I come from a large family of readers, so it was no surprise when my Nana told me she was cleaning out her bookshelves and needed me to come over and claim a large box of her old books. I was about 12 at the time and had just started reading adult books. My reading tastes were nebulous then, and I didn’t have a preferred genre. I started with my mother’s mystery and horror collection. The first adult book I read was The Body Farm by Patricia Cornwell, a book my mother and one of my sisters had just finished reading. I can still remember finishing it at a library slumber party my elementary school hosted. I couldn’t tell if I liked it or not. This was a common feeling for me in my early days of reading adult books. I followed The Body Farm up with Cujo and ‘Salem’s Lot, as well as the Janet Oke books a church lady who sometimes drove me from place to place owned and insisted I borrow. I also delved into my father’s bookshelves and discovered Mercedes Lackey and David Eddings, and these would eventually lead me to my favorite genre—fantasy. But at 12, I wasn’t ready to commit to a single genre, and in a lot of ways, I wish I were still so open-minded about my reading. My Nana is a classic church lady. At the time, she taught a Sunday school class, had recently founded a free clothes closet in the basement of the Church of Christ she attended, and had a Bible and a church devotional always handy. She’s the last person one would expect to be the interlocutor for sex education. At the top of the book boxes she gave me was a copy of Little Women, so I reasonably expected the books to be classics. I was wrong. The rest of the boxes contained at least 30 different Nora Roberts books and a collection of Amanda Quick’s historical romance. I tore through those books like the information starved 12-year-old I was. And then I read them all again. And again. And again. Eventually, favorites formed. Of all the Nora Roberts books, the Born In Trilogy were my favorites. Later, in high school, I earmarked pages in all my Nora Roberts books where the juiciest sex scenes happened, and at slumber parties, we’d take turns reading the sex scenes. Wow, was I wild! 😉 I feel like I’m shortchanging Amanda Quick here, who was also amply represented in my Nana’s book box. But while I’m pretty sure I learned about female masturbation from an Amanda Quick novel, I can no longer remember plots or characters or specific scenes. I also started reading my oldest sister’s Danielle Steel and Judith Krantz books, but the relationships depicted in these books were much less empowering. Nora Roberts was the one to capture my sexual and romantic imagination. If you haven’t read Nora Roberts before, check out these two lists for where to start, though you know the series that gets my vote.
