Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

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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?

In My Dreams by Monica Jackson

Monica has warned me that she has her author calming visualization aid at the ready should I decide to rip In My Dreams to pieces. Well, I’m only to going to partially shred it in this review, because although it didn’t really engage me on a lot of levels, it really wasn’t all that bad. So what happens then? Does the author visualization aid change for the reviewer too? Do I get downsized to, say, Kirstie Alley instead of Gilbert Grape’s mama?

vs.

Though now that I think about it, I’m not sure which is crueller—Chartreuse satin, or 600 lbs. of backfat?

Anyway, on with the review. Bless has always been the “homely and weird” one of the three Sanderson girls. She sees auras, spirits and demons, she has precognitive dreams and she can perform minor healing acts. It’s a family trait; her aunt Praise has supernatural abilities too. All three sisters are radically different. Bless has the Gift, Maris is autistic, and Ginger is the beautiful one,… read more »

Erotica vs. Romance, as covered by the mainstream press

I never really expected to find something like this on this particular blog, but the Huffington Post (the super-blog hosted by Arianna Huffington) provided this link to an article by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Romance Novels Get Kinky.”

Pretty amusing read, though this bit here peeved me just a little:

After the session, Bright explained the difference between steamy, bodice-ripping romances and erotica.

“When people read a romance, they don’t want a surprise, they want to be put through the paces,” she said, explaining that those paces include a hero, a heroine, a conflict, a resolution and, most important, a happy ending.

“In an erotic novel, you don’t know what’s going to happen. It might not have a happy ending at all,” she said.

She compared it to watching “Law & Order” or “CSI” where the plot line could go in several directions, rather than a Western, which is more predictable because you have a cowboy, an Indian and a showdown.

Of course, the steamy parts are different, too. In romance novels, the mere touch of a man will often launch the heroine into waves of ecstasy. Not so in erotica,… read more »

Big-Name Authors I Haven’t Tried, and Some Ramblings on My Early Experiences with Romance Novels

Today’s blog entry was brought to you in part by Nicole, Sybil and Angie.

So, to start things off, here are some big-name authors I haven’t read yet:

• Lavyrle Spencer
• Danielle Steele
• Catherine Coulter
• Janet Dailey

Here are some big-name authors whose books I tried to read but tossed aside violently while chanting an exorcism prayer after slogging through several chapters:

• Fern Michaels
• Kathleen Woodiwiss
• Virginia Henley
• Shirlee Busbee
• Rosemary Rogers
• Sandra Brown

This is by no means a comprehensive list, by the way, just names that immediately came to mind.

I’ve babbled about this piecemeal many times before and in many different locations, but what the hey, I’ll babble about it again in this Official Blog Entry: My start to romance novel reading was very, very rocky.

On Bad Reviews

I’ll admit I’m a big snotty-ass snot when it comes to reviewing books I don’t like—hell, I’m even snotty when I’m reviewing books I enjoy. What can I say? I have a surfeit of of this particular humor. Probably bile too. Or is it choler I’m thinking about? But this latest entry by Mrs. Giggles about reviews reminded me of some reviews I’ve read that have irritated me, not because—or at least not ONLY because—I disagreed with the number of stars they handed out, but mostly because the reviewers’ prejudices were made evident during the review and those prejudices just make my hair stand on end. Factual errors in reviews also bug me. Small ones can be credited to bad memory or honest mistakes, but when there are one or two big whoppers—GAH.

The examples I’m going to present are from Amazon.com, all reviews of The Ghost Road by Pat Barker, which is the last book of the Regeneration trilogy. Pat Barker is a woman writing about WWI (oh the horror, the horror, how dare she poach on such masculine territory) and all three books contain homosexual/bisexual characters, and apparently these factors together are enough to… read more »

Velvet Glove by Emma Holly

I think I mentioned on Wendy’s blog what a difficult time I have resisting an Emma Holly book when I have one on my TBR stacks. This book was no exception. I had a big stack of other library books that were due before Velvet Glove and a couple of books I needed to review. What did I do? I didn’t READ it, per se—I just started sneaking peeks. Long, extended peeks. Hell, I ended up reading half the book by peeking. It’s like my friend Edouard claiming he doesn’t want a slice of coffee cake, he’s just happy picking some crumbs off the platter, and before I know it there’s a huge freakin’ hole gouged out of the side of my cake. (Oh, I miss that French bastard. Why the hell would anyone leave Portland for Marseilles? So what if he found a higher-paying job with a company that was much less infuriating than the one he worked for here? Portland has ME, dammit, and I’m awesome.)

Sorry. Get thee behind me, tangent! Anyway, I reserved Velvet Glove at the library purely based… read more »