Bitchin' Blog Posts
: Crazysauce
May 02, 2012 | Wednesday | 56 Comments
Contining the theme of Book Rants, books that really, REALLY pissed a reader off, I bring you Leslie, who picked up a re-issue of a book originally published in the 80s, and found it to be jaw-dropping horrible angry-making. Sometimes it's the nonsensical plots, and other times, it's sexism, racism, stereotypes, and complete asshattery. When a romance lets a reader down, the result can be epic. Book: The Bronzed Hawk by Iris Johansen Originally published: 1983, Bantam Loveswept Reprint edition: 2011, Bantam Loveswept And now: here's Leslie. Grab a drink and settle in, y'all. Iris Johansen wrote the second historical…
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January 31, 2012 | Tuesday | 9 Comments
This request is from Cathy, who remembers so much crazy from this book, it's just amazing. I'm looking from the first romance I ever read, which I'm pretty sure I stole off my older sister. It was a category M&B (I remember it was a skinny book) and the more I think about the plot the more I realise how WTF batshit crazy it was. Now I don't remember any names, but I reckon publication date would have been 1978-1983 ish. So without further ado, here's the crazy I remember... Our heroine is a young stage actress about to break…
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July 20, 2011 | Wednesday | 16 Comments
This inquiry comes from Tamara, who remembers a lot of the details, but hasn’t been able to locate this book. This was a contemporary romance, I don’t think it was part of a series or imprint, and I suspect it was something like 300+ pages. I found it on a random shelf in an army base on the Israeli-Egyptian border among a pile of truly awful bodice rippers (also Kazuo Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day. Eclectic, I suppose,) and I can’t for the life of me find it again. Help! The heroine is a sort of down on her luck…
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June 18, 2011 | Saturday | 17 Comments
From my inbox comes yet another HaBO of WTFery, this time from Ellid: My friend Red-Headed Girl directed me here because I need your help: I’m trying to find one of the silliest, most unforgettably absurd books I’ve ever read. It’s a romance, I read it about ten years ago, and about all I remember is the two main characters: - A prostitute (possibly reformed) who, thanks to a childhood injury, can’t have children. I’m pretty sure she’d been molested as a child, too. She has a pet cat. - A dashing Mexican bandit (who is of course a Robin…
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April 27, 2011 | Wednesday | 168 Comments
As a rule, I recommend that every carbon-based life form online avoid the comments section of news sites, from newspapers to television stations to local blogs covering the farmer’s market, because the comments are usually overflowing with fresh awful crazysauce. In this case, I recommend everyone read the comments because they restore some sanity and hope for what is a truly disgraceful and frankly stupid news segment. WNEP, a television station from the northeast and central part my home state of Pennsylvania (OH MY GOSH I AM SO PROUD. NOT.) ran this lovely piece of crap story revealing the pen…
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March 17, 2011 | Thursday | 21 Comments
Sally writes in with a HaBO PERFECT for Crazysauce day! I’ve held back on this for a long time because I’m embarrassed by my memory, but I’m getting that desperate. I’m looking for the very first romance novel I ever read, which opened the floodgates to at least a thousand more books read over the past 30 years. The details in my mind are so very sketchy and my internet searches have come up with zip, so I’m hoping the resourceful readers of SBTB can help me out. The book was a historical (smuggled from my mothers box of historical…
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March 16, 2011 | Wednesday | 38 Comments
Katie has a different spin on the HaBO but I figured this was SO insane I’d post it to see if anyone knew where she could find a copy. So, this HaBO comes by way of my aunt, who recently got hooked on a series of novels (and when I say series, I mean there are 40 books) called the Saga of the Phenwick women. These are paperbacks, billed as Gothic Romance. After a little Googling, I determined they were actually written by a man (John Kimbro) who adopted a nom de plume for the Phenwick books (Kathryn Kimbrough). They…
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March 16, 2011 | Wednesday | 6 Comments
Delia writes in with a romance HaBO that’s perfect for the Day of Crazysauce HaBOs: I’m looking for a western romance I got at a church garage sale ten years ago. I remember that it had a brown/gold clinch cover, possibly with a horse, and I’m almost certain it was a Zebra romance from the early ‘90s. The hero may have been named Colt, or he was so fond of his Colt rifle that even my twelve-year-old self knew it was a metaphor for Something Naughty. The climax of the novel happened in the last or second-to-last chapter, in which…
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March 16, 2011 | Wednesday | 6 Comments
First, from Julie and many others: the best self-portraits in the history of the world. Alex Holder, she of the Awesome Blonde Hair, commissioned these portraits as part of Women’s Day. Can we all take a moment to marvel at her boyfriend’s mustache? And ponder where they found that beige turtleneck - and that teal jumpsuit?! Well played, Ms. Holder. Well played. Second, in a totally different direction, last week I was a keynote speaker at PubCamp, talking about reader issues and the bad news and good news from a reader’s perspective. The text of my speech is online at…
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March 16, 2011 | Wednesday | 24 Comments
Crazysauce HaBO Day continues! Darlene Marshall, Duchess Twitterpants (so named long before the invention of Twitter!), asks for your help with a romance mystery that’s been bugging her: I never thought I’d post a HABO request, being a peer of the Bitchery and all, but I find myself stymied and slightly tipsy, it being Saturday night and really, there wasn’t enough merlot left to put that bottle back now, was there? Anyway, Sofia B. writes me out of the blue regarding a post I left at SBTB months ago about a book I read in the late 70s/early 80s, a…
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