As the rest of the country began settling into Indecision 2000, about 1,000 women were looking for love in Houston, Texas. Romantic Times magazine's 18th annual Booklovers Convention opened on a cool, sunny Thursday two days after the presidential race, but at the Radisson by the Astrodome it was as if the election had never happened. The Romantic Times Booklovers Convention is to the romance genre what Nashville's yearly FanFair is to country music. Consider that figure again. Contemporary heroines are smart, witty, and resourceful.
Everlasting love is the eternal theme, and the ending is always happy.
In such a lucrative and prolific field dominated by publishers elsewhere, it seems astonishing that the yin and yang of love in print are located deep in the heart of Texas. When it comes to reading, love everlasting never goes out of style. Maybe not every woman, but being a booklover means being a book reader. I don't go anywhere without a book in my purse. Bobbi Smith is one of the more successful names with 30 books, six short story collections, and more than three million books in print since 1982, and she has one explanation for the appeal of romance novels.