Bitchin' Blog Posts
The Harlequin Game
by Candy | October 31, 2005 | Monday at 9:02 pm | 16 CommentsBookseller Chick has a most excellent entry up about the salubrious effects of reading Harlequin Presents while enduring the vigors of organic chemistry class. But my favorite part is right at the end, wherein she explains how to play the Harlequin Presents game:
I’ve always believe that Harlequin Presents covers can be used either to a.) make one weird blackmail note, or b.) summarize a whole new plot for the upcoming month. To do this one must first collect six Harlequin Presents. For our example we’ll use the six that came out for the month of November:
Pregnancy of Revenge by Jacqueline Baird
The Italian Doctor’s Mistress by Catherine Spencer
Bound by Blackmail by Kate Walker
Disobedient Virgin by Sandra Marton
Sale or Return Bride by Sarah Morgan
The Greek’s Bought Wife by Helen BianchinDo not try to make sense out of the titles. I don’t know what the Sale or Return Bride means either; it doesn’t matter. You are now going to rearrange these titles so they make a sentence (or a couple of sentences). Feel free to add in important linking words like (if, then, and, or longer phrases). Your result may look like so:
Although Bound by Blackmail, the Disobedient Virgin refused to be the Italian Doctor’s Mistress and instead chose to be The Greek’s Bought Wife. Even though he considered her to be his Sale or Return Bride, she would carry his Pregnancy of Revenge with love.
I want to play! I want to play! I’m going to use October’s titles:
Expecting the Playboy’s Heir by Penny Jordan
His One-Night Mistress by Sandra Field
The Brazilian’s Blackmailed Bride by Michelle Reid
A Scandalous Marriage by Miranda Lee
The Greek’s Ultimate Revenge by Julia James
The Spaniard’s Inconvenient Wife by Kate Walker (hehe, I initially read this as “incontinent”)
Et voila:
After being His One-Night Mistress, Calliope Kourios found herself Expecting the Playboy’s Heir...and being forced into A Scandalous Marriage! But she couldn’t be The Brazilian’s Blackmailed Bride, because Calliope had a secret…She was already The Spaniard’s Inconvenient Wife. Can she find a way out of this quandary, or will she have to use The Greek’s Ultimate Revenge?
I bet you can play this game with traditional Regency titles, too. Have a whack at it, kids! It’s good, clean fun!
Filed: Fun And Games, The Link-O-Lator
Kate R said on 10.31.05 at 10:41 PM
Dammit Candy! I stole her idea first.
Great minds, eh?
denise said on 10.31.05 at 10:49 PM
What a hoot! Often wonder about those ditzy titles…didn’t realize they are part of a bigger game. My kids are going to love this one, it will be bigger than scrabble. Thanks for the info!!!!
SB Sarah said on 10.31.05 at 11:04 PM
Imagine the refrigerator poetry one could create with often-used Harlequin words. It’d be like madlibs with an undertone of romantic, desperate urgency.
Victoria Dahl said on 10.31.05 at 11:35 PM
The Greek’s Ultimate Revenge? That’s anal rape, right?
Candy said on 10.31.05 at 11:49 PM
That’s anal rape, right?
That’s part of it, but what makes it ultimate is following it up with a Dirty Sanchez.
PJ said on 11.01.05 at 12:52 AM
What is it with these Greek-bearing gifts, anyway?
Stephen said on 11.01.05 at 01:46 AM
OK, let’s take the six M&B Regencies from the last three months:
Betrayed and Betrothed by Anne Ashley
Marrying Miss Hemingford by Mary Nichols
The Rake and the Rebel by Mary Brendan
The Marriage Debt by Louise Allen
A Reputable Rake by Diane Gaston
Princess of Fortune by Miranda Jarrett.
Identical twins the Marquess of Winchelsea and Lord Percy Pikestaff, known to the entire Ton as The Rake and the Rebel, find themselves both Betrayed and Betrothed after The Marquess, thinking he is Marrying Miss Hemingford finds himself hitched to Lady Cassandra, a gazetted Princess of Fortune who is trying to pay off The Marriage Debt she incurred when she broke off her engagement to Lord Percy, once she discovered that it was not he but his brother who was A Reputable Rake.
And they say that writing a killer synopsis is hard…
Karla said on 11.01.05 at 05:10 AM
There seems to be a thing for Greeks and Brides in the titles. You know most of them don’t even sound that romantic.
Candy said on 11.01.05 at 05:42 AM
You know most of them don’t even sound that romantic.
Damn straight they don’t. Most of them sound like an episode of COPS waiting to happen.
CindyS said on 11.01.05 at 11:02 AM
Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?
Sorry.
Victoria, you made me pee a little.
CindyS
EvilAuntiePeril said on 11.01.05 at 06:26 PM
From the M&B website, I’ve pulled out the titles of the Medical romances for December and come up with this:
When Coming Home to Katoomba after work, The Heroic Surgeon dropped a grand piano on his Bride by Accident. After he saved her life with The Consultant’s Special Rescue he got A Surgeon’s Marriage Wish and they spent their honeymoon playing Spanish Doctor, Pregnant Nurse.
Over here, Harlequin Presents are branded as Mills & Boon “Modern”. This would be “Modern” in the sense of betamax video recorders. Here are December’s offerings:
The Mistress to a Rich Man advertised a parsnip in the shape of the Virgin for Sale on eBay and it was Taken by the Highest Bidder, The Italian’s Convenient Wife, Frittata Porcini. She had been Tamed by her Husband into buying it as a gift for The Antonakos Marriage ceremony. But the statue was a cunning ruse, for with it Frittata was also Blackmailing the Society Bride, Avgolemono Dolmades, into complying with the Playboy’s Seduction by threatening to tell her Baby of Shame-ful indiscretions with root vegetables and the Soner* (sic) of Passion
SB Sarah said on 11.01.05 at 06:31 PM
Spanish Doctor, Pregnant Nurse.
The mind boggles.
Candy said on 11.01.05 at 07:10 PM
See, EAP proves yet again that there’s no way we can beat Harlequin/Mills & Boon at their own game. Spanish Doctor, Pregnant Nurse? Genius. Pure genius.
I had NO IDEA they were still publishing Medical romances, by the way. That has to be one of the longest-running occupation-related romance lines, because I remember seeing medical romances dating all the way from the 60s and 70s in my sister’s collection. It’s a wonder there are any eligible doctors and nurses left.
What’s a “soner of passion”? Or would I be better not knowing?
Bookseller Chick said on 11.01.05 at 07:21 PM
Mwahahaa, my evil plan to take over the world by passing on my procrastination habits is working!
I’m so glad you are enjoying the game, and love what you’re coming up with. The more titles, the more complicated it gets, but occasionally I play with the strip box. I never thought others would get the same enjoyment out of it that I do.
Check out the Men’s Action/Adventure category (Any of the Mack Dolan titles will do) for more title fun.
Thanks for spreading the title love,
L
EvilAuntiePeril said on 11.01.05 at 08:52 PM
Spanish Doctor, Pregnant Nurse
…does what it says on the tin. What more do you need to know when book buying? When I saw it on the book rack last weekend, I did a double-take and was almost tempted to buy it for sheer comedy value.
I think Medical romances have quite a big market over here. Shows set in hospitals like “Casualty” get big ratings. Maybe because with the NHS, medical staff still have that heroic glow? Never got the entertainment appeal myself apart from the odd game of “Spot the Stiff”.
In any case, I suspect Candy’s right that doctor/nurse aka medical romances are one of the oldest sub-genres of category romance. Possibly because for years in the early 20th century, being a nurse was one of the few careers open to women, and one way for them to meet men outside their normal social circles.
I think a soner of Passion is the technical name for one of the sounds made by a couple indulging in a nooner in the stationary cupboard. Like a kind of choked-off grunt muffled by paper and caused by a box of staplers jabbing into a tender portion of the anatomy?
SB Sarah said on 11.01.05 at 08:56 PM
Perhaps “Soner of Passion” is a typo - and it’s “Stoner of Passion,” like a very irate yet chemically passive pothead who cannot find his stash.
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