About
Learn about the inspiration behind the Romancing the Data site and name.
About Me
Hi! My name is Jane Nunnikhoven (aka Lady Jane), a communications professional based in Vancouver, BC, Canada. I started reading some romance in 2015, then during the pandemic I decided to stop worrying about what I thought should be reading (i.e., literary fiction) and just read what makes me happy. And romance books make me so happy!
Favourite subgenres: historical, contemporary (but I like to dabble in others!)
Favourite tropes: forced proximity, grumpy/sunshine, sex bet
Favourite authors: Lisa Kleypas, Tessa Dare, Sarah MacLean
About Romancing the Data
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I had the idea for Romancing the Data in August 2024, following a meeting with my romance book club. I was reviewing the book club's backlist and immediately felt compelled to format the list as a spreadsheet. As I happily started converting the data into rows and columns, I paused and thought: Wow, I am such a nerd for spreadsheets. Especially when it's for fun stuff! 🤓
That made me think of Suzana Somers and her amazing BachelorData account on Instagram, which I started following during the pandemic. When Suzana had to learn Excel for her job, she started using data from The Bachelor to make the process more fun. Now she's built a huge platform (almost 150K followers on Instagram!) by sharing interesting data in beautiful, fun and creative ways. I love how she's carved a niche for herself by applying her data analysis skills to a fandom she's passionate about.
Taking inspiration from Suzana, I started thinking about ways I could combine my love of data and spreadsheets with my passion for romance books. My brain buzzed with ideas for the next few days and Romancing the Data was the result.
Here's a sample post from BachelorData:
Behind the Name
The name Romancing the Data is inspired by two romance references:
1. Romancing the Duke
There's a historical romance book called Romancing the Duke by Tessa Dare, one of my favourite authors!
Romancing the Duke by Tessa Dare
The story is about Izzy, the daughter of a famous author, who is left with nothing after her father died. However, she soon discovers that she's been gifted a castle. The castle of a blind duke who tries to shoo her away by threatening to ravish her. They try to find out how his castle was sold.
2. Romancing the Stone
There's an 80s romantic comedy movie called Romancing the Stone. I learned that the phrase romancing the stone is jeweler jargon to describe the process of deciding how to cut and facet a gem, which sounds a lot like deciding how to slice and dice data to me!
Romancing the Stone (1984 film)
A mousy romance novelist sets off for Colombia to ransom her kidnapped sister, and soon finds herself in the middle of a dangerous adventure hunting for treasure with a mercenary rogue.