Can you feel it? Love is in the air . . . as well as a p*ssed off red dragon and several other D&D beasties.
Grab your love sonnets, a bouquet of flowers and strap on your codpiece or chastity belt, because Rediscovered Realms is exploring TSR’s short-lived D&D HeartQuest interactive romance gamebooks from the wayback of 1983-1984.1
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Capitalizing on the success of the Endless Quest books, TSR was looking for a way to draw girls into the Dungeons & Dragons pantheon, so what better way than to create a spinoff for teen romance. Right?
Well, maybe.
On paper, it makes sense to appeal to female readers by adding a romance element to fantasy (see the blurb about Romantasy in “Other News from The Realms” section below) - but the results seem to be very mixed and polarized.
I remember seeing ads for these books back in the late 80s and was never interested. But hey, I wasn’t the target audience.
From my 1988 TSR Mail Order Hobby Shop catalog. If you’d like to explore the entire catalog, check this out this article by Rediscovered Realms
From the online reviews in recent years, it seems that many women today who had read these as girls either:
Remember these books fondly and still love them
Remember these books fondly but wonder what in the world they were thinkin’
As for new female audiences, they either:
Are pleasantly surprised these ever existed and generally like them
Find them socially reprehensible and spew their gender role vitriol all over the place.
Curious by these reactions, I acquired a few last year, and stored them up until this Valentine’s Day . . .
There were 6 books in all, each one of a distinctly different color.
Ring of the Ruby Dragon
Talisman of Valdegarde
Secret Sorceress
Isle of Illusion
Moon Dragon Summer
Lady of the Winds
All 6 HeartQuest Books
There is an oval cutout that frames the cover art. This was a neat idea, since it showed only a portion of the underlying artwork, so when you opened the cover, it would reveal the full picture.
But overall, this concept proved to be pretty impractical since it makes the books difficult to handle when you're flipping through choices, and also extremely easy to rip. (User Experience fail!)
It seems TSR was piggybacking off of the old 1970s “Harlequin Presents” romance book frame style (though Harlequin doesn’t appear to have actually had physical cutouts in the covers)
The cover artwork for the 1st 4 HeartQuest books was done by none other than TSR great, Larry Elmore!
Ben Otero, a TSR alum for several Endless Quest and Fantasy Forest gamebooks, did the covers for books 5 and 6.
The interior illustrations for 1-4 were done by Jim Holloway - another prolific TSR artist who did great work for them, including many of the first beloved Endless Quest books.
Did you know Rediscovered Realms recently interviewed the creator of the Endless Quest books, Rose Estes? A truly inspirational journey you don’t want to miss:
I love Jim’s work, but my preferred interior illustrations for this series, though, were found in books 4 and 5 by Valerie Valusek! She is one of my favorite early TSR artists who’s style I resonate with from her work in Dragon, game modules, fantasy books and more.
The HeartQuest authors included: Jeannie Black (Jean Blashfield), Madeleine Simon (Morris Simon), Linda Lowery, and Kate Novak (Novak-Grubb) who all had their quill hands in many other TSR books and products.
Opening page of each of the HeartQuest books
Linda Lowery and Jean Blashfield were also authors of the Dungeons & Dragons Cartoon Show Books!
I thought the stories were pretty fun. You’re in a generic Dungeons & Dragons setting, but with plenty of D&D references and choices that could lead you to unexpected encounters, magical items and more!
In fact, I found that not every logical choice led to the best endings. Sometimes you had to go with your heart instead of your head (and sometimes with your head up your . . . !) But this made the re-read value high, since I wanted to explore every possible pathway.
The tagline on the Endless Quest books was: “Pick A Path To Adventure!”
The tagline on the HeartQuest books was: “Pick A Path To Romance And Adventure!”
Smart & consistent branding.
The Ring of the Ruby Dragon had so many choice paths, and you got to encounter a ton of different D&D creatures - it’s my favorite right now, though I haven’t read Book 5 yet, which seems to be most other’s preference.
Many of the endings are sort of Pyrrhic victories, where even though you “won”, you leave a lot of stuff undone, so you don’t feel fully satisfied - but again, this just drove me to keep re-playing, trying to find the “perfect” ending.
The romance element in these books is basically about having encounters and occasional choices with 1 or 2 eligible young men along the path of your adventure (you play a different 15ish-year-old girl in each book on a different quest).
There is absolutely nothing steamy about it. It’s basically innocent first love kind of fare - should you kiss him or not.
, does a great job of reviewing each of the books on Demian’s Gamebook Web Page for anyone interested in more in-depth details.
Overall, I have to say that taken for what these are (and for the times they were created within), they are enjoyable to read with many fun illustrations that add to the experience.
Of course, typical-for-this-genre occasional goofiness or lack of fully reasonable world-building can show up, but I applaud the boldness and creativity of the creators in making girls the heroes of these stories and drawing them into Fantasy and into the world of Dungeons & Dragons!
Are you interested in going on your own HeartQuest?
Rachel Wil Singh made a quest of acquiring the entire series a couple years back to make them available for FREE online! (You wouldn’t believe the prices of books 5 & 6 if you could even find them.)
A HUGE “thank you” to every single one of you brave adventurers who took a chance and joined me on this Quest to share a love of Fantasy, Adventure & Imagination — old-school & new.
It’s been my goal to create a community that celebrates Discovery, Fun, Reminiscence, Humor, Heroism, and Kindness. There’s enough BS in the world that doesn’t need to spill over into the imaginary worlds we engage with to escape into.
I’ve come to realize that we don’t have to outgrow our sense of fun or have to put it away when we become adults. There is joy and fulfillment in making the time to revel in Fantasy, Myth and Imagination.
Stick with me. We’re going to continue to go to fantastical places and visit with incredible creatures (some human, some not so much). Keep the Adventure Going Strong!
Fellow fantasy gamebook creator, Christopher Bünte is on fire! He’s continuing his successful Candarlin series with the latest gamebook, “The Catacombs of Candarlin”.
Only $3 for the digital pdf, it’s a short adventure-scenario inspired by the phenomenon of dead and dying malls. What if something came to fill the empty spaces? What if the malls themselves still hunger?
Have you heard about the new book genre that combines Romance + Fantasy? (NO, not the HeartQuest books, but one could argue that they were way ahead of their time!)
“I [even] offered to buy Dragonlance [from Hasbro],” Manganiello said.
Not to end on a sad note after that Devastating Dragonlance news, I think these hilarious Lord of the Rings videos with Arnold Schwarzenegger AI-inserted (and voice acted by Sam Hughes) for all the characters will do the trick:
As you know, I'm in the catergory of really enjoying these books. They are my favourite of the Endless quest spin-offs as they feel much like the original series with a few extra "Kiss him or not?" choices.
Like you, I'd have never considered buying them as a kid, but as an adult (with 3 daughters) my tastes have evolved. Noteably, there is no reference to D&D on the covers. (The quickest way to become unpopular among females was D&D or comic books in the 1980s, in my experience).
I managed to buy the first 4 (with only one torn window), but the last two are prohibitavly expensive (a pity as book 6 is the best in my opinion). And I'm in total agreement that Val Valyusk's renaissaince art really fits the genre.
I knew gamebooks were big at one time, but I’m always surprised by the variety that’s out there. Great find as always!
And thanks again for the shoutout!
Hey, great review and thanks for the shoutout.
As you know, I'm in the catergory of really enjoying these books. They are my favourite of the Endless quest spin-offs as they feel much like the original series with a few extra "Kiss him or not?" choices.
Like you, I'd have never considered buying them as a kid, but as an adult (with 3 daughters) my tastes have evolved. Noteably, there is no reference to D&D on the covers. (The quickest way to become unpopular among females was D&D or comic books in the 1980s, in my experience).
I managed to buy the first 4 (with only one torn window), but the last two are prohibitavly expensive (a pity as book 6 is the best in my opinion). And I'm in total agreement that Val Valyusk's renaissaince art really fits the genre.
Great post, keep up the good work, JQ.