First, a little background:
For the last couple of months, I have been working one afternoon a week as a volunteer at the library. I have learned several things about libraries and myself, like while I can alphabetize quite nicely, the whole number thing with the Dewey decimal system kind of throws me. Why do we need a 100.1 and a 100.11 and a 100.01? So, while I shelve non-fiction once in a while, mostly I stick to fiction and mystery and science fiction/fantasy and romance (oh, I love reading the jacket flaps on those) because it’s just ABC order and I can do that.
As I’ve mentioned before, I read a lot of (what I think of now as) crap when I was in high school. With M in high school, and making some of the same free-time reading choices, I think I can sense what drove it in me: a need for brain fluff, a need for release. For the longest time, though, while I could remember much of what I read, one series of books that I loved eluded me. I remembered that there were state names as the titles, that it was vaguely a historical romance, and that I read as many as I could. For years I looked off and on, just to satiate my curiosity with no luck.
Then, to my amazement, as I was shelving this past Thursday, I found them!
It’s the Wagons West series by Dana Fuller Ross. I was so happy, I did a little dance. Seriously. Now, I need to decide if I want to go back and read them all, just so I can see if they are as wonderful/corny as I remember them being.
Maybe I’ll make it a project for next year.
The Book Nut 
Oh how funny. I've never even seen that series!
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Those are hilarious! I wish they had one for each state–I'd get the whole set just for the titles.
Do they have one for Oklahoma??
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That series actually looks pretty interesting! I admit, the Dewey Decimal system confuses me too.
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This reminds me of one of my favorite library finds. I was interning at our main library during library school in the new teen department. While the branch libraries of our system usually just keep the most current and highly circulating items, the main library's goal is to be somewhat of a depository for everything they've ever acquired. In among the teen stacks (non-public shelving area), I found a long-forgotten favorite, Mel by Liz Berry. Liz Berry's site about Mel. The cover of the copy I read was the first US edition from Viking in 1990. How I loved this book! Needless to say, I spent that interning shift rereading the book. 🙂
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I remember that series! Not from reading it, but from shelving it many times when I worked in our town's library as a high school student. 🙂
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Amanda: you're not missing much. 🙂 Though I suppose there's some die hard fans of them out there.
Cass: yep… there is.
lola — I'm SO glad I'm not the only one!!
bookworm — I haven't heard of that one. Thanks for the link; I'll check it out.
And Melissa… I'm glad someone else out there was reading them, at least. 😀
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WOW! I remember seeing this on my mother's bookshelves as I was growing up. What a great blast from the past!
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I'm almost tempted to look for the books I read in high school to reminisce. (I got into into Heather Graham's Civil War series).
Love the covers of your find. You should TOTALLY read them again and have a conversation with the young you and the now you.
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I really liked this series as well! If I remember right though, once the main couple ended as the main focus or drifted off, I think I lost interest as well. Although, I could be mixing this up with a million other books I've read since. 🙂 They really were a great series, even if I only read about the first six or seven!
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