A Near-Extinct Species

I had a close encounter last night with a near-extinct species – an honest-to-gosh, actual bookseller! We had dinner (which turned into 3 hours!) and discussed the market, publishing, publishers, authors and, most importantly, BOOKS! And not just romance novels but lots of other kinds, too.  This particular bookseller is an outstanding one — Cathy Genna was just named RWA Bookseller of the Year!– but it reminded me of other booksellers who influenced me and my buying habits.

I remember when I’d just discovered romance novels – while pregnant with my youngest son, I found that I absolutely could not read my normal favorite books – at that time I was very, very into Stephen King and Dean Koontz. But during that pregnancy, those books really bothered me. Nightmares followed reading those, so I looked for something historical while doing my grocery shopping. The book I found, set during the 1066 Norman conquest of England, was Julie Garwood’s THE PRIZE. Oh, Royce! Ah, Nicola! What a story! I read it in less than two days and went back searching for more Julie Garwood books.

And so it began.

But I didn’t get into full-romance-reader-buyer mode until a couple years later when I found a very special bookseller in a local chain bookstore. We struck up a conversation about this book and that one and I left with an armful! My husband came to dread my visits there because the bookseller always had more suggestions about which romance I should try next. I blame her for my out-of-control TBR mountains which resulted from rapid accumulation of BOOKS! LOL!(and my habit hasn’t stopped yet!)

How about you? Was there a bookseller or friend or someone else who encouraged you into reading and especially reading romances? Who pushed or helped you on the road to what and how much you read now?

 

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