Who Will Be My Valentine? Author Of First Chapter Has Sights Set On Her First Book

“Have you read my book yet?”

That’s the question Terri Hildreth dreams of asking friends someday.

A year ago, she started writing her first romance novel. And today she joins the ranks of published authors.

Hildreth, a teaching assistant at Spokane Community College’s Liberal Arts Center, wrote the opening chapter of “Who Will Be My Valentine?” a collaborative effort by seven local members of Romance Writers of America.

Two chapters appear in today’s Spokesman-Review. The other five will run Monday through Friday, together with profiles of contributors.

The authors range from romance veteran Joan Overfield, whose 16th novel is due out in November, to Hildreth and several others still writing or refining their first fulllength stories.

Hildreth is in the middle of a contemporary romance about a widow who attends a high-school reunion and encounters … well, you’ll just have to wait and see.

The 43-year-old wife and mother of two also reads at least four romances a month, so she’s intimately familiar with the first rule of the genre: Always provide a happy ending.

Hildreth acknowledges that romance writers sometimes feel like second-class citizens in the literary world. “But most people who scoff at romance novels probably haven’t read any. There’s a lot of characterization and plot line,” she points out.

“Besides, I read pedagogical and technical stuff all day,” she says. “So when I sit down to read for fun, I want to get completely away from my work, my two teenagers, O.J. Simpson and all the other garbage. And that’s what romance does for me.”

Could it do the same for you?

Find out during the next five days as the story of fictional nurse Leah Conroy unfolds in The Spokesman-Review.