It seems that every blogger has to have a story about why they read romance and how they started. Mine, it turns out, was because of my mother.

My mother raised all three of us to be readers. I remember snuggling next to her on the couch with my head on her shoulder while she read to us. She says that all of us kids had our favorite books which we read over and over. Mine was Winnie-the-Pooh and the honey Tree. It was only a matter of time until I developed a taste for reading on my own. I’ve come a long way from the days of Winnie-the-Pooh, but my mom still influences my taste in reading.

It was Mom who introduced me to books that became favorites. Mom read me the book version of The Wizard of Oz after I came to love the movie. Mom read my first Nancy Drew book to me. Hell, she even read me the occasional Baby-Sitter’s Club book, which I never really got into but thought I ought to because they were popular. She didn’t have to read aloud to me, once I got old enough to start reading on my own, but even until I was a teenager I treasured the times that she would.

I’ll never forget the day Mom introduced me to my first real romance novel. I was ten years old, and it was shortly before school started. For some reason we were alone in the house and it was raining. Probably she didn’t know how else to keep me occupied, so she pulled out Phyllis Whitney’s Thunder Heights. I’m pretty sure the book I linked to is the one she actually had. Anyway, I was enchanted. Here was my first real grown-up book and I went on a huge Phyllis Whitney reading jag. I didn’t care that her formula was pretty much the same–you could always tell who the bad guys were, who the love interest would be, etc. I loved the exotic settings and the Gothic atmosphere.

Later I left romance, but I always kept coming back to it, invariably because of Mom. Mom encouraged me to read Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. I read Perfect and Almost Heaven both by Judith McNaught. More recently, Mom got me interested in Marjorie Liu, who is one of my favorite authors. Even if the books aren’t to my taste, (Mom loves Katie MacAlister, who I don’t see the appeal of at all), I’ll still try any author if it passes the Shannon’s mom seal of approval.

My mom has been a hugely influential person in my life. I am pretty sure that, both good and bad, I owe a lot of who I am to her. The fact that she made me love reading is just the tip of the iceberg as far as I’m concerned, but it’s something for which I’ll always be grateful to her.