Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

In the Garden with Parnormal Nora

I got an email from Amazon letting me know that, as “someone who purchased a similar book in the past,” I might be interested in Black Rose, book two of the In the Garden trilogy by Nora Roberts.

There are a lot of mixed feelings about Nora. Some people hate her, some are completely indifferent, and some people really love her. I used to love everything she wrote, and relied on her for unequivocably entertaining reading. If there is a new Nora Roberts within a few months of a time when I know I’ll have a lot of reading time (car trip, plane trip, vacation), I buy it, hoarde it, and read it start to finish.

Duchess in Love

All right, finished my first Eloisa James novel, and… well, it wasn’t painful. It was, in fact, mostly pleasant. Overall, though, I think the book was pretty damn lukewarm because—ah, hell, Sarah said it best when we were discussing it last week: “Early parts of the book were fab. And then it felt like the author had a big, “Uh, what do I do now?” moment and ended up driving the story while she applied mascara with one hand, drank coffee with the other, and changed the radio station with her right big toe.”

Hie thee to Romancing the Blog

My RTB column is up today, my pretties. I called it “I’ve been told you’ve been bold with Harry, Mark and John.” Check it out NOW. So goeth the bitchly decree.

For the love of Petes!

This has nothing to do with romance novels. Repeat, this has nothing to do with romance novels.

BUT OH FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST THEY’RE FINALLY RELEASING THE ADVENTURES OF PETE AND PETE ON DVD SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

In case you are uninitiated in the wonder that is Pete and Pete, this is how very fucking cool they are: one of the episodes has Iggy Pop in a cameo playing a mild-mannered suburban dad.

THAT is how very fucking cool Pete and Pete is.

Now all they need to do is release Rocko’s Modern Life on DVD. Do you hear me, Powers That Be at the Great Orange Splat?

My kingdom for a decent copy editor!

Romance novels suffer from the worst, most sloppy (possibly non-existent) copy editing I’ve ever encountered. This was rammed home during the weekend when I was reading White Tigress by Jade Lee. The hero’s father’s name is Sheng Fu, yet it switches back and forth between Sheng Fu and Cheng Fu with dizzying frequency in the middle of the book. The family name also briefly changes from Cheng to Chang. And in one spot, something which clearly took place during the night time is referred to as having happened during the day in the next chapter.

This isn’t the only romance novel with this sort of problem. I bitched long and hard about the huge honkin’ continuity mistake in Sally MacKenzie’s The Naked Duke. The villain’s eye color switches from tawny to blue in Loretta Chase’s Mr. Impossible. In Taboo by Kathleen Lawless, the hero and heroine allegedly spend a week together but the book clearly covers only four days, with no “And then three days went by in delirious humpalicious bliss” to account for the disparity. And I’ve seen the words “feisty” and “chaise longue” mis-spelled more often than I can count.

These problems aren’t entirely the… read more »

Auto-Buy

Candy insisted I read Mr. Impossible by Loretta Chase, and was even kind enough to mail it to me - and remind me that I’d forgotten about it in my desk drawer (bad, Sarah. Bad). Chase, and Gaffney, are among Candy’s faves, and I’ve never read either until her hyperventilating intervention (Seriously, I could hear her screeching from the west coast when I emailed her that I’d not read either author).

And whaddya know, she was totally right. Gaffney’s To Love and To Cherish was really good - so good I still can’t figure out how to delineate what I liked about it. It was so different from any other romance I’d read - a beta hero! Who was hot! And cerebral! Considering I go for smarts over looks every time, yet never encounter a smart but average looking hero in a romance novel (romances are as much fantasy as Dove is moisturizing cream), this made me a happy camper.

And Mr. Impossible - y’all. I am not into historicals that go outside of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. I’m a solid “meh” on plots that take place in France, since it’s hard to suspend reality when reading… read more »

Covers Gone Lindsey, Part 4!

SAY YOU LOVE ME

Sarah:

First, let me state for the record something that I haven’t been able to talk about freely on this site. I’ve come clean with my love of dumb tv shows like Beauty and the Beast, and I’ve dissed with the harshest of harsh the bad writing of some much-loved authors. And even those experiences on the cusp of bravery are not enough to prepare me for what I must say to you all right now.

I bare my soul to reveal that I think leprosy is SO HOT.

I have a poster sized blow-up of this cover in my bedroom, hidden behind some Bosch images of people humping in hell, and when I need my leper-fix, I peel back the Bosch to reveal this masterful work of coloring inside the lines. The dark, almost Hollywood-tan-beige chest, with the peculiarly odd outie belly button. The leather pants - I swear I saw some just like those in the Village the other day. They are especially humpa-worthy when one tucks what looks to be a scrap of cancas with a lace sleeve into the side, like a useless sling.

But oh, oh, oh, his… read more »

If You Dare by Adrianne Byrd

Back in the day when I had a little less of a clue about how to choose a romance than I do now, I added a bunch of novels to my Books(not)Free queue based on how they scored on the Cover Controversy contest at LLB. I’m totally serious. I judged books by their covers, with this misguided sense that a publisher wouldn’t bother to put a solid cover on a book unless the contents inside justified the excellent art direction. Yeah, I know. Dumb as hell.

Most of the books I got out of this fit of superficiality were passable, though often bad,  but it did get me to think outside of my normal range of romantic reading to include some women’s fiction that targeted women older than myself, and featured some romantic elements. It also gave me a chance to read a black romance. I haven’t the foggiest idea why publishers force black romances into covers with cartoon figures on them, because nothing says ‘This book has two-dimensional, flat characters inside’ like a cartoon cover. Not the message I’d want to… read more »

Beyond Seduction by Emma Holly

In the previous entry on romantica, erotica, and romance novels, oh the heaps of contrast, Stef mentioned a conference in which a person explained the difference as “they have members; we have c0cks.”

Indeed. I would like to announce that the hero of Emma Holly’s historical romantica novel Beyond Seduction has a cock. And he refers to it as such, when the heroine is not touching it, exploring it’s veiny wonderment, learning how to give a good hand job, and otherwise fixating on its hardened masterfulness. His cock is practically a secondary character in its own standing.

Filthy Lucre

Some slightly stale rantage:

On Monday, Kate Rothwell mentioned how much she hates it when authors obsess too much over designer shoes. Then PBW mused on Tuesday about the possibility of product placement in novels. Reading over those two items, the first thing I thought was “Shit, Manolo Blahnnik and Prada should pay MaryJanice Davidson a mint for all the shilling she’s done for them.”

And my second thought was “UGH.”

Another Contest! Another Chance To Be a Bitchâ„¢!

Have y’all seen the award Monica created for me in honor of my C- review of In My Dreams? If you haven’t seen it yet, please, for the love of tacos, go check it out. It’s hilarious. A big ole throbbing heart to Monica for having an evil sense of humor.

The award was also inspiring, specifically the bit that says the it will be inflicted on me should I neglect to use “sheer literary genius” in my next review of Monica’s work. That got me thinking, oh, I COULD, but the words won’t necessarily be close together.

Anyway, have you ever seen cover quotes just peppered with ellipses and wondered what those unedited raves would actually read like? (Come to think of it, movies are much, much worse than books when it comes to this.) Well, here’s your chance to create one yourself. In 55 words or less, create a review excerpt that an exceptionally creative author/editor/publicist/agent/WHOEVER is in charge of this sort of thing will be able to trim into the following accolades:

“Heartbreaking work of staggering genius”

“Fantastic, witty romp”

“Must-read book of the year”

“A potent and satisfying read”

“Richly nuanced and beautifully… read more »

Coronation

Congrats to Nicole, who, after a full 90 minutes of guessing, came up with the right answer to our Guess that Lonely Heart.

The Smart Bitches (tm) hereby request that all who know Nicole now recognize the full status and benefits of her new title:

Enjoy!

Guess that Lonely Heart

It’s personals time, since this here is a Friday. So - I’m posting this at 1:00 PM EDT so you west coasters can have a go.

So, let’s get ready to guess that lonely heart:

Taking the weekend off!

OK, darlings, I’m off to Seattle to see The Shins. [insert prolonged squee] Then I’m off to southern Oregon to attend the Not-Particularly-Tall Father-in-Law’s retirement party. [insert prolonged ZZZZZZZZZZ] However, thanks to the magic of ExpressionEngine’s post-dating abilities, I have provided scintillating, timely content that’s set to post over the next three days.

See y’all Monday, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. (In other words: don’t molest the livestock or the kids; everything else is fair game.)

Visual Romance

So pretend for a moment you have no romance novels to read - Candy, given the multiple universes need to house your TBR pile, I know this is a bit of a stretch. But pretend you have no romances to read, and you’ve re-read everything in your keeper shelf a million times. The order you placed isn’t here, and you are a-hankerin’ for some romance, stat.

Where do you go? Well, fire up the telly: What tv shows and movies satisfy your romance-love jones?