So over the past year, erotic romance and hotter romances have like…exploded. I reckon we can thank 50 Shades of Grey for that-I’ve had sooooo many people who aren’t romance readers talking to me like… Wow! have you read this… people actually write about this stuff…
Um. Yeah. People do. LOL.
Those of us who have been reading hot romances for a while know there’s really nothing new in it. We’ve been reading the hot stuff, loving the hot stuff for a long, long while. Bring it on! We loves it!
But it’s taking on a life of its own and more and more people people are looking at romance and the hotter books in a different light.
I’m working on a thing that I’m doing in the spring-it’s a workshop and I’ve asked some of these Qs on twitter, my facebook page, but wanted to toss them out here, too.
I dunno about you all, but I’ve been reading erotic romance for QUITE a while. Since at least 2002, probably more like 2001 or earlier.
Some of the books that got me started were the Secrets anthologies by Red Sage… Angela Knight!!! Led me to Ellora’s Cave, which is how I got started…writing erotic romance.
So…for those of you like erotic romance and have been reading it a while, how did you get started?
Pretty please… this is for something very specific, and I *am* very specifically looking for pubs or authors from at least a few years ago…before 50 Shades. I know a lot of people love it, but I’m looking for how the genre has started, how it’s evolving and that’s kind of the current thing, but it definitely wasn’t the beginning. 🙂
Thank you for the feedback!
I started with a couple of books by Anonymous that belonged t my father. I was too young to understand them so Beatrice Small’s Skye O’Malley series was actually the first I read and understood. From there I discovered in my college bookstore the first of Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty trilogy. A few years after that I found Red Sage’s Secrets and never looked back. Several of their early authors continue to be on my auto buy list today.
Like you Shiloh I have been reading it for a long time, probably about as long as you if not a bit longer. Don’t know exactly when but whenever I found something really hot I would grab it. I love the hot stuff the hotter the better.
For me it was Lora Leigh’s Bound series…I’d never read or heard of anything like it, it changed the way I read books. My library didn’t have any of them and I had to hunt for the earlier ones. I still read them today.
I’ve been reading it forever, it seems like. My first “whoa” experience was Lori Foster’s Too Much Temptation (2002) which back then? Wow. Amazon’s “other people bought” feature introduced me to Sarah McCarty’s EC Promises series, and I was off and running.
I’ve been a fan of romances since forever. I read the Anne Rice “Sleeping Beauty” series. But I became a fan of of erotic romances when I found “Wicked Ties” by Shayla Black randomly at a Borders bookstore. I loved that book and her Wicked Lovers series!! I started looking for other books by her and discovered other authors through Amazon.com, Ellora’s Cave and Harlequin’s Spice imprint line of books and books published under Kensington, Brava and Aphrodisia.
Some of my favorite authors are: Maya Banks (Sweet Series), Jaci Burton, Joey W. Hill, Megan Hart, Lauren Dane, Jaid Black, Sylvia Day, Saskia Walker, Karin Tabke and you (Fragile is a fave)!
I love this genre and it bugs me that it took the “Shades” books for others to start reading the hot stuff. I haven’t read that book yet, but I think it’s interesting how some of the books by the authors I’ve named are being re-released with “Shade” like covers. #smh
I remember going “whoa” when I first read Lora Leigh’s Nauti series. I actually remember texting my sis that yea, I had found a new writer but yikes, her smexy scenes were a little “out there”. At the time. 😉
Anya Bast’s Dark Magick series was another author in my nascent erotica reading days but I didn’t connect with her writing as much as I did with Beth Kery’s Subtle Lovers series (love this series, wish there were more) and with Anitra Lynn McLeod’s Onic Empire series. Oh and Marie Harte’s both Circe’s Recruits & Dawn’s Endeavor series. They were an easy & fast para-erotica read. Oh and my fav still remains Cara McKenna’s Willing Victim.
I’m almost certain all these books were written before 50 shades, but then again, I only read 50 Shades trilogy last month, so… take that as you will.
My first “erotic romance” author was probably Emma Holly. I first found her in the Black Lace erotica line, then she went a bit more “mainstream.” In terms of publisher, not necessarily content. 😎
Emma Holly was also the first I read in 2003/2004. I hunted down her books and found Hot Spell, which in turn introduced me to Shiloh Walker and Lora Leigh. I glommed onto their books and the rest is history.
I started reading Red Sage books before there was Ellora’s Cave. Read some regular straight erotica before that. I decided to write an erotic romance after EC had only been in business a short time I think. That book ended up being published in 2003 (The Dare). I think it was ’03…or was it ’02. LOL. So when traditional publishing houses started figuring out that yes erotic romance would make money there was this explosion of it. Then when 50 Shades came out I just had to laugh at all the media acting as if it was something so totally new and unheard of. Especially the BDSM part of it. I rarely read BDSM because it isn’t my cup of tea. But I always recommended Joey Hill’s books because of the superb writing/plot/characters that goes beyond the BDSM element.
My first naughty book was Sandra Brown’s “Lucky” from my mother. It was part of her Doubleday book selection. I had NO idea that you could read about sex.
My true first erotic anything was Dirty by Megan Hart. I quickly devoured everything that the Spice line had.
Marika/Harlie
I started reading Barbara Cartland as a young teen in the early 70’s. I had my eyes opened by the Wolf and the Dove , but my boyfriend (now husband of 35 years) was very intellectual and so I gave up romances and read mystery for years, followed by SciFi/Fantasy which was my love for years, altho I always loved the HEA stories. I found that in PNR paperbacks that were pretty hot. My move from hot to erotica happened when I got an ereader in 2008 and started following friends suggestions and discovered authors like Bianca D’Arc, Mima, and many many more….no turning back for me….. when my sister in law was going on about 50 Shades, I told her “let me know if want to read really hot books” 🙂
Well, during my teens I really loved darker books, so when i went into my local bookstore he recommended “blue moon” by laurell k Hamilton. Well I liked it so much I bought her previous books and she became an auto- buy for me. As the books progressed it seemed like the smex was getting more and more and more…which eventually was too much for me, but I found some of it intrigued me, so I did my homework and have gobbled up all the smexy I can with bast, kenyon, leigh, Joyce, and way too many to name.
I’ve been reading it a while too. over 10 yrs anyway. And EC got me started with you, Lora, and Jaid black being some of my favs and of Angela Knight at red sage. I love it bring it on.
denise, you and I got started about the same time. 🙂
I used to read romances all the time, and I thought they were graphic. I look back now and realize they weren’t at all. Then I went through a period in my life where I was so busy with other things I stopped reading as much and when I did it wasn’t romances. Then around 2009 I started reading all the time again and discovered that the romance novels I used to read had gotten much hotter. What first got me hooked was some of the hotter historicals (I think Gaelen Foley’s first Inferno club book). But the first truly erotic ones that I read were Laurell K. Hamilton’s Merry Gentry series. While I liked that series, it wasn’t really romantic enough to suit my tastes. So I then found myself specifically looking for erotic romances. Favorite erotic romance authors are Emma Holly, Sarah McCarty, Ava Archer Payne, Kerrigan Byrne, Kallysten, Lorelei James, Erin McCarthy, Victoria Vane, and of course Shilhoh Walker.
Yep Shiloh. You and I are oldies. But goodies. LOL.
I started with Marly’s Choice by Lora Leigh back in 2006. I read quite a bit of her stuff before I discovered you, Bianc D’Arc, and many others. It’s fair to say that my computer got quite a workout with so many of the authors publishing primarily in ebook format.
For me it was Jacqueline Susann, who was the Erica Jong of my generation; I got grounded for a week when my mother found The Love Machine in my library books. After that, probably Rosemary Rogers; her Sweet Savage Love was probably the most erotic — or at least sexually explicit — historical romance of the early seventies. Both will seem pretty tame by comparison to more modern erotic novels, but back in the day they were condemned as absolute filth by the kneejerkers.
I started reading romances/erotica when I was about 12-13 years old. My mum used to do the book returns for our local Supermarket, which involved removing the covers and sending them back, so I had a tonne of Harlequin lines and other publisher books from the early 1990’s onwards. I can’t remember all the authors or publishers but I recognise a lot of my favs listed from the previous comments. I’ve loved Lora Leigh, Lori Foster, Emma Holly, Jaci Burton, Lauren Dane books for what seems like forever and I really enjoyed the earlier stuff from Laurell K Hamilton.
What a coincidence. I have been in a love affair with romances of all kind since 2007 or so. People kept asking have you read 50 shades and were so shocked by the scenes in the book. For a book club I am reading the 50 Shades books. They don’t suck, but as I first thought the sex isn’t on the top of my hot list. In fact it is quite mild compared to the likes of many of my favorite authors. J.R. Ward, Kresley Cole, Lora Leigh, and many others got me hooked back in 2007. I hope for many more years of loving the hot stuff! 🙂