u/chalphy

First of all, as ever, apologies for the lighting, as I don't have good natural light in my apartment and my overhead lighting tends to be too harsh, so I have to rely on camera flash sometimes. I'll reply to the AutoMod comment below with the titles and authors for the bot.

My local thrift store once again coming in clutch. I found all of the Harlequins there this past Wednesday (a buck each!), as well as the Heyer and the Eloisa James. I'm going to send the Heyer to a friend that I'm trying to get into romance. Not pictured, I also found a stepback copy of Devil in Winter, which made me laugh, as I now own three hard copies of that book, two with the stepback. I will be rehoming my spare copies to friends.

Everything else I got from eBay or ThriftBooks. The Hathaways were sold on eBay as a set for a comparatively reasonable price, all with stepbacks. The Madeline Hunter was also an eBay get, and it's signed! Easily my favorite Rarest Blooms book so that was a fun find. The bottom row and the Loretta Chase were from ThriftBooks.

Y'all, the Harlequins. I bought up every single historical they had, but they also had a crapload of older contemporaries. It was wild. Whoever dropped off their collection: thank you. I am likely going to keep all the Regencies and Victorians for now, and rehome the others. It's funny because I love Western films, am a big John Ford fan actually, but I've never felt compelled to read a Western romance. Humans are weird!

The last photo is all of the Harlequins I've thrifted shelved together by release date, plus a very special guest that I bought new and that sticks out like a sore thumb. 😂

I mentioned in the Friday Free Talk thread that I was going to the Romance Festival in Ashland, MA today. Specifically I wanted to sit in on the historical romance panel and then get some books signed. Happy to say my overplanning worked out!

I got to meet Loretta Chase, Eloisa James, and Caroline Linden. They were all delightful both at the panel and when I spoke to them one-on-one. Loretta was delighted to hear that I loved {My Inconvenient Duke by Loretta Chase} so much (pinging u/kitimitsu!), and I also related to her u/notthemostcreative's immortal comment from this post, which she found hilarious:

>In my mind the three of them have two brain cells between them and one and a half of those belong to Blackwood.

Eloisa told me her vision for a book about Florence and Valentine from {Viscount in Love by Eloisa James} which totally charmed me, and I got to tell Caroline that {How to Get Away with Scandal by Caroline Linden} made me cry at the end. She thought >!having Richard prepare to marry Evangeline in every country they lived in!< might have been over the top but I told her I thought it was totally on brand for him. Also we talked about dogs. Very important.

I had all the books pictured signed but I figured one title page from each author was enough. The red journal was a gift Eloisa gave everyone she met! I thought that was sweet. And Loretta brought those "autographed by the author" stickers herself!

Nice event. If I hadn't gone alone I would have stayed longer. The library did a great job setting it up and all the staff I met were super helpful and friendly, as well.

I walked up to the register carrying 20 books and one of the employees went, "Now, imagine if you'd gone to Barnes & Noble." 😂

I don't know what possessed me, I just couldn't bear to leave all of these behind. Some of them were already on my TBR, some of them I've just heard good things about. And as for the Harlequin Historicals, look, I've developed a soft spot for the imprint and think it would be fun to read whatever the Thrift Store Gods have bestowed upon me.