You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
Rainefenix writes in an email with the subject line, “a brain maggot of a book I can’t remember” – lovely mental image, btw. Now my scalp itches – that she’s looking for a book, but she can only remember one specific scene:
So this thing has been eating at my brain for a while and I can’t afford to lose anymore brain cells. I probably read it in the mid-eighties. And it was probably from the stacks of twine tied books my mom bought at thrift stores to feed my book habit. It may have been from the library but given the the scene I remember probably not (local librarian tended to give me the hairy eyeball if I grabbed anything other than Harlequins and YA.)
All I have is a half remembered scene from the book where the heroine spies on the hero while he’s indulging in multiple partners and some marijuana. I think I was about 12 when I read it, I remember being awed by the mix of marijuana and sex marathon. Vaguely think a lot of it is at some kind of sex club. I think it was Victorian, or Edwardian England, though the heroine may have been American or maybe it was the hero. The hero was the 80’s Alpha/Asshole type. Heroine the typical 80’s spunky almost TSTL type.
This one is driving me nuts because I can usually I.D. the book, but all I’m getting is a replay of the one scene. Over and over and over in my head. It won’t stop. Oh, and for some reason I keep seeing lots of red velvet and gold silk.
I’m thinking your crew is my only hope of figuring this one out.
Sounds like a historical version of that scene where Queen Betsy sees Eric gettin’ some with a crew of other vampires. Only I don’t remember Eric enjoying a spleef while he humperated. Anyone remember this scene?
Wow.
It sounds like a Rosemary Rogers to me, but I can’t remember which one.
No, thank God I can’t remember this book…but the question is why would anyone want to locate a book described as a “brain maggot” book with a TSTL heroine and an asshole reader????? Color me clueless…
I was also wondering about Rosemary Rogers. Could it be Surrender to Love? I vaguely, vaguely recall a scene set in a brothel, that would explain the red velvet and gold silk. Don’t remember the weed part. But then I was so innocent back then a reference to weed would probably fly over my head.
Did the book start in Sri Lanka? Was there an elderly husband who was gay/disabled and therefore never touched her? A large chunk of the book does take place in Victorian England, which is not often for a Rosemary Rogers book.
Boy, I’m remembering all this about a book I haven’t seen in at least 12 years.
I’d also vote for Rosemary Rogers—sounds like her type of book—an effed-up storyline that leaves a girl (or boy) saying, “I can’t believe I’m reading this sh*t, and yet, I can make myself stop, either.”
Sounds like Susan Johnson—Silver Flame.
It sounds like a Victoria Holt book I remember vaguely…the heroine’s handsome husband was an opium fiend and she found his den with all sorts of debauched things going on inside.
I’ve just fetched it off the shelf—it’s Secret for a Nightingale and it’s partly set in India and the Crimea (where the heroine, Susanna, nurses—hence ‘Nightingale’) as well as England. She ends up with the ‘sinister’ Dr Damien.
Does that sound like the right book? My copy has a 1986 print date (although I think that’s a book club edition so it might have been out earlier).
To make the brain maggot book go away it must be named.
I don’t think it’s Holt, though there’s a slim possibility as my grandmother sent me many of her books over the years. I don’t get a sense they were married at the point of the scene stuck in my head.
It’s not Silver Flame, from what I recall the action of the brain maggot was all European.
The Rosemary Rogers is a real possibility. Original publication date puts it about the time frame I’m thinking. I just don’t have a sense that it started in Ceylon. Now I’m wondering if the local UBS will have this one so I can make it go away already.
Sounds like Rosemary Rogers to me, too. Maybe The Wanton. With RR, it was opium, IIRC, not weed.
If it’s an asshole alpha hero, must be Rosemary Rogers.
I’m sure she’s a lovely lady, but I wanted to use a dull hatchet on her “heroes”.
if it was rosemary rodgers, did it have a part where the heroine was being taught about sex in brothels across europe? because she was a virgin after her first marriage for some reason and apparently that’s where you go to learn that sort of thing.
i think i have that one somewhere.
if you want it, i’ll mail it to you.
This isn’t going to help anyone at all but… it would be a “spliff”. As in, “excuse me while I light this spliff” (Bob Marley – Take It Easy).
I think I’d need a spliff to be able to read this book based on the description…or more egg nog. ‘Tis the season!
Perhaps it was The charm school~susan wiggs. It began with the spinsterish heroine walking in on the captain “celebrating” with a trollop in his master bedroom on the ship. In this novel, Lil miss TSTL looses her virginity while “under the influence” to the ship captain beside a waterfall in brazil….
Yep. That’s Surrender to Love.
I would guess that it isn’t Charm School by Susan Wiggs. I read that book a couple years ago, and this description didn’t remind me anything of that book. I’m still thinking it’s one of Rosemary Rogers’ . . .
Sherry Thomas has it – Surrender to Love. First pub’d in 1982. Still have my original copy of it.
I set my mom on the UBS trail when I struck out locally. She just called to say she found Surrender to Love. I should know by morning if it is the barely remembered brain maggot. The cover didn’t strike a cord, but then my brain is dulled by a week of “but it isn’t toxic” fresh paint smell in my office.
Surrender to Love, Rosemary Rogers it is. I bow to the power of Bitchdom.
Elizabeth