Another Chance to be a Bitchâ„¢! Contest Entries

OK, y’all, here are the entries for the Another Chance to be a Bitchâ„¢! contest we started last week. Please e-mail all votes to either candy @ smartbitchestrashybooks.com or sarah @ smartbitchestrashybooks.com by Saturday, May 21. Each person can vote for one eligible entry. I also included the ineligible entries we received because they’re pretty damn funny, but you can’t vote for them, alas. The winner will be announced Sunday.

Ready… Get set… BITCH!

Entry No. 1
It is heartbreaking to think that work this bad has actually been published. This book is drivel, from start (where the auburn heroine becomes the bride of a Sioux warrior) to finish (where they are seen staggering away from a tornado). You don’t need to be a genius to realise that every scene is garbage.

Entry No. 2
This book is a fantastic example of an inexperienced author trying too hard. To set a romance in Ancient Rome was unusual: to have dialogue in Latin was idiotic. It was not witty to make the Nubian slaves speak Ebonic, and the romp involving the heroine, three centurions and Caligula’s horse was, frankly, revolting.

Entry No. 3
Although there is a heap of compelling must-read novels on my desk, I wasted an hour of my life on this execrable book. Nobody will want to read the story of a psychic werewolf who bears a secret baby by a Regency rake. This is the silliest romance I have read all year .

Entry No. 4
This book features a hero as attractive and potent as a castrated gnome who has lost his Viagra, and a heroine who would make Medusa seem like Marilyn Monroe. The only satisfying moment was reaching the end. Read it at your peril.

Entry No. 5
This novel richly deserves to be pulped. The cardboard characters could hardly be flatter or less nuanced if they had been run over by a steamroller. These tedious protagonists and their stereotypical relationships are beautifully emphasised by the threadbare plot and implausible dialogue. I sincerely hope that the author has not written anything else.

Entry No. 6
You must not read this book. Let it lie. Let it die. Let it be recycled quickly into the scratchy toilet paper they inflict on lifers at the penitentiary.  In the space of a year, if I’m lucky, if I’m good, the pain may fade and I will be able to read again without remembering it.

Entry No. 7
Perhaps a more cautious reviewer would have allowed the potent stench of fly-blown rodent carcass emanating from the pages to deter her, but i persevered and was rewarded with the satisfying knowledge that i had conquered my revulsion and finished the damned book. But at what price? I may never read again…

Entry No. 8
It’s always heartbreaking when a brilliant author offers sub-par work. Between the stress of deadlines and the staggering pressure to create page after page of engaging plot, characterization and dialogue, it’s no great sin to fall short of the “genius” mark once in a while. On the other hand, this piece of crap sucks ass.

Entry No. 9
At a time when everyone and her aunt is producing romances, it’s beyond fantastic that some editor—after she smoked far more than her usual dose of crystal meth—reached into one of her three foot high slush piles of no doubt witty, original Regency romps and plucked out this pedestrian pile of cliches.

Entry No. 10
“Devlish Luuuuuurve (TM)” is so richly laden with chocolate to satisfy Lucian Hades’ (Lucifer, Devlish, har har) obsession with devil’s food cake, I almost died of sugar shock. This sexually-nuanced sweet feast failed on every count but one: the author melted and shaped Lucian’s love-truffle beautifully in probably the most florid paragraph ever written.

Entry No. 11
A “Swollen Stallion“‘s constantly-referenced “potent man-smell” and “smothering kisses” made me wonder whether this story was about satisfying a woman or murdering her via suffocation. Before I finally threw the book against a wall, I’d screamed at the heroine to wear a nose plug and buy an oxygen tank fifteen times. Verdict? A stinky read.

Entry No. 12
Richly larded with obvious plot twists, the only nuanced drama in this watered-down story about a bartender and male stripper is the post-party scene which contains the most beautifully written 20 page description of barfing ever published.

Entry No. 13
I was told by the senior editor that I must read this book, since all of the others who attempted it are currently in the hospital with aneurisms. Though I was able to complete it by thrusting my PDA pen into my left ear, I will most likely not survive out the year.

Entry No. 14
I could say I loved this book.  I would, however, be lying out my ass.  It’s SO lame when a hero needs Viagra.  The author’s description of his transition from “impotent” to “potent” is a true work of fart, and I can’t imagine a less satisfying plotless boinkfest.  Don’t read it.  Oh, the horror.

Entry No. 15
This book is too mind-numbingly mundane to ever live up to its fantastic billing.  Ima Bigshot, a usually witty author who should’ve known better, gleefully tosses aside the pirate romances that made her famous.  Instead, I had to womanfully force myself to finish this 300-page description of a sexual romp between a midget and Blackbeard.

Entry No. 16
A Hardened Thunder begins when the hero’s potent “thunder” causes the heroine to collapse and become comatose. In a far from satisfying development, he vows to avoid thunderous incidents. Finally she is revived with his hardened . . . well, words cannot convey the horror of what follows. You must read it to believe it.

Entry No. 17
The Nymphomaniac Ranger marks the heartbreaking demise of publisher xx, which sank its advertising budget on this story inspired by the author’s work with recovering nymphomaniacs. This was an unwise course of action, as this story is simply one long, staggering, plotless orgy. One needn’t be a genius to know one should avoid this book.

Entry No. 18
After the author’s appalling first book in the series, I wondered what fantastic sexual favor she performed to keep her contract. This tale follows the same trite imagery and attempts to be witty as the first, but falls short of the romp the author is as desperately reaching for as Paris Hilton for a condom.


Ineligible Entries; Or: DAMN THAT 55-WORD LIMIT!

From Kate Rothwell:
A polite euphemism for the scent of skunk is “potent”. Let me just say this work was extremely…potent. When I pick up a book I want to find a collection of words that amuse and satisfy me. By the time I hit the third chapter, I knew the only words I’d find satisfying in this book were “the end”.  I had to read it, but thank the Lord I can spare you the same agony.

From Sara Donati:
Jerkfaced Luuuuurve is the latest addition to Desiree Darling’s best selling Luuuuurve series of contemporary western romances. Jake is the youngest of the Cassidy sons. His big brothers Jack, Joe Jimmy and Joshua have all found wives and settled down, but Jake has made a reputation for himself as a colt-breaking heart-breaking cowboy. Jake (the Jerk, as the women of Lonesome Heart Wyoming are wont to call him) is very good at what—and who—he does. He’s not afraid of work on the range or between the sheets, but commitment scares him silly. It isn’t until the new vet—curvaceous Abigail-Lee McGhee—comes staggering up the road carrying a calf in need of emergency surgery that Jake begins to rethink his position. While Abigail-Lee operates on the kitchen table to save the calf, she sets her eyes on a two-legged patient: Jake.

Just when we thought Desiree Darling had plumbed the last deep, dark western hole and wrung the Cassidy family dry, she proves we were right: she should have let these poor people alone. Fire, flood, pestilence, range wars, typhus, nefarious tax collectors, kidnappings and ingrown toe nails—all these things we suffered with them and survived, but we draw the line at a perky vet with perfect breasts, high heeled cowboy boots, a genius IQ and a talent for fellatio. Better Darling had killed Jake off in a confrontation involving an angry dude ranch guest and a pair of white hot castration tongs. Ms. Darling, once hailed as a prodigy, has overstayed her welcome in the wild west. In fact, if it were up to us, we would vote her off the continent.

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