Hi there! My name is Tori (aka Vicki) and I have no idea what I am supposed to talk about here! I guess I’ll talk about my reading history and how I got to the point of reading mostly gay romance…
I have been reading forever… my dad read the Narnia books to me when I was little, then The Hobbit. When I could read for myself, I started alternating between The Black Stallion books and the Little House on the Prairie books. When I was a teen I got into fantasy and sci-fi. That somehow got me to King Arthur, and I took a deep jump into historical, including participating for several years in a medieval re-enactment group. At some point I added in some romance, first historical then paranormal. That worked for a couple of years, until I found a link on JR Wards message board for something called m/m.
That was July 2009. Since I was still in a paranormal phase, I saw a book about wizards and vampires and that sounded right up my alley. But it had two men? Hmmm. Ok, that sounded cool. I downloaded the first Partnership in Blood book by Arial Tachna, and my life has never been the same. Although I started with paranormal and fantasy m/m, I quickly moved on to contemporary, and now I read nearly anything in the gay romance genre. I like my books to have romance, sex is good, although that has taken a bit of a back seat to the emotional connection. But most importantly there has to be a happy ending. I have a tattoo on my arm of a stack of books, with the phrase “and they lived happily ever after”. That is super important to me!
In 2014 I was invited to review books for Love Bytes Reviews! Wow, it’s been four years? How did that happen…
Through social media I have made friends with authors and readers in the genre around the world. That is very cool! I’ve had the privilege of attending four GRL’s, although I’ve missed the last two, and even though I’m shy in person, I loved meeting authors and fellow readers, and bringing home autographed books!
In my real life, I’ve been married for 31 years, have a daughter and son-in-law, and a granddaughter. I own a nail salon which is going through a growth period. I do love owning my own business, but this working six days a week has impacted my reading time!
I guess I’ve rambled enough! I’ll just say thank you to Dani for letting me continue to review books for Love Bytes Reviews, and congratulations on five years!
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Thanks for the insight. I have found that a large number of people that like to read were read to when they were young.
I need my HEAs too!
Thanks for the post! Your start in reading sounds really similar to mine. 🙂
One of my first memories is sitting on my mom’s lap, twisting her hair in between my fingers as she read a book to me at nap time. I remember all the Golden Books I had as a child, before I moved on to the Bobbsey Twins, Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. Growing up in South Dakota I definitely read ‘The Little House on the Prairie’ books. I loved ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ and all of Lois Lowry’s books. Next it was gothic romances and mysteries. Once I discovered shifter books they led me to fantasies, erotica, mfm, and mm. I haven’t looked back!
fours years reviewing? nice!
congrats on the 5th Anniversary for Love Bytes <3
thanks for the chance!
Thanks for the post and sharing, and thanks for reviewing for Love Bytes. I had to laugh that you were read The Hobbit, but for me, even in Jr. Hi it was too much for me. Yet 4 years later I fell in love with the whole series. Go figure.
Thank you for sharing and for all the years of reviewing =)
I have always enjoyed reading , from an early age it was Heidi, Black Beauty, Enid Blyton etc – never stopped!!
Thank you for sharing some of your experiences with us!
Always fun to hear about a personal route to m/m!
One of my earliest memories is of my mother reading to me after going trick or treating. All through school, my friends parents would always comment that i must be really smart since i read so much, i would just laugh and say sure. LOL
Congrats on your long reviewing career! Thanks for the chance 🙂
Thanks for the post. It happened the same to me, found a book with guys in the cover and the name of the author sounded like a fan-fic name, LOL. I decided to give it a go and here I am today.
Thanks for sharing your story. I read Yaoi manga, when I was younger and I also read mpreg stories here and there, so I was aware of the genre somehow (I just didn’t know that there were “real” books out there.). Here is the funny thing, around 2014 I started reading J.R. Ward books and in late 2015 I crossed over to m/m. Very interesting that you also came across her, before dipping into the genre =)
Thank you for sharing i did read the Little House on the Prairie books (borrowed them from the library after watching the tv serie)
Hi Tori, I enjoyed your post and I think HEA are very important too.
JR Ward is solely responsible for more than a half readers in MM community 😀 …Thanks for the post!