I read 12 books in March to bring my 2018 total up to 37 books. While my biggest reading obstacle remains the inability to walk in a bookstore and buy the many, many books that interest me, it leads directly to the second largest obstacle. I spend hours wandering the local used books store in search of new things to read that I can buy with trade credit. A close third is the children are starting to hide their books to keep me from asking if I can trade it, but it’s the second obstacle that I want to put in focus.

After avoiding the romance section for my entire freaking life, I became the last human on Earth to learn that the romance section is so large it is broken down further into the book genre categories that include the ones I enjoy. Urban fantasy and paranormal romances? Sure. I’ll try.

As hoped, the books are largely true to their sub-genres. All goes according to the formula until after a grisly zombie battle or a terrifying ghost attack and the “romance” appears. While the main characters are still covered in gore from their fight, they go at it like rabbits. I’m not talking about a fade-to-black sex scene either. It’s vividly detailed with more foreplay than any IRL human being has the time or creativity to attempt.

This is all fine and good because the actual story is still fun and the sex scenes are the opposite of unpleasant. The sudden clarifying realization that all the women you know with tidy stacks of romance paperbacks are reading books with entire chapters of softcore porn requires more than a minute of mental processing. It’s a leap that begins with “but my grandmother” and ends up somewhere in the neighborhood of “you go, girl.”