By any standard, Shirley Hailstock is a romance-writing star.
Not only has she penned more than three dozen novels and novellas, she’s won dozens of awards, written best sellers, and previously presided over the romance industry’s leading professional organization, the Romance Writers of America.
So, naturally, she gets fan mail. And there’s one letter from 1999 that she hasn’t forgotten.
The letter was from a self-proclaimed fan, also a romance author. It was meant to be a compliment.
“I’m writing to let you know how much I enjoyed ‘Whispers of Love.’ It’s my first African American romance,” the writer wrote, as cited by reports published two decades later. “I guess I might sound bigoted, but I never knew that Black folks fall in love like White folks. I thought it was just all sex or jungle fever I think ‘they’ call it. Silly of me. Love is love no matter what color or religion or nationality, as sex is sex. I guess the media has a lot to do with it.”
“It…
