Why I read romance...

Romance novels are my one true guilty pleasure...except I don't feel guilty about them at all. I love them. I devour them. I usually have a pretty good stack of conquered books always hanging about. I am not alone. Over 64 million people claimed to have read at least one romance novel in 2004. 64 million!

And why do I love reading them so much? Good question. I think part of it just has to do with my imagination. I have a pretty vivid one. I can literally fall into a book to the point that after I'm done reading it, I have a hard time remembering if I just read a book or watched a movie. Another big part of it is the idea of true love. I love..love..lol. It sounds so corny, but it's true. I enjoy reading along as two characters fall in love, for love alone..but the action and conflict and tension don't hurt either. I am in love with the idea of deep, sudden, unshakable love. The type of love that someone might go to the ends of the earth for. Again, I know, so corny..but true. I would often finish a book and sigh. Why can't it REALLY be like that? That's what I use to think.

I keep up with a few different blogs about romance writing and romance books. The other day, one of the entries put it very well. I enjoy the dance of two people who come to realize they love each other. Sigh. It's that a lovely idea? As time has passed I still love to read romance novels, but now instead of seeing them as only stories with impossible emotions that real people don't have, I can absolutely relate. Because, even though our road hasn't been riddled with danger or life-altering secrets, it was a journey for us..a dance, as we realized we wanted to be together, and that our love was (and is) worth going to the ends of the earth for.