Products of Your (Sexist) Imagination: TSR’s Heart Quest Books, 1983 – 1984

Heart Quest 1984

Heart Quest 1984-2

Following the immediate success of the Endless Quest books (1982), TSR released a new series directed at girls. The “Pick a Path to Adventure” tagline was changed to “Pick a Path to Romance and Adventure,” and endless quest became heart quest, because, ladies, your life’s journey ends in the kitchen, seeing as how “you want his love to fulfill your life.” I haven’t actually read any of the books, to be honest, because they’re so rare, but I can’t imagine the quality is high enough to make up for the shameful product. The books are obviously designed to resemble the Harlequin romances of the time, and each volume had “stepback” art, meaning the cover illustration is framed by a cut-out front cover. Turning the cover reveals the full page illustration.

Larry Elmore and Jim Holloway did the cover and interior art, respectively, for the first four volumes, and children’s author Linda Lowery wrote volumes three and five. You can find more information on the series here.

3 Responses to “Products of Your (Sexist) Imagination: TSR’s <em>Heart Quest</em> Books, 1983 – 1984”


  1. 2 Aimee Thorne January 7, 2019 at 8:09 pm

    As someone who had a few of them (Ring of the Ruby Dragon and Talisman of Valdegarde) from grab-bags from Scholastic Book Fairs in the 80s, I can promise you, you are not missing out on reading them. They were like terrible 80 Sweet Valley High in Fantasyland fan fiction. The ubiquitous “You” was boy crazy as hell. And in Ring of the Ruby Dragon kept having a thing for much older men, which as a pre-teen grossed me out.

  2. 3 Alan October 16, 2021 at 12:49 am

    I read it as a teenage boy. I liked them well enough. It was a nice fantasy escape (regardless of whether the main character was female) and I enjoyed it more than the other types of Choose your adventure series – those seemed too campy.


Leave a comment




Pages

Archives

Categories

Donate Button

Join 1,109 other subscribers