On reading what you write--or not

I’m once again participating in a Round Robin. This month’s topic: Whatever genre you write, do you have a different one that you love to read? 

 

Perhaps it started with Desiree.

 

I devoured the 1951 novel by Annemarie Selinko when I found it in the high school library. I may have seen the 1954 movie with Marlon Brando and Jean Simmons before seeking out the book, but I can’t be sure. The story of Napoleon’s first love who married a French general and eventually became Queen of Sweden is a romance novelist’s dream. While not a rags to riches story, as our heroine was born to a wealthy French family, she did overcome early disappointments, finally find romance, and then voila! is a Queen. Though never happy in that role, on the surface, Desiree is a fairy tale.

 

So I have long liked that period in history and have settled into reading Regencies, the more or less English side of the Napoleonic era. 

 

But I write contemporary romance and an occasional women’s fiction, as well as short romances for Woman’s World Magazine. What’s the deal?