All About Romance has discussed conversion kits for non-romance readers for quite some time now. The list of resources has helped me tremendously and for the first time, I now have offline friends who read romance! However, many good books have come out since these lists were written up, so I thought it would be fun to try to assemble updated conversion kits.
Some of my friends have been leery of reading anything that even looks like romance, either because they fear ridicule or because they’ve bought into the idea that romances are all badly written garbage. The fact that many romances are packaged to look like badly written garbage doesn’t help here, but that’s a subject for another blog piece. When trying to show my friends that there really is good romance out there, I’ve found that romantic suspense are paranormal romance are both good gateway genres. I also try to pull out some books that have crossover appeal. And obviously, when trying to convince people that romance is worth reading, I pull out the books that are written well!
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My first review here at AAR was published May 17, 2007 — almost exactly four years ago. When I first started reviewing here, I was finishing up my senior year in high school. My first package of books coincided very closely with my AP tests — what a dilemma! Now, four years and 200 reviews later, is another landmark in my personal life: on Sunday, I graduated cum laude from American University with a degree in International Studies. 
I was excited about April’s 
Like many people around the world, I am deeply affected by what is happening in Japan. My heart goes out the Japanese people, and I admire the steadfastness and determination, not to mention great courage with which they deal with the terrible situation they find themselves in.
Polls and lists are exciting to me. Hey, it’s the little things in life after all! And, I’ve been thinking about my 
Harper Collins reached their total of $3,000 for Liz Carlyle’s charity of choice. Thanks to everyone who commented. The kitties thank you, too.
When I went to study abroad in France, I’d already been reading romance novels for years. So one of the first things I did, having roughly acquired a second language, was to seek out all the French romance novels I could find. I mean, everyone loves a happy ending, right? And even coming from a culture that celebrates its own romantic pragmatism and derides the prudery of English-speaking countries, everyone wants to be happy, I thought. Where better to find certain happiness than in a romance novel?
During a visit my twelve-year-old niece paid to my place last weekend, I took her to the guest room, where I keep my children’s and YA literature, and chose some books with her to borrow over the summer holidays. Many of my books there are classics, the majority are books I read when I was a kid myself. So after my niece had picked out a few titles on her own, I handed her several others which I think she might like. I especially recommended Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce, and my niece ended taking the whole Song of the Lioness quartet. Today I am informed she is by now on her second reading of the whole set.
