Perfectly Imperfect: romance authors + book signing = my celebrites

I haven't always like to read as much as a I do now. When I was little my mom used to say that when I read all the books on my shelves I could buy more. Of course much of that was in reference to the book flyer's they passed out in class. I loved those little catalogs - all the books looked so awesome. I was in middle school when I first got turned on to romances. We were having a garage sale and some of the neighbors brought stuff to be sold. Afterwards the unsold items hung around our garage for a while. I found this book, Years by LaVyrle Spencer - the cover was oh so racy. I was intrigued and took the book. You could call this a turning point. For a while I read the teen romances, but closer to high school I really fell in love with the Zebra Historicals as well as other single title romances. One summer my step-mom took me around to all the garage sales and we found bags and bags of romances. Soon I found my favorite author's like Julie Garwood, Johanna Lindsey, Jude Deveraux and Catherine Coulter.

In a few short days I'll be turning 31! I realized that well over half my life I've been obsessed with romance novels. About 7 years ago I discovered that you could actually meet the women who wrote these books. I have to say that this was kind of a revelation at the time. So I took a big bag of books and went out to a book signing to meet some of my favorite author's and get my books signed. I can't begin to tell you what a thrill it was, because to me these authors are like celebrities.

Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville has a steady stream of authors that come through its doors. Last Sunday they had 5 romance authors: Rachel Gibson, Pamela Palmer, Julia Quinn, Sarah MacLean and Elizabeth Boyle. Usually I'm the first to jump on these events and I like to plan in advance. I was a little wishy-washy about going (reasons unknown). But I did go and it was so much fun. I'm always inspired more to write after hearing the authors story and how they got started.