I get bullied by my male friends for reading mass markets, but every couple months my grandma gives me the ones she reads and we talk about them the next time we see each other. 😄
"it was published in 2001, so like 20 years ago." Excuse me what? It always takes me back when people say the early 2000s is 15-20 years ago... I'm getting so old..
Yeah I heard that, and I was like, oh that wasn’t that long ago, I was born that year, then I realize I’m not a ten year old anymore, but rather nearing 20
2001 is my birthday and I’m turning 19 so not far off lol. deadass the reason being born then makes me feel so much older than I am is because the internet is always becoming filled with influxes of very young children that seem to outweigh the older generations such as 90’s
momrom is what got me into reading when i was like 11, i would read one of these in like an hour and immediately start it over and read it again, just to get that same swoony feeling over and over. i was raised in a small town by a single mom who couldn't afford to take me to bookstores and buy me the latest YA and didn't have a whole lot of time to take me to the library. she did, however, have time to go grocery shopping and pick up a book or borrow one from her sister so i ended up with hundreds of these books. i've read basically all of debbie macomber's books and quite a few nora roberts (she has a series about sisters, i think they're all in the wedding planning business??). my love of these books is what has guided me into my love of all romance
I think that it’s ok to continue on in the series if you recognize that the first book was problematic, which you did. To me it would only be a problem if you just turned a blind eye to the abuse and recommended it w out talking about that part.
I picked up Nora Roberts when I was 16 and that was my introduction to romance. I LOVED her books and read her for a few years until I realized the negative attitude so many people had towards romance. The last 2 years I'm finally getting back to romance because fuck what other people think. Loved this video.
This was a super fun video. It could be really fun to do a series where you pick a famous author and pick like 5 of their books from various years and see how they've changed their writing style or what books you liked more than others.
At the library I work at we joke about the Harlequin titles a lot - we have a formula for them: The /type of powerful rich dude/‘s /synonym of secret/ /euphemism for baby./ The Sheik’s Undercover Christmas Miracle? The Billionaire’s Illicit Bundle of Joy? Could definitely be Harlequin romances lol
The Duke and I was my least favorite in the Bridgerton series because of that ending. The rest are truly worth reading and the second book The Viscount Who Loved Me and SO MUCH BETTER than the first book and is the most popular of the series. I would strongly recommend giving the series one last try with the second book
Nora Roberts writes women’s fiction, supernatural romance, obviously her JD Robb stuff, but I will unabashedly pick up every romantic suspense she ever comes out with she only continues to get better
I tend to not read romance novels but pretty much exclusively read romance fanfic. I think this is because I'm LGBT and if I want to read romance then I want to read LGBT romance which is more prolific/better written online by fan authors. Reading published LGBT romance with new characters is such a leap of faith that has let me down a lot.
oh no! that sucks that you've been let down. fanfiction is pretty awesome because it's got familiar characters so i totally get that. i think i've had better luck with indie published own voices LGBT stuff than most of the trad published things
I love the Bridgerton series but I did not like the ending of The Duke and I either. Some of the other books in the series are better than The Duke and I. The 2nd and 3rd books are my favorite so if you will continue the series, try those.
missnewvillage fully echo this. Duke and I is so early in Julia Quinn’s work that I chalked the book up to early writer syndrome. I had read the later books first so I was already predisposed to forgive this.
The rest of the Julia Quinn series is so good!! Definitely keep going in the series--it's a lot of fun and well written. I think just because an author makes a bad choice once doesn't mean they should be written off for the rest of time. I would be interested to see if she's put out a statement like you said addressing the issue in the first book.
I used to volunteer in an OP Shop and little old ladies would come in and donate stacks of harlequin romance books and they would always say "oh I'm dropping these off for my friend..." no eye contact.
Nora Roberts is the only romance I’ll read, especially her older fantasy series👏🏼 I’m rereading the circle trilogy atm because it was the first books I read by her and I still love it😂 her fantasy/paranormal books are so amazing, especially the ones set in Ireland
MizMagnoSalsa the only adult I know who reads Danielle Steel is my mother-in-law 😂 and I’ve never heard of Nora Roberts...I remember lots of mills and boon in the supermarkets though 😂
I started read young adult erotica type romances (way too young) at 11, that being said I know my mom and grandma and Great grandma have a ton of (surprisingly smutty {then again g-gran was a widow twice} romances) and there are boxes full of them in the attic at my grandma's house.
@@breedlejuice8691 Actually they didn't pass them on to me I sought them out on my own probably due to the abuse I'd been through at an earlier age, and even if they had I'm their son not daughter which would've been weirder
If you were to do something like this again, Alyssa Cole's books are totally mass market paperbacks and get great reviews. I've read the first and am about to start the second which is many peoples favourite.
Used bookstores always have a ridiculously large romance section full of mass market paperbacks. My friends and I have started picking out the ones with the most outrageous cover, title, or summary. They're all so fun
I picked up this Julia Quinn book after reading because of miss Bridgerton, which I highly recommend if you enjoyed the duke and I without the cringe and... well, THAT scene. But I had no idea they were adapting this to Netflix. I’m so excited now. I’ve been a fan of Julia Quinn for a bit now because of her modernized Jane Austen style.
I would recommend Suddenly You by Lisa Kleypas. I didn’t find her wallflower series to be fun, devil in winter made me physically uncomfortable because of the plot line. But I read Suddenly You way before the wallflower series, and it’s one of my favourite books ever.
I started reading Harlequin and Silhouette romances when I was a teenager. But the Presents romances were my least favorite to read. I loved the Desire, Intrigue, Special Edition, and American imprints from the Harlequin and Silhouette books the most. I love cowboy/rancher romances especially set in the Southwest. I know Nora Roberts is one of the OGs of romance but I've only read maybe two of her books and never really felt that I wanted to read anything else of hers.
As a "mom" I have to put out there that Nora Roberts was originally published by Harlequin so those descriptions had to be toned down some for them to publish the work that's why they are so awful. Unfortunately there was a period in romances where rape was ignored for the most part and the victim would ultimately fall for their attacker and start a relationship. The Julia Quinn book is from around that era.
Huh, I guess I’m curious about the use of “Mom Rom” here? I would have loved to hear more about what the distinction you’re drawing between this and something like a KU romance is... is it a perception about the level of explicitness? Subject matter included? Underlying authorial attitudes? Age of the author? I ask because KU/self-pubbed romances are a direct evolution from these kinds of category/“grocery store” romances, and I know you love those (as do I ☺️). I’d be interested to here your thoughts, or if there’s another video where you talk about it more
i think for me it's directly tied to explicitness & age demo. in the nora roberts one for instance, the characters were in their thirties and the sexy times were pretty tame. in a lot of the KU/self pubbed word i think readers can find themselves reflected work that is more sexually explicit & deals with life topics for 20 somethings. totally right, it's an evolution of what was already there!
@@chandlerainsley Gotcha, that makes sense. I'm always intrigued when I see a new coinage to me to describe a sub-genre, so thank you for the clarification! As an aside, I went deep down the Nora rabbit hole a few years ago when I was trying to read some romance classics, and boy oh boy, there is plenty to enjoy if you like her take on romantic suspense. My fav is The Obsession, but if you liked the more old school vibe, Tribute would be a good one to try
Ahhhh, I've been waiting for this! I love casually you were like 'we're on a tornado watch'. I totally get the feeling of picking dud books- I'm working on a similar video at the moment and every book I've read so far has been terrible. 😭 I like Nora Roberts but I've never tried any of her romantic suspense. I might have to try it! I really enjoyed the cats- especially the little pink toe beans!
I encourage you to try Nora Roberts' romantic suspense. It's really good! My favorites are: The Obsession, The Witness and Northern Lights. If you're interested in paranormal romance give Black Dagger Brotherhood series by JR Ward, the Psy-Changling series by Nalini Sing or Demonica series by Larissa Ione a try.
This idea is so funny to me because these are exactly the types of books I cut my reading teeth on 😂 from the age of eleven until about the time I graduated high school I read either my mom and grandmas romances or books from the library (most of which were also romances). I think I read all of Nora Roberts backlist up until 2015 😂 I guess my early reading tastes were very mom-ish. Another great video!
Nora roberts is hit or miss for me. Mostly miss. She wrote one of my most hated romances. Ever. I remember reading it and realizing that the guy was basically trying to assault the girl even though she told him no. (But it was written in the 80s?) But she also wrote the bridal quartet. While unrealistic, that series is adorable.
Ten years ago I might have felt ashamed for reading romance novels, but in the last couple of years, since I really dove into the genre, a lot of my friends are reading them and that helped me. Also, reading genuinly fantastic books that happen to be romance novels (Tessa Dare, Keira Andrews) helps a lot. And reading some dime novels last summer and seeing what different worlds those stories live in... It changed my perspective.
I saw your review of the Duke and I on goodreads and couldn't remember if I had ever read it, now i remember i DNF-ed and literally just erased the ebook when the assault happened
i think I've read, like, 5 or six books of that Kerrelyn Sparks vampire series. It's good fun, but I found that after the third book, they get pretty formulaic because it's always about a guy meeting a woman and it's forbidden because they're different species. It became repetitive really quickly so I didn't want to fight through that for the overarching storyline.
my grandma got me a nora roberts book when i turned like 11, i have no idea why, never ended up reading more like a chapter. I just remember it was about mermaids or smt
Actually, Splendid was Julia Quinns debut novel. The 2nd book in the Brigerton series, The Viscount who loved me, was my favorite. The rest are good to varying degrees
This was such a brilliant video Chan! I wish you enjoyed more of them, but still thought that this was such a unique way to challenge your own reading tastes!
I read so much Nora Roberts. If I have a reading slump I will always go back to her books. I would recommend the Stanislavski (I think it is written that way) series. The series follows the different siblings and how they find love and it is really good. I would tell you more but I think it is best to go in without much knowledge and just discover the story for yourself
Just to sort of comment on what you said at the end about people being more open about loving romance. I've always liked these types of books, but I haven't been reading a lot of them. I found your channel recently, I think RU-vid recommended you to me after I watched a Riley Marie video. But I've been watching a lot of her videos and yours. I've mostly been reading fantasy lately because those tend to be on my mind the most because that's what most of the Booktubers I primarily follow read. But because of you and Riley, I've been getting a lot more into romance (signed up for Kindle Unlimited and it was a GREAT decision), and I have been LOVING it! So thank you so much. I'm really glad to have found your channel in 2019. ❤ (My next planned read is Heated Rivalry after seeing your review on Goodreads. I love a good mxm romance, love a good hockey romance, so I'm sooo excited for that one!)
I haven't read a ton of Nora Roberts but she wrote The Key Trilogy which I picked up as a teenager in the local library randomly and it became one of my favorite romance series of all time. It's a paranormal romance, but what I really loved was the friendship between the women in the series. I think it was because I was used to the "every attractive woman other than the protagonist must be a bitch or related to the love interest or both" approach. There was a whole developed storyline about the women starting a business together and to this day, it's my favorite part of the story :D. But the romances were cute and pretty non problematic. The whole paranormal plot was slightly ridiculous, but still interesting and didn't take away from the series.
I used to read sooooo much mass market romance. My favorite author was Linda Howard who does a lot of that romantic suspense. A few of my favorites are Mackenzie's Mountain, Dream Man and Heart of Fire. I also loved Linda Lael Miller. She did a lot more historical or cowboy romances. Favorites were Fletcher's woman, Emma and the outlaw, and Yankee Wife
I was never a fan of romance until one of my friends introduced me to The Edge of Never by J.A Redmerski. I really enjoyed it, and just went from there.
Romance is a fantastic genre with such great diversity of structure and content. I started reading the Mills and Boons imprint in my early teens (my aunt snuck it to me!). I loved it - and still do. The compactness of the structure while still allowing for a different voice between authors is unmatched. A Lynn Graham novel is different from a Betty Neels books though the chapter length is the same. I branched our to historical romances soon and that still remains my favourite. If you want to give Julia Quinn another go try her Symth-Smith series. It’s more on the rom-come side. I found your channel recently which introduced me to the KU and contemporary side of the space. So thanks for that.
On the Duke and I, I never read the first but I enjoyed the others in the series, like you were saying they were fun, witty, short romps, I can't remember anything that problematic.
I love this entire video premise so much lmao. You come up with the most fun video concepts?! Like... what even, we stan forever I was so excited to see what you thought of Nora Roberts because I've been low-key scared to read something by her for SO LONG after all the hype 👀 I didn't know she wrote so much suspense/mystery stuff until I started working at a library, but her stuff circulates SO MUCH at our branch lmao. Maybe after seeing you like this one, I'll finally cave and grab one of hers from work soon!
I read a lot of mass market growing up.. cos it was all they sold where I live (its honestly still all they sell tbh-thank God for ebooks Jesus 😅) & Harlequin books were my lifeee. They brought all my secondary school steamy fantasies to life 😂 & everybody knew that u never picked up a Harlequin book that involves a baby, u just don't.. its pure clownery. Regardless I loved watching this. It reminded me of my 15 year old self reading late on school nights. I really appreciated that u liked Nora Roberts too. She too is the queen of mass market and honestly, her books always kind of gave me something different.
Loved me some Nora Roberts (that and Sandra Brown) when I was a teen. Pretty sure I used to sneak and steal them from my moms book shelf. I still go back to Nora every now and then. Favorites include Chesapeake Bay Saga, early MacGregor (1-4), Gallagher’s. Eventually I felt she’d written so many books that she just started writing by formula and I tend to find her newer stuff boring/predictable. But I think that also has to do with how wide a diverse the genre has become! You can’t just phone it in anymore, to much competition. I will also admit I have a soft spot for “vintage” Harlequin (Penny Jordan, Michelle Reid, Abby Green). Great video!
I heartily recommend anything written by Amy Andrews but particularly her Credence Colorado series. Nothing but Trouble and The Trouble with Christmas. There's a third one coming out this April that I'm excited for. It's cheesy and cute and sometimes stupid as fuck but I love them
I started reading 'The Duke and I' a few years back but i stopped midway coz i just couldn't read it and now i completed it after watching this video and you're so right! I hated Dafne at that moment.. I did!! And she was like 'i am not even going to regret it or fee guilty about it. I just want a baby that's all......' I hated it..
I went to Walmart yesterday and I picked up three Harlequin mass market paperback romance books. I haven’t read any Harlequin romance books lately so I am thinking of reading some of the books I’ve picked up.
I have always read romance along with the other genre. I never thought about the difference between "mass market" and paperback...it was just small or big paperback. I have read these Momcom books since before thinking about being a mom. Nora Roberts is my go to author.
"Momrom" is what got me into romance 30+ years ago with my mom and grandmas books. If you want to torture yourself, go back to the '80s books. The genre has come a LONG way! Other than Tessa Dare, I rarely pick up mass markets anymore but this was fun to watch.
I really enjoy JQ's books. I love the Bridgerton series (book 3 is my fav). I'd also try Lisa Kleypas for historical romance. NR has a huge back list. I have been reading her for about 20 years and really enjoy her. Some of my favs of hers are Birthright, Three Fates, or Tribute. She also has some really good series that have fantasy elements. The Bridal Quartet is really good as well. She also writes as J D Robb and its a 50+ book series set in the future centered around a homicide cop an d her billionaire hubby. It's awesome and the audio books for it are fantastic.
I started reading my moms mass market romances in the 6th or 7th grade and have always loved romance. In high school the librarian would let me go in the back and look at the Nora Robert's books she didn't have on the shelves lol. I recommend Texas Fever by Kimberly Raye! I loved it when I first read it and rediscovered it a couple years ago. It's been a while but I think you might like it! Its definitely one that made me blush just by reading it.
Love the video and subscribed! Interestingly quite a few harlequin romances have manga adaptations? Not quite a mom rom recommendation, but that's how I found and read some harlequin books when I was younger.
just last year i picked up romance for the first time and it's now one of my main genres! i'm thinking about getting into some of the classic mom-roms, as you put it, but i may wait until you do a part two with some better books 😂
I love Nora Roberts and I am definitely older. I will be 50th in August and I have been reading Nora Roberts, since I was around 15 to 16 years old. Off and on that is. I am not really a huge mass market person but I won't not read them. I am just now getting back into the romance world. Last year was the first time in a very long time, that I have read straight romance. I think because after I read the Harry Potter series for the very first time. I was wanting to read all fantasy. I probably stopped reading a lot for about 3 to 4 years in my 30's. Started reading again in my late 30's. And in my mid 40's started reading nonstop. Love that you did this video and I hope you try and read some more Nora Roberts.
Haha I love this video so much!!! I will admit I do tend to stray away from mass market paperback romances, but not just romance I just really hate mass market paperbacks, I find them so much more difficult to read 🤣 I’m just really not a fan of how small they are, I’d much rather read a book in any other format 😅
I love mass market romances. The first romance book I ever read was a mass market romance. If you are looking for some more fun mass market romances, I enjoy Lisa Kleypas (the Hathaway Series has some fun, quirky characters) and Kresley Cole or Gena Showalter (both are paranormal romance authors).
One of my favorite books from my teen years was an Avalon True Romance (a.k.a. the tween version) by Gwyneth and the Thief! I remember being put off by the MMP cover, but reading it anyway and being so enthralled; I've just bought a copy so that I can re-read and see if, at 25, it's as good as I remember!
I love mass market mom romances lol I usually read them through audiobook...dark witch by nora roberts, stars of fortune by nora roberts, the christmas cowboy hero by donna grant, jackson by emily March, and the cowboy and his baby by Jessica Clare I read these all last year and they were very entertaining 3-4 star reads depending on which one you're looking at. A mass market series that became a favorite of all time was the sons of Gregor macloed series by Alyson mclayne they are sososososo good highly recommend
Listen, I'm just saying if you're going to label something "How to" you'd better follow through. How to Kill a Mockingbird? Fail. How to Seduce a Vampire? Fail. Maybe we need a Vampire book where a character tries to read these thinking they're actual instruction manuals and the hilarity that would ensue. 😂 I'm very surprised that the were-animal books are that mainstream. I thought they would be more of an internet find. I do really like the J.D. Robb "In Death" books (think procedural mystery that is like 55% romance of the protagonist), but especially the first one has a lot of triggers because of the story line. Eventually I plan on tackling the series, probably through my library because she makes a new on almost every year. And I got the first book off of my Mom's bookshelf when I was a kid, and probably too young for that book, so it counts as a Mom romance right? 😂
My favorite Nora Roberts books are Midnight Bayou, Tribute, & Blue Smoke (all of which were made into Lifetime movies). They are romance/mystery/thriller type books, though MB has paranormal elements. 😁✌️❤️
The Nora Roberts series that begins with Morrigan’s Cross is the besttttt. I remember reading it as a teen and hiding it from my mom 😂😂😂 highly suggest.
I love historical romance since I was about 13 I recommend a book which isn't set in the 1800s even though those are the books I mainly read aside from the highlander romances of course I loved the Viking vs Saxon series by Josie Litton The Trilogy is so cute and all of the books can be read by themselves without having to read them in order If you read any of them it would be fine But my favorite is the first one dream of me by Josie Litton ❤️
I really liked this. I'm trying to branch out and I read Crazy Rich Asians and loved it so who knows romance might be something g for me when I'm in the right mood!
