Bitchin' Blog Posts
: Sex
March 30, 2012 | Friday | 56 Comments
Earlier this week, news broke that Universal and Focus Features paid a staggering amount of money for the film rights to 50 Shades of Grey - rumors are "in the neighborhood of $5 million (US)." And on this week's Entertainment Weekly cover, readers get a choice of a cover featuring the clothed Hunger Games' Jennifer Lawrence or a very naked, mostly faceless woman rubbing her shoulder blade (or shaving her armpit) with a copy of 50 Shades of Grey. The continued media saturation around 50 Shades, especially as it's cast alongside the Hunger Games movie, got me thinking about book-to-movie deals, and how…
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December 10, 2011 | Saturday | 13 Comments
There's a lot going on here there and everywhere. The winner of the Bad Sex award has been announced. The winner was David Guterson for "Ed King," a retelling of Oedipus. The winning, ahem, passage: "In the shower, Ed stood with his hands at the back of his head, like someone just arrested, while she abused him with a bar of soap. After a while he shut his eyes, and Diane, wielding her fingernails now and staring at his face, helped him out with two practiced hands, one squeezing the family jewels, the other vigorous with the soap-and-warm-water treatment. It didn't…
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November 22, 2011 | Tuesday | 29 Comments
Link the First! Heads up, everyone! The Bad Sex Shortlist (hur hur) has been released. It includes a Jean Auel book, The Land of the Painted Caves. I think, no matter what it is, nothing shall top "The Weeping Furnace of Her Sheath." But I would love to do a 2011 edition of Bad Sex in Romance, as we did for 2010. Any suggestions? Perhaps I'll rename it the "Weeping Furnace Award for Bad Sex." Nominations, passages (hur hur) and suggestions of questionably bizarre sex scenes are most welcome. It'll be epic. You, and your furnace, will weep. And Link the Second!…
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August 11, 2011 | Thursday | 90 Comments
This request comes from Louisa, who is looking for a specific type of plot device - in the back story.
I’m looking for books that might counter-balance a very specific pet peeve
of mine. I call it the “I only THOUGHT I knew what love is” syndrome.
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April 11, 2011 | Monday | 24 Comments
It’s time for Overheard at RT, where I collect everything that’s funny, silly, and out-of-context absurd, and present it for your snapshot pleasure. “Does anyone here have a book? *many kindles and nooks appear* No, I mean a PAPER book?” “…Then the dirty pillows came out.” “My 15 year old son read your book and loved it.” “Oh, thank you… but you know, my books have sex in them.” “Yes. That is why I am buying these two for him. Would you sign them?” “WOW. Dirty pillows AND muffin top that JINGLES?” “Shut up. All the ladies jingle here.” “Jane…
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March 21, 2011 | Monday | 150 Comments
You guys do understand that I read these primarily because I enjoy it, right? I mean, some of them were “unpleasant” (Purity’s Passion, I am looking at you), some are off the hook (Forbidden Desires? That’s you) and some are so wonderfully trashy I can’t help but adore them (Henley is my kryptonite). For the most part, I enjoy it. I think I have a very selective form of masochism. And, in general, if I truly hate it, or it’s just not interesting enough to review, I won’t review it. This book is a bit different, though. Because I did…
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February 27, 2011 | Sunday | 62 Comments
Emily Ryan-Davis writes: Some friends and I were reminiscing over old WTF plots (weren’t they all?) and I remembered one book that I THOUGHT was a Karen Robards historical, but after doing some research I’m not so sure. Is there any chance we can ask the HABO readership? Here are the deets (blurred by time as they may be): Historical from the late 80s/early 90s. I believe it was a historical with a western American setting. The heroine was taking shelter in a brothel that had secret passageways and she was nearly raped in the kitchen with the aid of…
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February 16, 2011 | Wednesday | 64 Comments
I went back to a comfort re-read because I’m in the middle of edits and revisions and my whole world is pretty much a festooned garland of those colorful track changes bubbles (I even looked for them in a cookbook yesterday - a printed one - eel!). I love comfort re-reads, books I can sink into knowing how much I’ll enjoy them, and knowing that even the third, or fourth, or fifth time, they’ll work for me. This weekend my comfort re-read is Instant Attraction by Jill Shalvis, and it still works. Oh, boy howdy, do I love this book.…
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January 24, 2011 | Monday | 34 Comments
I have so many memories wrapped up in this book. There’s the time when I was 15, and it was one of two romance novels I took with me when I was an exchange student. And there’s that other time, a few years ago when I journeyed out to a booksigning hosted by the Dunes & Dreams Chapter of RWA (it’s on eastern Long Island. To get there, drive until you’re just about in Europe, then stop), and met Bertrice Small - who then, I am not even kidding, invited me into her home to see the original etchings for…
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January 19, 2011 | Wednesday | 53 Comments
I’ve spent the last few days knocked on my backside by Hella Flu, and in that time, I watched Vanilla Ice renovate a house (he crunked a pool, made a bathroom bling, and told me about single celled micro-organisms, and about encephalitis. No, really, I wasn’t having a fever hallucination. Vanilla Ice said “encephalitis” to me) and read a lot of novellas. I didn’t have the attention span or energy to read an entire book, so I was in a serious novellaly-minded mood. “Novellaly” is my new favorite word, too. One of the books I picked up was The Guy…
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January 06, 2011 | Thursday | 44 Comments
My much awaited copy of One Con Glory arrived on the same day that I was supposed to be preparing for my daughter’s seventh birthday party. Let me give you some context here. This is my only child. She is a girl so beautiful that I can’t believe she’s real, a kid who can take on five boys at recess during a spirited game of Star Wars and whup them all into submission while wearing pink sparkly tennis shoes that light up. So, when the book arrived in the mail, I did what any good mommy would do and set…
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December 08, 2010 | Wednesday | 199 Comments
So here’s a question for you, as part of my continued research for “Everything I Know About Love, I Learned from Romance Novels:” Where is the strangest place you’ve seen a couple in a romance novel have sex? I’m not picky as to the specific sexual act (wow, could that get me into some fun trouble if taken out of context!), but I am curious which crazy or bizarre locations you’ve read about when the happy stiffy meets the eager recipient of said happy stiffy. Could be a lava-hot cavern of love, or another happy stiffy that’s tangling with the…
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November 11, 2010 | Thursday | 140 Comments
Well. That was…unpleasant. I’m done with the 1970s-early 1980s OG Old School. That was one of the most unpleasant reading experiences I’ve ever had, and I read The Phantom of Manhattan. I finished it because I was kind of interested in where this story would end (and how much shit can be heaped upon the head of the heroine), and I have a finely developed case of trainwreck syndrome. (Also, my copy didn’t stink, so that helped.) I’m having a really hard time coming up with a Letter Grade, because I’ve read worse, and I’ve read better. I had a…
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November 11, 2010 | Thursday | 18 Comments
A short announcement that my column for Kirkus Reviews is up - and I’m talking about erotic romance, menage, and butter. No, really.
I cannot believe they kept the title I suggested. Go, Kirkus!
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October 25, 2010 | Monday | 62 Comments
Oh, it’s a beautiful thing when food imagery is used in sex scenes. It’s all 9 1/2 Weeks spliced together with Iron Chef - wouldn’t that be the very best in a sensual interlude? Unless we’re talking snack foods, as Kathleen discovered: Thank you for pointing out the Books on the Knob website. I have had a lot of fun downloading the free ebooks. One of these was The Bite Before Christmas by Heidi Betts. In the story “All I Vant For Christmas”, I read something that belongs in the “The What Not to Write” category. Sex linked with food…
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