A Trip Down Memory Lane

You know when you are read a M&B author's 'about me' blurb at the beginning of their book and they say how they used to read their grandmother's or mother's M&B when they were 12? Well I can put my hand up and say I too fall into that category, except they were my aunt's books.





The other day whilst reading such a blurb, it got me thinking about the different author's and books that impacted me whilst growing up, and how each book/category/author could be associated with some memory. For instance:

• Enid Blyton & Roald Dahl books are my earliest memory of reading 'novels'. I would go shopping with my mother for the sole purpose of scoring a book. She would often leave me on the book section whilst she shopped and collected me on her way out.


• Ruth Park's book Playing Beatie Bow was the book that inspired me to write. I loved it so much and convinced myself that I would write the sequel. For those that have read the book or seen the movie, you know that it's pretty much impossible to have a sequel, but hey I was 10 or 11 and my dreams were big back then.


• My pre-teen stage: The Babysitters Club by Ann M. Martin and Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume are two standouts.


• Then came the teen romances: The Sweet Dreams series and Sweet Valley High. These books remind me of heart fluttering first kisses and happily ever after. I so wanted to be blonde and blue eyed but the closest I came was the disastrous episode with a spray on hair lightener that left my very dark brown hair a beautiful shade of orange.


• Then came the summer I spent at my grandparents and I discovered Mills & Boon. My uncle and my aunt where still living at home at the time and the books shelf displayed an interesting combination of books. Books about Stalin and Karl Marx on one end (for arguments sake we will say the left) and an abundance of M&B on the other. Do I have to spell out which I read? This is the only 'fad' of books that I never truly grew out of.


• In my senior years in high school we were made to read a lot of texts no one particularly enjoyed. There were two exceptions though: 1. Pride & Prejudice (need I say more?) and 2. An Open Swimmer by Tim Winton. A vivid memory from high school was when a teacher walked into the room at the start of a lesson and found one of my friends and myself devouring Pride & Prejudice whilst the reset of the class ran amok. This is the dialogue, word for word of what happened next:

Teacher to unruly classmates: 'Why can't you girls just sit and read like Janette and Susan?'

Maria: 'But Miss V, we are not nerds like they are.

• In my 20's there where two author's that stood out for me: Nora Roberts (particularly Birthright) and Marian Keyes (especially Last Chance Saloon).

Which brings us to my 30's and present day. The funny thing is - whilst the years have passed and morphed into themselves, not much has really changed. Still knee deep in M&B and hooked on HEA; still an aspiring author; still reading an eclectic combination of books and still a romance nerd...