Happily ever after? We’ve only just begun.

Nearing the end of 2020 my emotional capacity to manage my mental health had hit an all time low. Pandemic fatigue, stress, isolation, fear of death, you name and I was most certainly experiencing it.

During a night (or early morning) where my anxiety and panic were largely out of control, I ended up binging season 1 of Virgin River on Netflix. Originally I picked it, mostly because I felt like it was going to be something “dumb” enough, that overworked mind would become so sedated that I would get at least some sleep.

Of course that didn’t happen.

I was sucked into the story, the romance, the hopefulness, and of course felt like I had found some level of peace that had been evading me for the better part of a year.

After blazing through the first season, and wandering over to the the r/VirginRiverNetflix subreddit, I found out that this was based on a twenty (TWENTY!) book series by Robyn Carr. But more than that some of the reviews being heavily in the “the book was better” camp really got me wondering.

I had been a self identified book-nerd for as long as I could remember, however in the past decade being inconsistent at best, I wanted something else to throw myself (but mostly my mind) into. Not wanting to wait for an amazon delivery, and with adult money with access to a credit-card, I bought an eBook on my iPad and I guess the rest is *history*.

I ended up reading 36 books in the span of a month (The entirety of Robyn Carr’s Virgin River Series), and my love for reading had become completely reinvigorated. I stumbled upon BookTok, r/RomanceBooks and Romance Novel Twitter and as of today, I’ve read, loved, cried, cringed, hyperventilated, swooned and eye rolled through just about 400 titles in 2021

I know what you’re thinking, wow you’re so smart and talented and amazing at reading. And yes, you would be exactly correct.

Reading romance, has without hyperbole changed my relationship with reading, with intimacy, with my own perceptions of my sexuality and is such a joyful hobby to have picked up.

I feel like I have found a solid community of humans who are hilarious, thoughtful, kind, and are so accepting, especially now that my approach to wild recommendations starts and ends with “this better not awaken anything in me”.

Part of me feels like it’s important to document what I read, what I liked, didn’t and what stood out, mostly for me, but maybe a little for those of y’all out there that might want to read some light reviews, and go on your own romance journey.

So welcome, it’s probably going to get weird.