shows clearly how obsessed with sex many of the books are, even then. Oh, sure, some of the ones that are the most obsessed with sex weren’t actually labeled romances, but then again, not many were back then. OTOH, hey, how many times nowadays do books get called romances when they’re not? But back to the point, during that era they were only beginning to figure out what the labels were going to be so at times it’s difficult to know what is what, at least by our standards today.
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