Hastur is looking for a Cartland she read in German, and her account of the story is laden with the awesome. She writes:
Dear Ladies, I am at your mercy.
It’s a Barbara Cartland book I’m looking for. I’ve no idea when it came out. I gave my only copy to someone a million years ago – and that copy was in German, so I have no idea what the English title was. Given Barbara’s epic life span, it could’ve been published somewhere between the 1920s and the 1990s.
The story:Red-haired girl comes back to her uncle’s house from having left a governessing job at some lecher’s house (he was a Marquis). Back home, she finds her cousin engaged to an aspiring politician who is up for promotion and needs a wife. She and the cousin (one red-haired, the other blond) swap places at the wedding (wtf?). The cousin elopes with a dashing officer, who takes her to India, while the redhead marries the politician – who was a baronet, thinking of it. Sir Something.
The aspiring politician eventually finds out who he’s married and wants to dump the chica by sending her to Italy, but she is unusually spirited for a Cartland heroine and tells him to show some British stiff upper lip or else she’ll ruin his career.They take off for his estate, she finds out he’s not such a bad dude after all, just tortured by his past, and after a while, he too wants to get into her frilly knickers. After he tries it, she bashes him over the head with a chandelier (a CARTLAND heroine!!11one!) and runs away to London thinking he is dead. In London, she runs into her former employer (the ole Marquis deLech). After running away from him, she makes up her mind she does love her hubby and goes back, the solution to all his issues in her hand luggage.
They confess their undying love for each other. I think there was no obligatory two-line sexing at the end of this novel. Not sure, though.
The reason I really want to read this book again is that this girl was so unusually spunky for a Cartland heroine, who told the hero to stuff it and did not admire him from the start although he was such a hot specimen and all. If anyone remembers this book, please do tell me!
the solution to all his issues in her hand luggage.
Why does this make me think she’d found some sort of hand-carved sex toy…?
To me, “Mountwood” sounds more like a sly hint that the gentleman was more interested in the footmen than the chambermaids.
And the Snopes thing may be true, but I worked with a Hispanic guy who used to kid me about my Chevy No-va, so even if it didn’t affect sales, it didn’t go unnoticed.
Us Aussies love Canadians – especially those wearing sweaters emblazoned with the brand ‘ROOTS’. Down under slang for planting the seed, so to speak.
Drat! I hate when Snopes is right and I’m not!
However, we didn’t have Snopes in ‘68, when I had my Nova. So we had noplace to check. It’s a great story, so it circulated rather widely at the time, considering those of us whose Novas really didn’t go.
Even if it isn’t true, it shoulda been!
SavOn Drugs had to change from Osco Drugs because in Mexican slang osco means nausea (but not in a polite way I’ve been told.) Imagine shopping at Puke Em Up Drugs.
To Stella Sandberg, I am half Swede myself, so I think I can mock the Swedes occasionally. Trust me the Irish half of me is much meaner to the Irish. (‘Course they’re more risible.)
As for Brits not being au fait with various uses of horsey terms, perhaps if you are a horse/countryside person, you think of that first rather than assorted lewdness. Because all my UK friends would have been well onto Lord Mountwood (but, hey, we’re mainly in our 30s and urban), not to mention Jilly Cooper and her Riders roman a clef.
Yeah, Australians and their “crack a fat one”. Gotta love ‘em. I found out today that “pack a sad” (=be miserable, or can be applied to inanimate objects that aren’t working) is a NZ-only slang term. Who knew? Of course, in NZ, “hard case” means that someone is hilarious, not a crim. I learned it was fairly specific slang when I was living in England and inadvertently insulted someone.
Oddly enough, I saw a program on tv recently about a family that sells wooden vibrators (in Bavaria, I think). The son does the rough cutting, the father does the fine carving, and the daughter packages them for the mail-order business. (I don’t remember what the mom does.) Anyhow, that could have been an option. 🙂