The Original Unforgettable

You never forget your first.

Your first romance novel, that is. And I remember mine vividly. I had never so much as looked inside a romance novel before that day, and my family wanted me to read books which would improve my mind, like encyclopedias. If I settled for fiction instead, then it had to be respectable fiction like the classics, or at worst the works of Tolkien and Asimov, dignified hardcovers with solemn cover art.

I enjoyed science fiction and fantasy, so I didn’t try a romance novel until I was sixteen. Growing up in a Muslim country and attending a Catholic school meant a pretty sheltered existence, so I’m not sure why I went for this one. Maybe because I was at a thrift store and could afford it, but more likely because I had hormones coming out of my ears and no way to deal with them. Plus, the cover was the epitome of ‘80s clinch art, and not shy about what was inside the book.

It was a historical romance, though you couldn’t have guessed that from the woman wearing a miniskirt, a blouse knotted above her midriff, and purple eyeshadow. The man embracing her was shirtless, which was to me what an exposed ankle would have been to a Victorian schoolboy. And finally there was the shininess of the cover, from the holographic sticker on the upper right corner to the raised lettering of the title in a metallic magenta.

I had no idea books this flashy even existed. My world had just turned into a Skittles ad. I was tasting the rainbow.

Since you’re probably wondering about the title of this life-altering experience, it was The Pirate’s Lady, by Kay McMahon. The book is out of print, which is for the best, since it’s got everything from the rapist hero to the Madonna-whore complex to the character with a disability who’s there to show what a great boss the hero is. But I will say this for the author, she fully commits to the realism of piracy, since we’re told that the hero had once kidnapped a young woman who stabbed him when he was trying to rape her, so he turned her over to his crew, who murdered her and then gave him one of her earrings as a souvenir. He now wears it, like a serial killer keeping trophies. The sex scenes were beyond purple, and I still remember the line “they explored the celestial spheres as one”, which might be simultaneous orgasm or space travel (or possibly sex in space).

Even back then, I could tell this was horrific. Fascinating, because sex scenes were foreign to my reading experience, but still horrific. But what really intrigued me were the last few pages of the book, which listed dozens more like it, all with breathlessly unrestrained titles like Forbidden Passion and Ruthless Ecstasy. These were books you could never allow the nuns to catch you reading. So of course I wanted more.

I gave my first romance novel back to the thrift store. But I never forgot it, and it was my gateway drug into the genre. The next romance I picked up was Sweet Savage Love, which was even more incendiary as far as sex scenes went. A few years later I discovered AAR, where I read all the F and D reviews because they were so entertaining, then wondered if the A reviews would be just as good, then realized after reading those that the genre had come a long way since the ‘80s. And the rest, as they say, is history, or at least historical romance.

How about you? What was your first romance, and did it make you want to read more?