Mary, June, and Kay were the first to take on this mammoth task. As romance exploded in the 1970s and 1980s, no one had yet made an effort to gather information about the genre in one place. Lovers of genre fiction have long relied on bibliographies- collectors of science fiction and mystery novels used them to not only show off their own collections of pulp magazine and novels, but also to be able to cross-reference authors, publishers and titles. Garteiser worked with word processors at an accounting firm, presumably bringing the technical know-how to the project. They knew their stock, but didn’t have any printed reference resource for themselves or readers to use in finding, or more particularly, cross-referencing more romances. Hotchkiss and Manning were sisters who had retired from federal service and operated a romance-focused used bookstore called The Second Edition in San Antonio. Appropriately for a book about pseudonyms, Mary June Kay was the pseudonym for three San Antonio women- Mary Hotchkiss (1921-2004), June Manning (1923-2008), and Kay Garteiser. My (incomplete) collection of volumes of The Romantic Spirit from 1983, 1984, and 1990.įirst published in January 1983, The Romantic Spirit was the self-published debut for an author named Mary June Kay. A whole new world of books opens up in front of you as you can now follow your favorite authors as they change name from publisher to publisher. In a few seconds you learn that Jayne Castle (real name Jayne Ann Castle Krentz) has also written for Silhouette as Stephanie James, and McFadden as Jayne Bentley. It’s a brilliant new resource that lists all of the authors you can think of along with their books. Not so in 1983! But you’re in luck! The clerk tells you to hold on for a moment, and they turn around to grab a thick trade paperback off the shelf behind them. Today, it would take a few clicks to find the information you need. At the checkout counter, you ask about your favorite author, hoping the clerk has heard something. You need more of Castle’s distinct writing style, but you haven’t seen her name on the new release shelf at the book store in a while. You’ve just finished Jayne Castle’s Candlelight Ecstasy title from the previous year, Spellbound. I want you for a moment to imagine yourself in 1983 (easier for some of us than others, I know!).
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