Which romance novel first flipped your switch?  Made you want to read romance?

We’ve all had that novel that grabbed us emotionally, that was impossible to put down or stop thinking about once finished.  The novel that was more real to us than our own world.  The story that ignited something within us that said, This is my genre.  This is what I love to read.

All of us had to start somewhere.

E.L. James, who wrote the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, has said in several interviews that Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer, did it for her.  She saw the movie and became obsessed with Edward and Bella.  When her husband gave her the entire set of novels for Christmas, she read them over and over.  They flipped her switch.  She discovered fan fiction, started to write, and the rest is publishing history.

For me, it was Shanna.  I had no idea historical romances even existed until I found this novel.  I didn’t want the story to end.  As I read other historical romances, my own story began to take shape.

There’s a real passion when readers talk about the novels that inspired them.  That made them very happy readers.  The way a particular author created a story, characters, and a world that touched them so deeply.

Which romance novel first inspired you to read romance?  Which romance novels continue to inspire you?