Old Skool v New Skool: Embracing the Bodice Ripper

PINK HEART SOCIETY COLUMN

I’ve been on a retro reading binge over the past few weeks – ever since the Sydney Writers’ Festival, when the moderator of the Beyond Dukes and Damsels session, literary historian Jodie McAlister, kicked off proceedings with this question for the panelists (of whom I was one): What was the first romance novel you ever read?

In my case, it was Kathleen Woodiwiss’s Medieval romance, The Wolf And The Dove, which I consumed as a teenager in a non-stop frenzy of awe.

That book opened a door into a world of lush description, historical adventure and dark passion, and I wasted no time racing out that door and into that world, devouring all things Kathleen Woodiwiss, Laurie McBain, Shirlee Busbee, Rosemary Rogers, and Johanna Lindsey (to name just a few).

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