Reading Harlequin Romances & Mysteries

When we moved from the apartment to the first rental house at the outer edge of the city I discovered boxes of books in the basement. I was always looking in cracks and crevices for things of interest.  So much so that both my sister and I were admonished to not go into our parents room, EVER.  This after we had been in there nosing around.  I found a book about JFK but couldn’t say anything about my knowledge though I was dying to look at it and maybe even read it.

Back to the boxes of books.  They were bodice ripping harlequin romances and Agatha Christie mysteries. I’m sure there were other more substantial reads but I was mesmerized.  I’ll never forget Labour of Love, I mean what a great title for a 13 year old to get her hands on.  Talk about developing “man on a white horse” delusions!

Then the mysteries, how I love mysteries still to this day.  I love trying to figure out who dunnit. It’s not that I consciously say to myself hmmm, I wonder who dunnit, it’s just my brain working in the background putting it all together.  This is a trait my husband found endearing when we were dating and now not so much.  I suppose for him he’s perfectly happy to let the story play out while I’m downright jubilant when I know who dunnit and the show is only half way through.  If they didn’t make the shows so formulaic, I mightn’t be so quick figuring things out. In my head I can hear those of you who know me saying, yeah right!!!

The point is I love the cerebral activity and my husband and many people I know just don’t have a brain that is forever twirling on a muliple number of streams of consciousness. It must be exhausting for them to be around me sometimes.  Ah well, that’s the price you pay for my genius and charm.  There’s always a dark side.

Coming back to the books.  Finding these boxes of books opened a whole new world for me.  I don’t remember ever reading before this, nor there being anyone around me who cracked a book for any reason.  I was academically backwards from the school’s perspective so I’m pretty sure it’s accurate that no one really pushed me very hard to do much of anything. So this was a new experience for me and I was voracious in my appetite for more. I think I read every romance novel twice and ran through the mysteries in no time.

To this day I have at least a couple of books on the go at any one time.  Currently it’s two business related books but just the same it’s still a couple and an electronic stack in my “For Later” list at the library.  I have been known to buy books, a lot of books.  Hard covers, soft covers, big, small, it doesn’t matter. I had a trunkful of books, a travelling trunk that I still have from when I moved from Toronto in 1974, which the mover refused to pick up and had to be repacked into smaller boxes. These days, unless the library is closed and I’ve got nothing to read, a trip to Shopper’s to pick up a paperback or Chapter’s is fairly rare occurrence.

My neighbour gave me a bag of books she got from a friend who was up for visit. It had some “historical romance” novels which I’m not the least bit interested in anymore.  In fact, once I discovered the mystery I never really went back to romance novels.  I tried a couple of the “historical” variety but it didn’t turn my crank.  I’m still enslaved by mysteries, espionage, psychological horror, some “literary”, and anything that is compelling.  I was recently introduced to Harlan Corban, for example, whom I really enjoyed.

I can only read the same author for so long as their stories begin to sound the same to me which makes sense as it’s the same voice writing the darn thing after all.  So a round of Dan Brown or Kathy Reichs or anyone really will result in a period of abstinence from that author so I can slowly forget the standard elements that always show up.

Another bonus of Dad marry my new Mom.  WooHoo!  Music and books give me an escape nothing else has ever come close to.

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