When Life Gets Curvy–Read Romance

Married, with a toddler and working in a career she loved, Kim was living in her own fairy tale romance with life when the unexpected happened. She was in a car accident, which left her hospitalized for several months.

As a teenager, Kim loved to read. Babysitting one night, she forgot her favourite author, Terry Brooks (one of the best-selling fantasy fiction writers of all time), at home. Bored, after she put the child to bed, she looked on the mother’s bookshelf. She decided to pick up one of the Harlequin Presents series romance novels, giggling at her own silliness for deciding to read a romance novel. But she couldn’t put the novella down. Romance novels, she learned, had characters that were full of depth, with plots that were more than just romance, and a writing style quite emotionally gripping. On that day, Kim discovered that books could be more than just an escape; they could also bring you on a thrilling adventure to visit people and places you’ve never been to in life. Which is why she came to love romance novels; they had all of this and a love story.

After her car accident, Kim momentarily lost the will to read. Feeling depressed about the state her life was in, she stopped laughing. But then, feeling bored again, Kim turned to the nurse and asked if the hospital had anything to read. She became hooked again and read every single book the hospital had on-hand. And that’s when she realized that her accident had one positive outcome; she had all the time to read all the books she ever wanted to read. Soon, her husband Robert was out running around the city purchasing romance novels to help his wife heal. The romance novels made Kim laugh again, become interested in life again, and have hope. She’s now read books from all the romance sub-genres although her favourite are historical romances. To her husband’s amazement, her love of historical romances has even helped her answer questions on Jeopardy.

As Kim slowly recovered while reading romance novels, she began to miss a social atmosphere, and the joy of her friends, who were not able to visit as much as she would have liked. Ever the supportive husband, Robert convinced her to go on-line, to meet new people who had the same passions as hers. Although reluctant at first—that a website could bring her joy—she decided to look on the back of the romance novel she was reading and type in the http://www.eharlequin.com URL she had seen over and over. She chose the Harlequin site because although she had read many different romance series, she felt that with Harlequin she could count on a satisfying story and believed she could then count on a satisfying experience on their website. So she joined their community on-line. Surprising herself, she met a lot of interesting people, who also loved and read romance novels as much as she did. She got involved from her hospital bed, judging writing contests, writing reviews, playing games, meeting authors, and having conversations with people who enriched her life.

Thus when Harlequin went looking for brand ambassadors within the various social media outlets, Kim applied to become one of them. The car accident had left Kim using a cane and sometimes a wheelchair and so although she doesn’t work for Harlequin currently, she would love to one day, but for the time being, it is not foreseeable. Kim has accepted her life. As she wrote to me:

“Life is to precious to dwell on the things I can no longer do. I’m happy. I have life. I have family. I have friends. I have BOOKS for my adventures with the bonus of actually talking with the authors I’ve loved for years. Life threw me a curve ball but I think I hit it out of the park.”

Kim is the current Harlequin Books ambassador on Goodreads.com