Faraway, Love

I snuck my first Mills and Boon out of the house at 12 years old. I’d filched it from the massive pile next to my mother’s chair, the off limits pile. I don’t remember much about the book but what I do remember is that the hero and heroine didn’t kiss until the end with the declarations of love and proposal of marriage and that it was set in England, a far off land that I’d seen on tellie. It could just be a coincidence but I’ve wanted to run away to a faraway land since then. I’ve devoured book after book, thousands of Mills and Boons set in England, Europe and doesntexistlandia. I rarely read anything set in Australia because for me books are there to take me away to the places that until recently I haven’t been able to afford to travel to. With the exception of a school trip to the USA a decade ago I’ve been here reading about faraway lands. Lands that in less than a month I will explore, I feel like I’ve traipsed around London a million times through the words of women whose work is mocked for being unrealistic and unintelligent. Mills and Boon have carted me off to foreign lands when I’ve most needed to run away, from things I really couldn’t escape.

This is why I love reading and despair at book snobs (although I readily admit to being a snob myself).  Even the cheapest books, the books considered by many to be trash can transport the reader to another place. The girl hiding down in the back shed reading a Charlotte Lamb after a day at school avoiding bullies or the grown woman hiding in the locker room at work during her lunch break trying to finish the Maisey Yates she discovered on her book shelf like some hidden treasure.

Several years ago I met a librarian who shared my love for romance and lobbied to have a regular romance stash added to the library, finally a library with romances purchased this decade!  Since then I’ve discovered more faraway lands and introduced friends, family and anyone too polite to tell me to shut up to romance as a genre.

Books have power, that’s well recognised.  Books are my Tardis. And next month I’ll discover those faraway lands I’ve read about for myself.

Sarah is a recent Writing Honours graduate from the University of Technology, Sydney – Communications. Sarah’s main interests are ethnography, Romance and politics. Her work can be found on her blog http://sarahjaneinnes.blogspot.com/  and Twitter @Agnes_andthe