Book Review

Maharaja’s Mistress by Susan Stephens: A Dueling Review

F+

Title: Maharaja's Mistress
Author: Susan Stephens
Publication Info: Harlequin 2011
ISBN: 978-0373528318
Genre: Contemporary Romance

The heroine has a bowl cut in the front. I'm not even kidding.I received an email from reader Maria, who told me about this book and said it was UNREAL in its bizarre badness. So of course I forwarded her description to RedHeadedGirl, who replied, and I quote, “WHAT IS THIS FUCKERY I NEED TO READ IT”.

Seriously, you guys. The official book description does NOT even TOUCH the crazysauce that floods this book. This is what it says:

Monte Carlo is abuzz with news that Ram Varindha—young, hot and royal—is without a co-driver for the biggest rally event of the year. Though it’s been years since she last saw him, Mia leaps at the chance to get up close with the maharaja!

With time to spare before he takes on more serious royal duties, bedding this beauty is top of Ram’s list. But Mia has long known Ram’s reputation. Is she just in for the hottest few nights of her life, or could her dream of finally taming Ram’s playboy ways become reality?

Maria’s description reveals much more, and is in all frank honesty ENTIRELY ACCURATE:

Majaraja’s Mistress features a horribly disfigured/visually impaired eye patch wearing interior designer cum race car co-driver who wants one last chance at a race. She also wants to hook up with her brother’s old school chum who happens to be a a race car driver and a Majaraja. But wait, IT GETS BETTER!

Down on her luck she lives in an apartment with three models in Monaco and works as a sexy pirate (not a typo) receptionist in a hair salon run by a Liberace type. There are also multiple scenes involving an elephant parade and a superyacht (not at the same time tho).

I honestly said to myself, “Self, there is no way that Marie got all that right. Seriously. Maybe she is mixing up two books..” BUT NO. IT IS THAT CRAZY.

If you’ve been wondering when the next OMGWTFWOW book would come down the pike, well, here it is. And not only did RedHeadedGirl read it, but I read it along with her.

RedHeadedGirl’s full summary:

So it’s like this:  Ram is the ruler of a small India-expy country called Ramakesh or Rammalammadingdong or something, and he grew up in England with Tony and Tony’s little sister Mia.  They always were the type of friends that fought with each other all the time, and when Ram went off to be a playboy and rule his country, Mia went into a full on danger-seeking mode to… fill up the empty hole in her life or something.  She eventually gets into a car accident while rally racing and has a bunch of scars on her face and loses the sight in one eye (thus necessitating the need for an eye patch) and gets a job in Monte Carlo as the receptionist for a hair salon.  As you do.

Ram is in the process of resigning from his playboy life, and is doing one last rally race as his farewell tour, but loses his co-driver, and Mia jumps in to offer her services, even though they haven’t seen or talked to each other in years.  Also she can only see out of one eye, but that doesn’t seem to matter for driving a racecar around the streets of Monte Carlo.  You’d think that this whole race thing would be a major plot point, but it just sort of happens, and then he invites her to see his yacht (the size of a commercial cruise ship) and then sneaks out of the harbor of Monte Carlo without her noticing that the ship is moving, and basically kidnaps her to Rammalammadingdong, but they have a lot of (boring) sex along the way, so it’s fine.  She agrees to redecorate his yacht, because apparently she was going to be an interior designer before she burned half her face off, and it’s all good.

They get to Rammalammadingdong, and there’s a huge welcoming celebration with elephants (bejeweled elephants) (really), and a lot of misunderstandings about what Ram wants from her, and what she wants from Ram, and what Ram wants to do with his little country he’s been ruling while being a playboy, and if they will ever sit down and hash it out, it’ll be ok.

So here we go, a dueling review from RedHeadedGirl and me for Maharaja’s Mistress.

Sarah: I have lost count of the number of times I have left a note in this book that reads, “What?!”

RedHeadedGirl: I’ve got “what” “wait what”  “that is not how this works” and “ow.”

Sarah: Are these two the most mercurial people ever? “I want you!” “Go away!” “No, wait, I want you again!” 

RedHeadedGirl: These two have the most acrobatic and most boring sex ever.  I didn’t think that was possible.

Sarah: I cannot think of a single metaphor that HASN’T been used. She’s a hurricane. She’s a fallen angel. She’s a storm again. WTF?

RedHeadedGirl: Flinging off of peaks into bottomless pools of pleasure. Plus also elephants.

Sarah: I JUST READ THAT PART. 

And they are Bejeweled Elephants! And also Political Manipulation Elephants.

RedHeadedGirl: OK, I finished it. Basically nothing happened, right?  I didn’t fall asleep and miss it?

And yet all of that nothing was packed in crazy sausage casings.

Sarah:It was two cardboard people moving around in a plot of WTF.

My overall thought: This was the most bizarre book. It was if there was a plot and there were two people in the book but the plot and the characters had nothing to do with each other. Things would happen with elephants and yachts and kidnappings and palaces. Meanwhile, the two people in the plot would shout or murmur cliches at one another, all of it completely unrelated to the plot. 

I must have highlighted 60 different passages and written “What?” “Huh?” 

RedHeadedGirl: My overall thought: I have no idea what this book is about.  That’s okay, because it has no idea what it’s about, either.  Nothing happened around the rally race, the elephants, the giant yacht, and the random forays into interior design.  I feel like Ram was barely cardboard, more like a manila folder character (hot? check. Rich?  Check.  Huge dick? check.) and what’sherface was barely in the same book as anything else that happened. 

I think my favorite note is “Worst ‘where is this relationship going”’ conversation EVER.” 

Sarah: Ram: WHAT?! WHY is his name RAM? Is that some sort of SIGNAL? 

I know a lot of writers talk about plot driven and character driven stories. This was a story where the plot pretty much told the characters how to act. Like the backdrops were film directors talking to the actors: “OK, we’ve arrived in the Rumperkesh or wherever it is. And they have to get off the boat. And here are some elephants. Ok. In this scene, Ram, you get all pissed off without explanation, and Mia – no, no you cannot wear your pirate costume right now, we’re all done with your being a pirate girl. Mia, you have to get excited to ride an elephant while also recognizing with your savant PR skills that Ram’s negative reaction would be disastrous for his assumption of leadership.

*sigh*

That means: get Ram to ride the elephant because it’ll make him look good. Now you have to make sure to fight because we need some make up sex in the next chapter.” 

Seriously. I never understood for a minute WHY they were reacting the way they did to anything! 

Inconsistencies abound, too, which further compromised my ability to understand what the hell was going on. At one point Mia recalls (she spends a lot of time walking around in a reverie) the salon owner pushed her into his salon off the street after seeing her through the window and falling instantly in platonic flaming gay man love with her unique look and style or something. In the next chapter, Mia recalls brazenly going in to ask for a job.

Also of note: Tony, Mia’s brother, is some kind of pivotal figure in both Mia’s and Ram’s lives, but he doesn’t have one scene, nor does he appear to care that his sister is living in alleged misery as a one-eyed pirate in Monaco. Ram similarly has lots of thoughts about Tony, but Tony himself never appears. He’s an excuse, not a person.

RedHeadedGirl: One of the most aggravating things to me in this pile of nonsense was the Truly Exemplary Examples of Telling, not Showing.  She’s a brilliant rally car driver (…without depth perception, but whatever), we know because she says “I’m a brilliant rally driver.”  She’s the bestest interior designer?  We know, because she was thinking about colors and stuff, but the author danced around the specifics- WHAT kind of designs was she thinking about?  She handled herself well in the random contractor meetings off-stage?  IT’S LIKE GREEK DRAMA WHERE ALL THE COOL STUFF HAPPENS OFF STAGE. (except for the utter lack of drama.  I hate that, and so does the Dowager Countess of Grantham.)

And Ram and his Magic Dick- he was an accomplished lover and “took her with skill” or something.  And she screamed a lot.  The sex was SO BORING.  The author rammed it down our throats that it was passionate and acrobatic and fantastic.  I saw no evidence of that.  But I was kind of gagging, so…. 

Sarah: Come on, his name was RAM. That wasn’t enough of a clue?

Looking over my notes, YES. This was all telling and not showing ANYTHING. 

And did you count the cliches? I reached 54 uses of cliches by chapter 9.

RedHeadedGirl: I’m in law school: we don’t DO math.  I can’t count that high. 

The Amazon Product Description on the hardback edition says this:  Vampire hunter Rand Wilder hated vampires-even if they were as beautiful and alluring as vampire princess Dominique Valois. For years he fought the beings who had killed his father, resisting their dangerous sensuality. Yet even Rand was tempted…

…..not this book

The MMP edition says this: Monte Carlo is abuzz with news that Ram Varindha—young, hot and royal—is without a co-driver for the biggest rally event of the year. Though it’s been years since she last saw him, Mia leaps at the chance to get up close with the maharaja!

With time to spare before he takes on more serious royal duties, bedding this beauty is top of Ram’s list. But Mia has long known Ram’s reputation. Is she just in for the hottest few nights of her life, or could her dream of finally taming Ram’s playboy ways become reality?
STILL NOT THIS BOOK.  
Sarah: How is he a playboy? Based on what, countless descriptions of him as dangerous and sexy? And what about this part:

Ram had announced he would shortly be quitting his playboy life to serve his people in the independent state of Ramprakesh, but before that he was to enjoy one last indulgence—a timed rally car race across Europe in his super-car.

How does one quit life as a playboy? Do you resign? To whom, Hugh Hefner?

RedHeadedGirl: OBVIOUSLY. 

Of course he’s a playboy!  He’s got fast cars, and elephants, and a yacht bigger than Rhode Island!  He quite possibly runs around fighting crime at night (that is what playboys DO right?  Or have comics books been lying to me this entire time?)  (Okay, you’re right, he doesn’t have a lot of time to FIGHT CRIME in between all the Ramming he does).

So… he wants to restructure the government of Rammalammadingdong to not be a…. what was the structure before?  Oh right, we don’t really know- so they can be self-determining and also he’s actually running shit and not being a playboy so… he wants to sneak in quietly and not be like “EVERYONE CHILL THE FUCK OUT I GOT THIS.”  I mean, I understand thinking a Surprise Bejeweled Elephant is a bit much, but.. did he really think that no one would notice the yacht the size of Rhode Island? 

Sarah: I’m still not sure what qualifications he has to run a country, or how he did it from afar before he resigned as a playboy. (Did he write that resignation letter on rally car stationary, you think? Did it have matching envelopes? Did they say “Vroom vroom!” on the front corner?)

AND another thing: how did the author manage to pack so much detail into every sentence, while revealing absolutely nothing about anyone? Example the first: Mia’s model roommates. Because of course she has several roommates who are (a) models (b) gorgeous (c) friendly (d) incredibly generous and (e) leave en masse when the hot Ramrod walks into their flat.

“We’re going to clean up your act and send you out looking like a princess.” a pretty dark-haired eastern European called Xheni who had recently been scouted by one of the top model agencies assured her.

First: WHAT? I do not understand the parts of that sentence.
Second: XHENI? Someone needs to ascertain the location of JR Ward at this moment and make sure she is not in Monaco with these people. 
Third: WHAT?! 

Here are my top five highlights of nonsensical wtfery from this book. 

“Hairpin bends could come and go, but where Ram was concerned arousal was for ever.” 

If longer than for ever, or longer than four hours, please consult a physician. 

“How could she begin to tell them about Ram when he had flashed across her world like the brightest of comets leaving her to clutch in vain at his sparkling dust?”

DO NOT INHALE.

In a scene with Mia and her Magical Model Roommates talking about Ram:

“When Ram was in town there was a buzz of sexual excitement in the air; they’d all felt it.”

I am willing to bet an entire dollar that Ram wears Axe Body Spray. 

 

“Ram was quite an operator – if you liked your men straight up.”

As opposed to… resembling a corkscrew duck weenus? 

“A blur of hungry female eyes only proved that Ram could turn any club steamy. He had set this one on fire the moment he had arrived – and now it was a raging inferno.”

DEFINITELY Axe Body Spray. This book is the definitive argument for scratch-and-sniff romance.

And, the sex. At one point, parts of Mia’s body were “moistly preparing for his most thorough and prolonged attention.”

MOISTLY?

Then Ram challenged her,

“throwing his head back so she saw his full potential, from the thickly corded column of his neck to the impossibly wide spread of his shoulders and his powerful chest.”

Yeah. In case you missed it earlier, he’s a dick. 

Later they are doing it, she’s on top, “riding him with the same wild abandon she had always used to answer the stone wall she came up against with Ram.”  

What? 

And of course, he’s got lots of skill:

“And then he proved it, taking her to heaven and back with artful delay and intuitive strokes that allowed her to climb the mountain only to hover at its highest peak for the longest moment before plummeting down into the deepest pool of pleasure. “

However, before you think they’re mere fuck buddies, “This wasn’t about sex. It was a celebration of a friendship that had survived against the odds.”

Except for the part where they hadn’t spoken in years, and he had no idea she was in Monte Carlo at all, much less with scars and a plot-device-blind eye. We’ll ignore it. Turn a blind eye to it, in fact.

ba-dum-bump

But my absolute favorite part is where Ram asks her out after their nonsensical rally car race around Monte Carlo, then brings her aboard his yacht which, despite being larger, as you say, than Rhode Freaking Island, is all Stealth Bomber Quiet when the engines are fired up, enabling Ram to basically kidnap Mia and take her with him to RampraRomperRoom without her noticing that they’ve left the harbor. And when they’ve been underway for just enough time that he can’t send her back in the helicopter, which of course the yacht has, nor, you know, TURN the SHIP around, he decides he’s NOT going to tell her where they’re going, and storms off all huffy like because, and I quote, he “has things to do.” 

And when she challenges him on that, showing a bit of spine, thank the good Lord, and demands to know WHY he’s kidnapped her, he reveals everything and nothing by saying, “Because the time is right and because I might need you again.” 

HOWEVER, it is all ok and spiffy fine because Ram has made sure to furnish Mia’s suite with a nearly limitless array of elegant and traditional RampraRomperRoom garb that is (of course) in her size and fits her (of course) perfectly. OH – and he wants her to redecorate the yacht. 

Because… wait for it… “Ram was certainly determined to take her on a voyage of discovery.” 

Say it with me now: 0_o?

NO, WAIT. THIS. THIS is the WHOLE BOOK. 

Making love to Mia felt like coming home. His only regret was that Mia couldn’t be part of his future in Ramprakesh. But he couldn’t let her go, either—the details were sketchy… 

The details hardly mattered as he sank deep into her welcoming warmth. 

The details are sketchy through THE WHOLE GODDAM BOOK.

RedHeadedGirl:

“Mia’s heart cannoned into her throat as a familiar black velvet voice growled a suspicious greeting.”

Cannoned? 

“Why not bring the appointment forward?  There had been far too many simpering, low-fat milk-sops in his life recently. Wasn’t it time to walk on the wild side and eat some clotted cream?”

SO WILD.

“There was no easy way for her – no long-distance solution.  Mia needed close-up warmth and support, just as his people needed him in the country, rather than some distant stranger who issued orders for others to carry out.  He would return home and take Mia with him.  When he was sure she was healed she could leave and pick up her life – become the old Mia, rather than this theatrical version.  It was the only way he could live with the guilt.”

Well, where to start?  First, how does he know what she needs?  THEY HAVEN’T TALKED IN AGES.  Second, whatever, distant stranger.  Third, “leave and pick up her life”?  What does that even MEAN?  If this were obviously his fucked up thought process, and there was some indication that he realizes that he’s WRONG, that would be less ridiculous.  Not a lot less, but less. 

Finally, WHAT DOES HE THINK HE’S GUILTY OF?  As far as I recall, he does not know, nor does he ever know that she went into her danger-seeking phase because she missed him.  That could have been fixed with, you know, a CONVERSATION, but why start now?

I had the “men straight up” line highlighted, too.

“…drawing her knees back as he claimed her to her own soundtrack of sighs and sobs….”

o.O

And then, after hours had passed by in hazy pleasure, he…. throws her into a cold shower.  A lot. 

OH!  The room with the erotic pictures on it-

This wasn’t simply a stateroom, it was a collecting pen for a harem—and Ram was no longer simply her extremely accomplished lover, but a collector of living, breathing artefacts, which he kept alongside his inanimate collectables.

WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?  That’s a lot of meaning to ascribe to erotic art. 

“Judging by their elephant-sized jewels they had turned out to honor one man- though it was the people who were the jewels of Ram’s country….”

….?  What?

“She was only now discovering that physical intimacy didn’t open the deepest portals in a persons’s mind, it simply drew a veil of pleasure over them.”

Oh, only now she figures this out. 

….and at this point, I “reached the clipping limit for this item.”

“Sinking into feather cushions covered in the softest of fabrics was a sensual high only Ram could have devised, she decided contentedly.” 

UM EXCUSE ME WHO IS THE DESIGNER HERE.

What I needed from these two is to, well, have some substance to them, and a little consistency, and maybe do something-anything, but what I really needed to see was communication.  Actual, honest-to-dog communication where they at the VERY least acknowledge that they have things to say. 

Even the proposal was terrible. 

He hides a ring in an heirloom lute and when she finds it, he…  puts it on her finger and she’s like

you—? Is this…?’ she blurted.

‘A proposal?’ he said coolly as he selected Mia’s marriage finger. ‘Yes, it is.’

Now, he does eventually actually ask the question, but really?  It’s terrible. 

It’s all terrible. 

Sarah:

Wasn’t it time to walk on the wild side and eat some clotted cream?”

GET THEE TO THE GYNECOLOGIST FOR A PRESCRIPTION, MIA. 

So, what grade would you give this?

Honestly, this book was painful and confusing to read. Both characters were so weakly drawn they had two modes of conduct (Fight and Nookie with occasional breaks for Cold Shower) and I didn’t like either of them. The plot was nonsensical and the only conflict was due to them spouting cliches at and about one another and therefore misunderstanding each other like smiting peaks of honey with waves of passion crashing into fallen angels with elephants.

But worst was all the telling. The reader is told everything, and because none of it makes any sense nor is anything I was told about the characters revealed in their conduct, I didn’t believe any of it. Or care.


RedHeadedGirl: I feel like it is so mired in its own wtfery, it shouldn’t deserve an F. But its so badly written. F+?

Sarah: Yes! The elusive F+: it’s horribly written—but there’s exceptional comedic value if you go in preparing for the wtfery.

With elephants.



This book is available from Amazon | Kindle | BN & nook | Kobo | AllRomance | Harlequin.com

Comments are Closed

  1. Alina says:

    @Rose: In the real world, where no one is named Xheni, yes. In this author’s cracktastic world? Who knows!

  2. Sunita says:

    I haven’t read this yet, although it’s on my TBR because I couldn’t pass up the potential WTF-ery. Good to know it will deliver all that it promised.

    Yes, of course South Asian culture is familiar with the practice sequestering women, but these spaces were generally called zenanas, not harems. They are not the same things. The zenana was the women’s quarter. It was not sexualized, although the European interpretation (and fetishization) is one of a sexual space. The zenana in the Red Fort in Delhi has gorgeous filigree work.

    There were Muslim rulers (the Mughals being the most powerful and well-known) for centuries in India, and north Indian culture in particular is a syncretic blend of Muslim and HIndu religious, cultural, and artistic influences.

    I picked up Love Asana in an airport when I was in India earlier this year. It’s pretty good, and it definitely has an authentic Indian feel to it, although aspects of the characters’ background and behavior felt Westernized to me. But overall a decent debut.

  3. Sunita says:

    @Meljean: Thank you.

  4. Donna says:

    Today just keeps getting better and better!! Book signing tonight. Leaving work early to get to book signing. Free lunch before I leave early. And now a tag team review. Today is a total score!!

    I hope Sarah packed her warm coat and some galoshes because, as usual, the weather here, it is crap.

    Hey, Meljean! Come to Chicago!! I’m sure the weather will be better….

  5. Ruth Madison says:

    Hilarious! Wow.

    The only thing was, I was so confused by why Ram was a funny name. Took me the whole review to realize that you were reading it like ramming something. lol. I was reading it as the Indian name, which is pronounced with a long “a.”

    This review had me laughing out loud at work.  I hope I can learn what not to do from it! 🙂

  6. EC Spurlock says:

    OMG, double the review, double the fun, even if you two did not have double the pleasure. Thanks for making a sick, miserable day so much better.

    And of course elephants would have elephant-sized jewels… It WAS the elephants she was talking about, wasn’t it? >.>

    @snarkhunter—NASCAR driver Ernie Irvin lost an eye in a wreck and continued to drive in races for at least a couple more seasons. In fact, some would say it IMPROVED his driving; he ran into a lot fewer walls after that…

  7. I picked this up because it was one of Harlequin’s new multicultural romances where ethnicity doesn’t matter.

    Wait, are they really billing it as that?  Because it sounds like the same ol’ same ol’ WHITE LADY WITH VAGUELY BROWNISH BAZILLIONAIRE WHO IS EXOTICIZED OUT THE WAZOO stuff they’ve been peddling for ages.

  8. Kim says:

    @Saira

    Thank you for the recs, too.  I read the Singh series and haven’t got to that one yet:) 

    @Melanie

    That was me who ordered this book from you on PBS (I just PM’d you, too!) 

    @Sunita

    So jealous that you have a copy of Love Asana.  I’ve been trying to figure out how to find a copy.  This whole discussion has got me thinking about the portrayal of India and Indian characters in category romance series books.  Also have just discovered a new line of historical romances published by Random House India by Indian authors (I think) called Kama Kahani (Passion Stories).  The covers are really interesting.  The books can be found on Amazon.co.uk.

  9. becca says:

    If I flunk my midterm tonight, I’ll know which sites to blame.

  10. @Meljean and Sunita:  I apologize.  I wasn’t trying to go for a “oh, those Asian places sound so funny!” thing (it didn’t even occur to me that it could be taken that way), I was playing off of his name and the lack of research shown in the rest of the book, but I apologize.

    @ snarkhunter and EC Spurlock: The way the race was described was going around the narrow and twisty streets of Monte Carlo, which I would assume you’d want both depth perception and wide range peripheral vision for. 

    @ becca SorryNotSorry.

  11. I have to say that when I read most of the excerpts, my first thought was to wonder if Harlequin is being charged extra by its printers for using commas. Bad as the sentences were, most would have been improved or at least clarified by the addition of a well-placed comma.

    Although I must say, the craziness of the plot makes me think my prince + tattoo artist HP idea has a chance. Because it’s crazy, but it’s not NEARLY as nuts as this sounds :). (But maybe I should aim for nuttier?)

  12. DianeN says:

    @EC Spurlock, re NASCAR’s Ernie Irvan. He didn’t actually lose an eye. He had a severe head injury, and he did wear an eyepatch for quite a while afterwards. By the time he returned to racing, though, the patch was history and he was wearing glasses.

    This book. Wow. My first thought as I waded through the excerpts was that perhaps the author’s first language is something other than English. My second thought was that it was written by machine. Hmm, what’s Watson up to now that the Jeopardy thing is over with??

  13. MightyJesse says:

    This sounds like it came out of a random romance-novel-plot-generator program… After a really ill-advised dare during a 5 day drinking bender, perpetrated by a group of monkies with type-writers.

  14. Nah, I just read a lot of Harlequins and just recently there have been some books with non-Caucasian heroes and/or heroines where the emphasis hasn’t been on the race of the people involved.

    It was really well done in Maisey Yates’s latest.

  15. Meljean says:

    @redheadedgirl Oh, I know—both you and Sarah are too savvy and aware for this to have been anything deliberate like that, and it was running along with the absurdity elsewhere (because much of this does sound totally WTF) but I’ll admit: I’m still trying to parse out exactly what this means for anyone writing multicultural romances.

    His name, for example. I would never in a million years recommend Wikipedia as a reliable/great research source, but when a question like “What kind of name is Ram?” comes up … it takes two seconds to hop over there and see if it IS a name that is used and is appropriate for the character’s supposed origin (at least as far as I can tell from the review).

    “Hahah, Ram!? … Seriously? Ram?”

    Except…yes. Seriously. In a book full of absurdities and with plenty to criticize, I do find myself uncomfortable with the face that his name is also mocked and questioned, even though it’s culturally appropriate.

    So I’m not sure where the line is when criticizing something that simply absurd, and what happens when the supposed absurdity is something that’s authentic, and it only seemed absurd because it wasn’t something our western (or insert any origin) ears are familiar with.

    Anyway, I don’t have any answers here. I’m just thinking that if we are going to demand multicultural books and proper research and sensitive portrayals, readers (and I’m including myself) might need to do that quick self-check, too.

  16. Asia M says:

    OMG this was hilarious!! Thanks for making us enjoy a wonderful review and avoiding us the reading of a crazy bad book at the same time!

    As for the comments that were made about names… Just because a name actually exists doesn’t mean we can’t make fun of it. Especially if the context/character deserves it. There’s a difference between mocking something because it’s foreign, and mocking it because it calls for it, or because language allows you to! Imagine a hero named Dick who behaves like a dick. Why refrain from making jokes about it?

    I’m half-Asian myself, and my boyfriend is South-Asian and has a Sanskrit name, by the way. I know what racism is. The fact that I could get told off by a white person for displaying anti-Asian racism quite riles me, too. (Not that non-white people cannot be racist too, but, you know.)

  17. Alicia R says:

    I’m one of those people who will watch a really horrible movie just for the giggles, so I have to say…I’m kind of tempted to read this, now.

    Also, love the Downton Abbey reference.

  18. beggar1015 says:

    “Hairpin bends could come and go, but where Ram was concerned arousal was for ever.”

    Somehow I need to find a way to work this into my everyday conversation, or at least a variation of it.

    “How’s the weather?”
    “Storm clouds could come and go, but where Ram was concerned arousal was forever.”

  19. DreadPirateRachel says:

    IT’S LIKE GREEK DRAMA WHERE ALL THE COOL STUFF HAPPENS OFF STAGE.

    I love you.

    There had been far too many simpering, low-fat milk-sops in his life recently. Wasn’t it time to walk on the wild side and eat some clotted cream

    Isn’t it the best when an author feels the need to disparage other women in order to display the heroine to advantage? Especially when they use dairy metaphors.

  20. beggar1015 says:

    Meanwhile, I think the site should also review this Marilyn Shoemaker’s 5 star reviews over at Amazon.

    He was like a hawk! He struck his prey, Tally, and was relentless until she finally gave in and became his mistress.

    Or

    God had a sense of humour because in the end and thanks to mother nature they were thrown together and almost died in that horrible snow storm.

    So God’s idea of a sense of humor is trying to kill people with a blizzard?

  21. DreadPirateRachel says:

    Also, supercar =/= not ideal car for a rally. If you look at the list of the cars that have won the actual Monte Carlo Rally, you do not find supercars. You find Mitsubishis, Fords, Subarus, Citroëns. Not Lamborghinis, Ferraris, or Koenigseggs. To win a rally in a supercar, you would have to take away most of what makes it a supercar.

    I watch too much Top Gear (UK, of course. The American version is a not-funny joke).

  22. Sunita says:

    @redheadedgirl: Thanks very much, I appreciate that. Like Meljean, I never thought you meant it the way it could be interpreted.

    It does illustrate the dangers of being snarky when you’re not that familiar with the cultural context. When I first heard about this novel, I was struck by the name too, but not because of the homonym issue. Because that’s not how it’s pronounced; it’s pronounced Rahm, (as in Emanuel). But to give the hero the name of one of the most well-known and beloved Hindu deities, one who is famous for his role as a faithful (if spectacularly wrong about something) husband, is just odd.

    So there’s plenty to snark on if you have more information.

    I think Meljean raises a really important point. I’m one of those reviewers who has called out numerous authors for their lack of historical accuracy and/or cultural insensitivity. Is it fair to hold authors to such a standard and not reviewers? Surely we should be blaming them for the stuff they do wrong (and the joint review did a great job of that) but not the stuff they didn’t. Isn’t it the reviewer’s job to be sure of her facts/background before she wields her rapier of wit/snark? I think you guys fell down on this one.

    There’s a difference between mocking something because it’s foreign, and mocking it because it calls for it, or because language allows you to! Imagine a hero named Dick who behaves like a dick. Why refrain from making jokes about it?

    Bad analogy. Dick is an English-language nickname and it has (at least) two meanings in English, which makes the joke work. Ram isn’t even pronounced the same way as the English verb. The joke only works if you *don’t* know how to pronounce it.

  23. Ms. M says:

    It’s not Eastern European, but Xh is a common letter combination in Albanian (it sounds like ‘J’). I had students named Xhulia and Xhuliano.

  24. Susan says:

    This sounds…I don’t know…words fail me.  How does this stuff get published, and by a prominent publisher?

  25. Nah, I just read a lot of Harlequins and just recently there have been some books with non-Caucasian heroes and/or heroines where the emphasis hasn’t been on the race of the people involved.

    Ah, I get it.  You thought it might be another interesting book about an interracial/intercultural romance, instead of the old-school exoticizing garbage a la THE SPANISH BILLIONAIRE VENEZUELAN SHEIKH MAHARAJAH’S SECRET PREGNANT MISTRESS SECRETARY BRIDE stuff.

    And then you got this.  Yikes!

    I will definitely look for the Maisey Yates book, though.  Thanks for the tip.

  26. This book is now in my TBR. Why? Because I need 50+ cliches by chapter 9, surprise bejeweled elephants, elephant-sized jewels and low-fat milksops in my life.

  27. SB Sarah says:

    @meljean:

    His name wasn’t mockable because it was foreign sounding to my ears or brain. I pronounced it “Rahm” while I read it (am I the only one who hears books while reading them, like an internal monologue?).

    Naming a character “Ram”—particularly a romance hero with a lot of alpha male characteristics—is a dubious choice, accurate or not. What about, for example, naming a hero “Randy.” It’s a male name in many places but it also has additional meanings (ahem) which might make it a poor choice for a hero’s name.

  28. JamiSings says:

    There are some books where I can’t help but wonder who the authors slept with to get it published. Forrest Gump is one. (Seriously, one of two times the movie was better than the book. The other being The Ghost And Mrs. Muir.)

    While I haven’t read this one, just from the review, I’m wondering if this author didn’t beat Lisa Sparks’ record.

  29. cbackson says:

    Oh man, I just realized that this lady wrote THE UNTAMED ARGENTINEAN, a Harlequin that I use as shorthand for “ridiculous romances novel” when chatting with my friends.  I love it because the hero is named NERO CARACAS, which I have to type in all-caps all the time.  And which also gave rise to a fun-filled game of making up romance novel hero names by combining the names of Roman emperors with Latin American capitals (come on, doesn’t Justinian Santiago sound how?  What about Caracalla Belmopan?  Too much?)

  30. KarenH says:

    Actually Ernie Irvan did not lose an eye in a wreck.  In 1994, during practice in Michigan for the GM Goodwrench 400, he hit the wall in turn two at 170 mph and suffered a traumatic brain injury, from which he was iitially given less than a 10% chance of surviving the night.  As a result of his injuries, he did suffer from a short term issue with one of his eyes requiring use of a patch during his recovery, and I believe that eye requires focal correction with glasses (and the other does not).

    He has never raced with an eye patch.

  31. Meljean says:

    @SB Sarah

    But she didn’t name him ram (the English verb.) She named him Ram, and there’s absolutely no acknowledgement in this review that it’s actually an accurate name (as problematic as the usage might be for this character, as Sunita pointed out.) There is only the use of “ram” as in the English term and definition, and the source of humor in this review (in regards to his name) stems solely from that English interpretation. How is Randy any different than using Dick in that case (and Sunita explains why that is a problematic analogy?)

    By this logic, if I have a Chinese hero with the last name Wang (one of the most common surnames in the world), then it’s totally open season because of the English slang and connotations there? How can that be acceptable? (I am really, really trying to understand this here.)

  32. alicja says:

    ok, I’m from Eastern Europe (POoand). We don’t gest names like Xheni. we don’t, I swear. Not to mention that Eastern-European female names 99% of the time end with “a”, as it is an indicator of a female gender in slavic languages.  Even the dumb people at “Gossip Girl” knew that, they named a polish housekeeper “Dorota” a perfect eastern-european name.
    Xheni is more like Xena, the Princess Warrior. And how hard is it to look at the “top 50 models” list in the net? I mean, at least 20 of them are polish or russian or ukrainian, they could come up with a name like Kasia, Agata, Anja, Natalia (Natalia Vodianova for God’s sake, how hard is to think of that?). but nooo, we have to think of some kind of weid pagan-godess like slavic name of shit, it would be more fun 😀
    I love the webpage, though. You shoud absolutely do a book by Linda Castello, plenty to say about that 😀

  33. Ros says:

    So here’s the thing: I got a rejection from Mills and Boon saying that my opening chapter was, and I quote, “too melodramatic and unlikely”.  But THIS got published?

  34. snarkhunter says:

    I think the name “Randy” is actually a better example of the name example than Meljean Brooks is allowing, but only if it’s cross-culturally applied. In the US, Randy’s a not-uncommon name, particularly in working-class communities (in my experience). But if you wrote a Mills & Boon book for a British audience with an American hero named “Randy,” and the name is (justly) mocked for being hilariously obvious for a romance novel hero, is it deliberate cultural insensitivity on the reviewer’s part? Maybe, a bit, but there’s also the reality of the audience’s expectations to consider.

    I am not sure the author thought the name through. It’s a perfectly legitimate name, but maybe not a great choice for a romance novel hero, even with the different pronunciation. Not everyone will know that “Ram” = “Rahm,” though a good writer could certainly make that clear in the text somehow. Honestly, with the level of cultural idiocy the *author* is displaying in this, I’m not convinced she didn’t choose “Ram” as a giggly pun. And if a white Anglophone author gave a hero (or villain) the last name of Wang, yeah, I’d make fun of that. Not because “Wang” is inherently a funny name, but b/c the author deliberately chose a name that she must know has crude connotations to her Anglophone audience. (There are dozens of other Chinese names that would serve for a character: Li/Lee, Liu, Zhang, Zhao, etc.) A *person*‘s name isn’t funny. A character’s name is problematic when it’s chosen without consideration of cultural accuracy and the reception by the potential audience. When an author chooses names like these in English-language novels that display other examples of stereotypical cultural nonsense, I actually suspect the author is mocking the name herself.

    However, if the author straight-up addresses this—by having the character have his name mocked, and then defending his name—I’d be totally cool with it. B/c then the author is addressing our own racist assumptions about names.

  35. Kaetrin says:

    Christine Monson’s Rangoon had a hero named Ram. It is set in Burma (as it was called at the time). I still have a soft spot for that book and because of that if for no other reason, I didn’t notice anything strange about the hero’s name in this book. The rest of it sounds pretty out there though.

    If you’re going to have a one-eyed heroine, why waste the opportunity to explore that aspect more, rather than just make it a characteristic like brown hair or long legs (as seems to be the case here)?

  36. Yes, it is a legitimate name, but a white author (she is) writing for English speaking audience naming a character who is a romance hero and who’s only consistent character trait is his prowess in bed (and in the shower and on the deck of his yacht and possibly on the back of an elephant) a name that is also a euphemism, intentional or not, is mock-worthy.  There are plenty of other legitimate Indian names that would not have brought on that reaction.  We weren’t mocking it because it’s not a legit name.

    I will admit I read it as “ram”, not “rahm”, because a) I read in a Minnesota accent and b) I didn’t know it was pronounced differently.

  37. MightyJesse says:

    As a person of mixed ethnicity, I have no problems mocking this use of an ethnic name in a poorly researched book written for an English speaking audience. As snarkhunter stated, I suspect that the author may have been mocking her own name choice as well.

    When my brother was born, my mother wanted to give him the fine Japanese name “Hideyus.” My father nixed it because he wasn’t comfortable naming his child “hideous.” My father was AWARE of “audience” as it were, and American pronounciation. My mother was not.

    Had my mother written a romance novel with a character named Hideyus, I probably wouldn’t be giggling over the name – even if she was writing a “Beauty and the Beast” spin off, because at least her cultural descriptions and assertions would be accurate beyond her character name. This book is CLEARLY neither a serious work, nor well researched, and thus I am forced to conclude that the author either intended the double entendre OR, was just as clueless about her intended audience as she was about the subject matter that she chose to use as the set for her story.

  38. Meljean says:

    @MightyJesse When my brother was born, my mother wanted to give him the fine Japanese name “Hideyus.” My father nixed it because he wasn’t comfortable naming his child “hideous.” My father was AWARE of “audience” as it were, and American pronounciation. My mother was not.

    I would absolutely expect that an American/English-speaking person who ran into the name Hideyus would absolutely do the “Hideous, really?” thing. And honestly, no fault there. After it was clear that Hideyus was a proper name, however, and someone still applied the meaning “hideous” to his name … that person would be either a kid who doesn’t know any better (I hope we know better) or a dick.

    @snarkhunter However, if the author straight-up addresses this—by having the character have his name mocked, and then defending his name—I’d be totally cool with it. B/c then the author is addressing our own racist assumptions about names.

    This would be the ideal way of handling it in the text. And in that text, if some character insisted on using the English meaning to mock the hero … wouldn’t that character be a dick?

    That’s what I’m getting at here. It’s one thing to not know and to react to the perceived English meaning. But to know and yet still apply that English meaning? That’s a dick move. Redheadedgirl thought the meaning of the name was the English one (and this is what I originally assumed in my earlier comment when I brought up his name). Okay. But Sarah has said now that she knew it was Ram (Rahm), and yet applied the English meaning anyway. I simply cannot follow that process.

    It is NOT the same as Randy or Dick. In Britain or America, “Randy” and “Dick” carry those other meanings already. To varying degrees, sure, depending on location. But the meaning is already there, and making a joke with a name like Randy or Dick is simply peeling away the ‘name’ layer and revealing the ‘other meaning’ layer.

    The English word “wang,” however, is not equal to the transliterated surname Wang, and they are not interchangeable. English “wang” = penis. The surname Wang ≠ penis. They are not the same word. They are not even close to the same word, because Wang comes from a different language and culture.

    With Dick and Randy, the meaning is already there and attached to that word; there’s no need to add more meanings to it to make it humorous. To make the same joke with the surname Wang, you have to add the meaning “penis” to the surname Wang. You have to set wang and Wang equivalent to each other; you have to make them interchangeable. By making that joke, you are saying the surname Wang = penis.

    I said above that using the English meaning of “ram” to find humor in Ram made me uncomfortable, and I was thinking in terms of privileging English meanings over cultural meaning for the sake of humor. But I’m realizing now that if it’s done deliberately, with full knowledge (or lack of care) about what the original meaning for each word/name is, and no thought to the effect of adding another meaning to a real culturally-appropriate name (not some made-up romance name like Devil or Vishous) that pushes me beyond discomfort. That’s horrifying to me.

    I’m also not at all sure how author intention has anything to do with this. I’m talking about how this humor is used in a review, where the name Ram is made equivalent to an English word that suggests “shoving a penis into a vagina” (because we all know that’s where the humor is coming from—the suggestion inherent in the English word ‘ram’). If the character was an English character with a name Ram, hell yeah. Open season.

    But this person is very explicitly not an English character, and his name is not, either. We can’t know the amount of research the author did. We can’t know her intention, anymore than we knew Heyer’s intention when she was writing about a moneylender. So what if the book is good or bad? Some people think Heyer is trash, too. That doesn’t mean her portrayal isn’t offensive, or that it doesn’t matter. The way humor is used in a review matters, too. It matters when a name is deliberately stripped of its original meaning in one language and culture, and a meaning from another language and culture is slapped on top of it, because it transforms the name itself.  That goes beyond a review. That goes beyond a book, good or bad.

    TL;DR version: Even if there’s a similar-looking or -sounding word in English, applying the English meaning to a foreign word is just not cool.

  39. Not the meaning, the pronunciation.

  40. teshara says:

    Erm… it’s nice to know everyone is so sensitive and all, but I almost married a man whos last name was Schmuck.

    It’s a muddled up name that went from Hebrew and through Germany. It means jeweler.

    Now that you know the meaning would you be willing to take that name? (Because, trust me your job opportunities aren’t going to be the same. Really.)

    Not to mention all the ‘Sa-heed’s that are spelled Shithead. I love that name, but oh Lordy…

    Also, Focker is a real last name, but when the movies carrying the same name came out they were blocked for obscenity. Those aren’t the same words, but oh, yea. Yes they are. They had to provide legal proof that the name existed. (And flipping open the phone book didn’t count. They had to research for historical proof.)

    English is a tricky language that takes no prisoners. Think before you write.

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