Coffee and Conversation with the #RomanceGems

It's time for Coffee and Conversation with the Romance Gems! So, grab a cup of your favorite beverage and join us for some fun. This month's topic is: First Love

February is often considered the month of amore—a celebration of love and affection—with Valentine’s Day falling right in the middle. So, tell me… Who, or perhaps what, was your first love?

“One look and I knew I was going to marry Karl. A year later, we did marry. The thing that has kept our marriage strong for over 50 years is that we’ve always treated each other like best friends. He’s definitely the love of my life and the first boy I dated, fell in love with, the first boy who bought me Valentine candy, took me to my first prom, encouraged me to reach for the stars. He’s my always and forever.” ~ Karen Kelley

“My first love in junior high school was a boy named David. Then, of course, it was the Beatles. I’m telling my age, for sure. I loved Paul Revere and the Raiders and Herman from Herman’s Hermits. I saw all three groups back in the day. It was easier to love a singing group from afar than it was to be ignored by boys because your father was the vice-principal. LOL!”
~ Jan Scarbrough

“The first time I thought, “I am in love” I was 12. I thought about this boy named Rudy Schneider all the time. When my Girl Scout Troop had a party where we were to ask a boy, I got up the nerve to call him as I trembled all over and asked him to be my “date.” He said, “I think I can manage that.” My parents picked him up. At the party, boys on one side, girls on the other. And I heard him telling the guys about “my girlfriend.” It was clearly not me. I was mortified.” ~ Cheryl Bolen

“My first love was reading. I would spend hours in the library in my hometown and check out as many books as possible. Reading under the covers with a flashlight was a nightly event. I would read everything I could get my hands on. Old magazines, my brothers Hardy Boys books and the entire collection of Nancy Drew were just some of what I read. I'm still in love with books. But I guess that goes without saying being a romance author. Today I write books about love and it makes my heart soar.” ~ Lucinda Race

“I was an early romantic. My first love was Lance and I was five. He was going to grow up to be Roy Rogers and I was going to grow up to be Dale Evans. Together, we would save the West from rustlers and bank robbers. We spent hours each day playing, plotting, and reading comic books. Our dreams were curtailed when my parents moved from Bakersfield, California back to Texas and I never saw Lance again. This romance did not have a happy ending then, but better things were coming my way.”
~ Caroline Clemmons

“My first love’s name was Michael. I had a crush on him from the fourth to seventh grade. He was blond, blue-eyed, and not only did he let me play games with the boys, he didn’t get upset if I won. (Sometimes I think he let me win.) He moved when we were in seventh grade and it about broke my heart. He was a sweetie!”
~ Kara O'Neal

Peggy Jaeger & Husband

“It took me a long time to fall in love for the very first time, but when I did, it knew it was a lifetime thing. My hubby is my hero, my first love, and my last. He’s the Nick to my Nora, the ying to my yang, the sun to my moon. He covers my 6 and always makes me feel secure, protected, and cared for. After 37 years together it just keeps getting better every day.” ~ Peggy Jaeger

“First love… sigh. My first love was a boy named Joey Frascarelli. I was eleven, he was twelve. I’d loved him from the moment I saw him play the drums in the talent show. He had shaggy hair, big brown eyes, and was just the coolest thing ever. It took about four months to finally catch Joey’s eye, and for one summer, we were “official.” Meaning, we rode our bikes around the neighborhood and talked on the phone for hours at night. By talk, I mean I mostly listened to him play Van Halen songs on his drums. It ended with the season, but my crush lived on for years after!” ~ Elsa Kurt

“I don't remember the first boy I had a crush on. My first kiss was done on a dare. I was proposed to three times by three different men before I found “The One.” None of these compare to my first true love — books. Growing up, I was bullied, and books were my escape. I was smart like Meg in a Wrinkle in Time, tenacious like Francis in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, imaginative like Anne of Green Gables, resourceful like Karana in Island of the Blue Dolphins, plucky like Nancy Drew. I fit in with the girls I found on the pages in ways I didn’t in the hallways of middle school. They gave me hope that life got better and for that I loved them.” ~ Satin Russell

Kari Lemor & Husband

“I was a little slow in the romance department. I never even dated in high school and didn't go out with anyone until after that. I did manage a few very short term boyfriends in college, but never actually fell in love until I met my husband my junior year. He was my first, my current, and my only love.” ~ Kari Lemor

Liz Flaherty's first reader

“I will admit right here in the first line that I don’t remember my first love, although there are a few crushes who can still make me smile. But I’m old. My last love, the one I’ve had for 50 years—he’s the one that matters. But I remember the first day of first grade—no kindergarten then—opening the Dick-and-Jane reader and seeing that first word. “Look.” With that, reading became my first true love, to be followed soon by writing. They and I have lived happily ever after together.” ~ Liz Flaherty

Kathleen Lawless loves the beach

“I’m going to deviate from the obvious and state that my first love was the beach. We lived a few steps away and even before I could walk, that shoreline magic was deeply ingrained into my psyche. The beach has always been my happy place. Most of my vacation plans include a beach and the few times they haven’t I get a physical yearning to hear the waves, to smell the brine and feel the sand. As a west coast girl, there is nothing about a lake beach that soothes my soul the way the ocean does. It’s the place where I can laugh, cry, read, write, meditate or simply be and, fair weather or foul, it’s never let me down.”
~ Kathleen Lawless

“Is it any surprise my first love was a puppy? (We won’t talk about that blond boy in sixth grade, the bookish brainiac with round glasses…Ahem) I was five when my parents took me to a place with a pen, filled with Dachshund puppies. I was tasked with picking ‘our family dog’, and I did. The runt of the litter. (I thought he would live longest because he was SO tiny) Turns out he was sickly, but my parents nursed him to a full recovery. He was my very best friend! That’s why I’ve had Dachshunds for decades. Puppy love!” 
~ Kathryn Hills

Okay, it's your turn to join the conversation! Add your comments below or send via email through the "contact us” link on the bottom of the left sidebar. You can also make suggestions on what you'd like to discuss here in the future.

Thanks for joining us!

 ~ The Romance Gems ~

We're having a party—a ginormous party—to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Romance Gems! We're also celebrating Valentine's Day all month long. After all, we are romance authors.

Visit our Valentine's Day Book Fair 

filled with the kinds of books you love best. 

Open every day in February!

Don’t forget our Rafflecopter with Amazon Gift Cards!