My Sad Romance Education (updated!) and Dirty Little Lies Week Day Three

The winner of today’s copy of Dirty Little Lies is:

Lynn Raye Harris.

Congratulations! Please email me your address. And everyone else, leave your comments here to be entered into tomorrow’s giveaway.

In other news, I think I wrote more in August than I have in any given month since I graduated from college. (My last month in college, I wrote 120 pages. 120 pages of academic paper. I know. It took me a year to recover and I haven’t been able to pull an all-nighter since. My body has lost the ability, as I proved last night.)

There’s this meme going around, apparently based on what the good people at AAR think are the “top one hundred romances.” I’m linking to Milady Insanity’s list, but I’m not repeating it here, because, well, my results are pathetic. Either my tastes are not at all in line with AAR (they do seem to have a lot of historicals on there, don’t they?) or I somehow skipped the classics when it comes to romance reading. I barely even have any of them on the TBR.

Ones I’ve read:

16. Ravished, by Amanda Quick. Probably one of the first romances I ever read, back in high school. Don’t remember much about it except for how the heroine drugged the hero on the wedding night then mixed up red dye to pour on the bed so he’d think they’d consummated the marriage. But she has no idea how much to use, so when he wakes up and sees the enormous stain, he thinks he’s hurt her. Wait, maybe I haven’t read this one. Maybe I read Seduction. The “Earl of Ravenwood” sounds really familiar. Can someone figure this out for me? I’ve only read two Quicks and I know one was with a purple cover (could be either of these) and the other (which is neither of these) was with a pink cover, and involved a hero named Harry who was secretly a spy and had a daughter, and a heroine named Augusta who was always getting into scrapes.

(I guess it was Seduction after all)

22. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen. Natch.

Half of 72. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (By the way, if you copy this list, please note that Niffenegger’s name is spelled wrong there.) I really enjoyed what I read, but then I put it down last year in order to meet my deadline and never picked it up again.

I haven’t read 87. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, but I’ve seen the movie, read the other Bronte, and read Wide Sargasso Sea. Does that count?

So there we have it, folks. Two One and a half, out of a hundred.

I do, however, have the following on my TBR:
2. Flowers from the Storm, by Laura Kinsale (or otherwise Gina — and Justine — might kill me)
3. Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie (although how many times do I have to pick it up and put it back down before I figure out that it’s not my kind of thing?)
26. Born in Fire by Nora Roberts (and I really should make a point of reading this, since i made such a point of tracking it down and buying it)
43. See Jane Score by Rachel Gibson

Plus the Eyre and Niffenegger. So that’s it. Eight Seven romances I have even a chance of ever being acquainted with from this list of supposed top one hundred. And yet, I read so many romances. Johanna Lindsay isn’t even on that list, and I devoured her growing up. I’m going to have to make my own list. How did they choose this one? I looked on AAR, but I coudln’t find any mention of it. I think there are definite favorites going on here. So many historicals, and so many names repeated over and over. Is there a paranormal on there at all?

What about you? What’s your score?

(Updated: Finally found where this is coming from. It’s a 2004 survey. They have prior ones in 200 and 1998. It’s interesting to see how the lists have changed over time. Woodiwiss appears to have dropped off, Chase’s star keeps rising, and Crusie wasn’t even on there the first two times.)