As a romance/fantasy author and a member of my local RWA chapter, I tend to end up with a lot of bookmarks. Our chapter has an annual Readers’ Luncheon, and authors from all over send piles and boxes of bookmarks. I’m not exaggerating when I say that for over a year, we had a cubic foot or bigger box in our carport FULL of bookmarks the chapter just couldn’t use for attendee bags and right now, on one of my craft cabinets is two or three rubber banded stacks of bookmarks.

In addition, I have a lovely little urn a friend gave me as birthday gift a few years ago on my desk that I have filled with bookmarks from the bags I’ve gotten at the Luncheon or at various conferences and workshops. The fact that I often use receipts to mark my place in books is inexcusable.

However, the family knows that if they need a bookmark, Mom will have one.

Recently, though, I decided I needed to be a little more careful when handing my son one for his AR book from school. Usually, I make sure there aren’t inappropriate covers or too much skin showing for him. After all, he’s 11 and goes to a Catholic school.

A few days ago, he got in the car after school, pulled his AR book out of the backpack, took out the marker and said, “Mom, this might not be appropriate for school.”

Now, there were no naked people or inappropriate embraces, but the bookmark showed four cowboy romances with half-naked cowboys. I thought, yeah, maybe, but it could be worse.

Then I saw that they were all Ellora’s Cave books with quotes on the back of the bookmark. Quotes about “petting,” and “bull riding.” All subtle, but possibly not for fifth grade boys!!

This morning, I found one that only had a lovely cover showing a magnolia draped mansion. I showed it to him and he pronounced it “better.”

These are the kinds of problems you don’t think of when you decide to write romance!