Category Romance: An Appreciation

I love category romance. I've been reading M&B romances ever since I was a school girl and the books have been with me through thick and thin. I can't remember the first M&B I ever picked up, but back in the day the books weren't split into lines like they are know, but all simply published as Mills and Boon romances and although writers have come and gone, covers changed and made more colourful and lines may have evolved, my enjoyment of these books hasn't diminished and nothing gives me greater pleasure than going to town in the first or second week of every month to pick up my books from my favourite bookseller and then going home and settling in for a good read. I'm also lucky in that as a reviewer of category romance, I get books by my favourite writers popping through the letterbox and there's been many a time when the postman delivers a review copy early in the morning, that I forget about the dirty cups in the sink or the pile of ironing and just put my feet up and indulge in the last romance by one of my favourites.

Although critics are quick to scoff and dismiss category romances, I just love reading them. I love the passion, the drama and the intensity of Modern/Presents, the variety, the humour and the emotion of Romance and the adrenaline, passion and humanity of Medical. And as a historical romance junkie who cut her reading teeth on Austen and Heyer, I just love being transported to the past and the M&B Historical writers deserve to be applauded for writing romances that are not just wonderfully passionate but also evocative and richly textured with historical details as opposed to many of today's historical romances published by others which could be set in the present day so scant is the research. Of course, then there are the books being published with Silhouette and there are many wonderful writers being published under the many lines such as favourites like Susan Mallery, Leanne Banks and Diana Palmer.

In my opinion, some of the best writers of romance writing today are writing category romances and people who disparage them clearly do not know what they are missing!

Shame on Me

I can't believe that it's been two months since my last blog post! Blame it on too much sun, too many wonderful books on my reading pile or else my own laziness, but I promise to start making at least weekly posts to this blog, so apologies to anyone who may have dropped in over the course of the past two months to find that I haven't been posting.

A lot of things have happened over the past few weeks such as those awful floods in England. My heart goes out to all those people who have lost their homes because of these floods. You are all in my thoughts and prayers and I do hope that things will be better for you soon.

Speaking of the floods, did anyone read that news report about a female journalist who was goosed during a live broadcast? I have to say that I was shocked and rather disgusted that a man still thinks it is acceptable behaviour to do such a thing - especially during such a sombre time!