Mine was Outlander by Diana Gabaldon and it is still one of my favorites.

There may have been one or two before this one, but this is the one I 'think' was my first and was 22 years ago - Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (although when I read it it was called Cross Stitch).

These days I'm really an apocalypse and/or time travel addict but I read a few chick lit's recently (which I'm quite new to) and really liked them so I'm trying to branch out into romance in all it's forms and get some more of them under my belt. Historical romance is my newest obsession and I keep adding new ones to my kindle daily...just need to actually read them now, instead of just collecting them :D

I've read a few Philippa Gregory Tudor ones and a few scattered one's from other authors but I haven't even scratched the surface of the genre, really. Mostly I'm here to soak up some HR gossip and get great idea's of what's good and what's not :D

Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean. I haven't looked back since :P

Reply to post #7 (show post):
It was a good place to start. I loved it and ALL of MacLean's other works.

Reply to post #6 (show post):
Agreed; that's a great place to start.

I've forgotten my first, it being 20-some years ago. It was probably by Danielle Steel and it probably sucked. I didn't really get into romance until after college (in fact, I used to be a hater), and the first HR series I remember reading in my 20s was the first 6 books of Stephanie Laurens' Bar Cynster series. I liked the first three (Devils' Bride, A Rake's Vow, and Scandal's Bride), but then got bored and moved on to discover much better (and some much worse) things in Romancelandia!

I 'think' it was Valerie Vayle's Lady of Fire. I recently hunted down a copy of it along with it's two 'sequels' from a used book store. I was obsessed with pirates in HR and LoF was like crack. ;D

Reply to post #5 (show post):
I LOVE Philippa Gregory - her Tudor books, at least. Have you ever read her Wideacre trilogy? It's very well written, but super disturbing!

Reply to post #12 (show post):
I haven't read the Wideacre one's yet, but I have them here on my kindle. I've got quite a few of her's here actually, just can't think which one's at the moment. I know I've got her new one's...is it the Red and White Queen books or the cousins or something?

I started reading historicals a long time ago, but the romance I read used to be the kind of the former meaning of the word: Wuthering Heights or Don Quixotte. The first real historical romance has to have been "The Charioteer" by Mary Renault.

Reply to post #12 (show post):
I liked the Other Boleyn Girl but I LOVED The Boleyn Inheritance. LOVED!

The Wolf and the Dove by Kathleen Woodiwiss, sometime in the 1970's. Stole it from my mother's bookshelf. It seemed so racy at the time, but it's tame by modern standards.

Mine was The Bride by Julie Garwood and I honestly don't think I could've picked a better book.