Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

A Very Special Help a Bitch Out: Build Dr. Frantz’s Syllabus!

Dr. Sarah Frantz, Professor of Awesome, has forwarded me a very cool request: help her build her syllabus!

I will be teaching a course at NC State’s Continuing Eduction program called Encore! (exclamation point necessary, of course).  I teach for six weeks for 1 1/2 hours a week.  The students are mainly female, all at least over 50 years old, probably up to about 85.  Last year I taught Austen and was apparently a huge hit.  They’re begging me to teach again this year and I said I’d do it if I could do romance novels and they said, ‘Fine, please, anything,” so that didn’t work as a way out.

So, I need four or five romance novels that I can teach to older Southern women of a certain age. [SB Sarah says, “That would be: not really our age.”]  I figure a Georgette Heyer, if I can find one in print that I like, and an SEP, probably It Had to Be You, as it’s my personal favorite.  I’ll probably have a week with some RWA-NC members coming to visit (hopefully), including Virginia Kantra.  Then what?  I’ve got an older historical (Heyer) and a contemporary romantic comedy (SEP). … read more »

More on the Cook Sisters

Courtesy of Michelle Styles here is a much longer profile of Ida and Louise Cook, who used profits from Ida’s Mills & Boon novels to rescue Jews from the Nazis. The Telegraph did an extended article about them last July.

Help a Bitch Out: The Sound of Romance

Reader Raha asks for your help identifying this one. Me? I haven’t a clue. I also freak out that I can’t find my keys while I’m driving my car, and have to remind myself that they are, in fact, in the ignition. But that’s just me.

I think the heroine is named Megan Halliday and she was married to hero’s younger brother named Eric, a boy-genius violinist. She has a tragic past (raped by her ex and lost the baby) .The hero is a count and I think named Curt Von something.. he is a widower and has a daughter. I think the book is set in Vienna, Austria.

Basically the premise of the book is the heroine inherits a land after her husband’s death and the hero is worried that she might sell it to the developers. So he invites her over and she eventually ends up falling in love with him and gifts the deed to his daughter.

I vaguely remember it to be named something like sound/music of love , but could not recall the actual title and author.. Appreciate if some one could help.

Cool Person of the Day

Today’s Cool Person of the Day: Ida Cook, who wrote Mills & Boon under the pseudonym Mary Burchell. According to the article in yesterday’s Guardian, Cook and her sister were huge opera fans who, under the cover of being opera groupies, snuck in and out of Germany before WWII to smuggle the valuables of Jewish families to safety. Later, Cook began writing Mills & Boon novels to fund their activities, and helped 29 people escape the Nazis.

The mild-mannered spinsters became expert smugglers, regaling border guards with tales of the previous night’s performance, switching labels in fur coats, and wearing real diamonds with outfits so dowdy that customs officers would presume the jewels were paste.

Ida Cook and her sister, Louise, were named among the Righteous Gentiles by Yad Vashem Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority in Israel.

Thanks to azteclady and Ms. Anon who forwarded me the link.

Many Thanks!!

Diane, Viscountess Thrusston, and Kay, Equally Awesome, both sent me big huge ass boxes full of category romance. Seriously, I wanted to find a shrink ray so I could reduce myself by 60% and dive into the box of books and swim around with joy, papercuts be damned. So much reading! In so many various plot options! There’s secret babies, cowboys, sheikhs, private investigators, a late night talkshow host who swears up and down he’s a vampire… I’m so giddy I want to take a week off and do nothing but read old school category romances. There’s even some seriously vintage Betty Neels in there, which I’ve never read before. The women in the cover art have BIG GIANT ANIME-ESQUE EYES and the ends of the pages are red with that dye that totally comes off on my hands. I’m so happy I may plotz. Thank you, Diane! Thank you Kay!

But even better than the vintage way back machine in two boxes of awesome? THE COVERS. It’s not just vintage, it’s veeeentage.

On Ideas, Repetitiveness and Copyright Infringement

It’s such an interesting change of pace here at Smart Bitches: for once, Sarah is the one getting all cussy and indignant, and I’m the one who’s feeling more mellow and contemplative.

One of the more irritating yet predictable reactions I’ve seen after the whole Cassie Edwards kerfuffle has been the idea that because it concerned romance novels, the issues surrounding unattributed usage don’t matter because, hey, romance novels are recycled drivel to begin with. They’re all the same, anyway, the argument goes; How can you even tell one of them has copied another book? None of them express a single original thought.

I saw this in an extended slapfight in one of the many, many comment threads when the Edwards story first broke (I can’t, alas, remember which thread it was), in which some clueless twat attempted to claim that all romance novels plagiarized to one extent or another (OH EM GEE THE UNORIGINALITY IT BURNSES US PRECIOUSSSSS). And I saw it again when I read Jane Henderson’s comment (“In the romance genre, it’s sometimes hard to tell one author from the next”) on Urban Fantasy Land.

There seems to be some confusion regarding the… read more »

Knock offs and Knocking It Off Already

Courtesy of Jeaniene Frost who sent me much linkage, avast! A story so delicious, you’ll stick your own foot in your mouth.

Reporter Jane Henderson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch posted on her St. Louis Today book blog an entry that has made a lot of people reach for their high blood pressure medicine. In her entry Laurell K. Hamilton knock-off for teens? she discusses a galley she received of Melissa Marr’s Ink Exchange, a YA paranormal novel about a teen who gets a tattoo and finds herself involved with the Faerie Court. Marr also wrote the highly acclaimed Wicked Lovely.

Henderson finds the similarities between the book - despite not actually having read Marr’s novel - and Hamilton’s Merry Gentry story startling.

Herein begins what I think of as The Hat Trick of Stupid Things Written in One Entry and One Comment. Hold onto your feet, folks.

Of course the cliche is that ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’ but where does flattery end and copyright infringement begin? The book’s jacket even looks like the photos… read more »

A Double Coronation Ceremony

We have two titles to give out today, one that is long overdue.

To Sula, who identified in one shot the correct answer to the Help a Bitch Out Regency Time Travel - With Boobies. Well played, Sula! Kneel, and receive your Smart Bitch Titleâ„¢.

And to Diane, who correctly identified this week’s Guess That Lonely Heart - indeed, it was Jill Levin from Lorna Michaels’ Season of Light. A Harlequin SuperRomance featuring…. JEWS! WOOO! Kneel, Diane, and arise with Sula a member of the Smart Bitch Peerage.

Guess That Lonely Heart: You Have Eight Days

OK - it’s late here on the east coast but it’s Lonely Heart time. Name the heroine, the book’s title, and the author’s name, and you get Le Smart Bitche Title.

Young advertising hotshot, home in Ohio for the holidays, seeks man from way back to sweep my off my feet. You’ll need to light my candles for eight crazy nights before I head back to New York.I’ll pitch you my ideas while you try to sell me on the idea of happily ever after. I’ve got great expectations for your chances to steak a claim on my heart.

Help a Bitch Out: White forelocks and mystery babies

Raina writes:

I was told to check yall out for memory lapses such as mine. I read this book a very long time ago and would very much like to read it again, if only I could remember. This is the description I have been posting everywhere I can think of.

"Teenagers get together in high school and wind up falling in love, parents and another girl get in the way and they break up. The girl leaves town and finds out shes pregnant. The story is in the future tense with flash backs from the past. The woman winds up coming back to town and gets back together with her old flame. he has a kid from another marriage and doesn't find out about his first child til towards the end. the thing that connects both father and sons is that they all have a streak of whit in their hair. the book is probably from the early 90s"
If you know what this book is or somewhere else that could help me out it would be much appreciated.

Friday Videos: The Todd

Courtesy of Walt Stone, keeper of the Cuppa Cafe the rap debut of The Todd, from Scrubs. According to the YouTube description, NBC’s Broadcast Standard & Practices said no way it could air. So, behold, the internet. And The Todd, master of the best banana hammock ever.

For those requesting a YouTube link - here you go!

Something We Don’t Talk About Here Really

Let it not be said that we here at Smart Bitches don’t address the idea that using someone else’s words without attribution is a big, funk-stanky, bad, bad, bad idea. I know we don’t talk about unattributed usage much at all here, but if you’re interested: if one is a newspaper sex columnist, and one uses someone else’s writing under one’s own byline, it’s not what Martha Stewart would call a “good thing.”

Jezebel has revealed that New York Press sex advice columnist Claudia Lonow used questions from a 2006 Dan Savage sex column in her debut column.

From the Poynter Forums:

It has come to our attention that some of the questions in this week’s debut of the New York Press’s new sex-advice column, “Lip Service,” were taken from past columns by Dan Savage, the nationally-syndicated sex-advice columnist and editor of The Stranger. The author of the column, Claudia Lonow, a television writer based in Los Angeles who had not previously written for a newspaper, used the questions to provide material for her inaugural column, in the absence of real questions from readers. It had been our understanding that the questions for her… read more »

Louise Allen meets Bollywood

Remember the news that Harlequin/Mills & Boon was launching a division in India complete with future novels set in India? From Jezebel, via the London Times online: printing begins on 4 February.

Among the first titles? Virgin Slave, Barbarian King.

Cover Snark: The Last and Best Argument for Amnesia

Gemma sent us the following two covers. In the interest of politeness, I definitely said, “Thank you.” I would not say the same to the art department.

Sarah: Dear Lover England: Apparently I must lie back and think of you, even though I am distracted by the tingling sensation in my womanly parts. Is that normal? Love, your darling Schnookums.

Candy: 65-year-old playboy Humbert England was ecstatic when he snagged what he thought was a nubile 22-year-old playmate…except he found out for himself the advanced state of elective surgery when he discovered not just cobwebs in a Certain Place, but spiders, too.

Sarah: That woman in the middle, Nurse Scratchet, is wondering why these two grinning nimbobs haven’t gotten the message. “The Rose and the Thorn?” The fire in their respective nether parts? What does she have to do, spell it out for them: “YOU PEOPLE HAVE VENERAL DISEASE!”

Candy: Why are there children sitting around a bonfire in these people’s crotches? Seriously. Kids. In people’s crotches. Not cool.

Sarah: “...and the name ‘Rosamund’ will… read more »

A Thank-You Note from Defenders of Wildlife

Got this in the inbox this morning, and it brought the biggest smile to my face:

Dear Nora Roberts and the ladies and gents of Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books,

We at Defenders of Wildlife are thrilled with the outpouring of support that we’ve received concerning the lifting of certain ferret-related passages from “Toughing It Out in the Badlands” in Defender’s magazine.  We appreciate the generous challenge grant of $5,000 from the Nora Roberts Foundation and the quick response from your readers. 

When we were first made aware of this plagiarism incident, we had no idea it would become such a sensation! After several days of answering reporters’ calls, a constantly blushing editor, and fits of giggling breaking out all over the office thanks to the witty banter of a certain group of Smart Bitches, we feel this scandal has had quite a positive outcome. Awareness has been raised for the plight of the endangered black-footed ferret, and we have made some wonderful allies in unexpected places.

Though the ethics and legality of this literary “borrowing” are suspect , we are very pleased that our work inspired someone… read more »