As usual I’m sure I’m behind on the news on this one, but Iron Lesbian #2 was kind enough to send me a link to the 2006 results of the Bulwer Lytton contest.
The winner for the romance division is especially funky:
“Despite the vast differences it their ages, ethnicity, and religious upbringing, the sexual chemistry between Roberto and Heather was the most amazing he had ever experienced; and for the entirety of the Labor Day weekend they had sex like monkeys on espresso, not those monkeys in the zoo that fling their feces at you, but more like the monkeys in the wild that have those giant red butts, and access to an espresso machine.”
Dennis Barry
Dothan, AL
There are few things more romantic than giant red-assed monkeys drinking espresso. At last I have found a Valentine’s Day gift for Hubby!
Now, I’ve never really been bothered by the opening line of a romance novel, but I am perpetually tormented by Rebecca Brandewyne’s idea of a man “bursting like a ripe melon”, and, from a romance I read so long ago I can’t even recall the author or title, the heroine feeling a “spurt of something warm and urgent between her thighs.”
A romance novel, for the record, should not make me think of pantyliners. Or Depends.
We’ve dished on describing the Big (m)OMent, and on the worst purple prose there is, but has there been a line in a romance so howlingly awful that it stuck in your brain, torturing you at odd moments, causing your face to pucker with horror, or the uncontrollable urge to laugh? And does anyone else remember the source of that described warm, urgent spurt that still haunts me?
This isn’t quite as explicit, but I have never forgotten the moment from a bad LotR slash fanfic where, upon seeing Merry, Pippin’s “heart exploded in a million shards of lovely.”
I still regret that this was intended as a description of True Wuv and not, say, cardiac arrest.
Oh man, Another Amy, don’t talk to me about Kathleen Woodiwiss. I had to read her novella “The Kiss” for Popular Lit class as a “good” example of Romance Fiction – I thought they were kidding! I thought it was a Romance parody!
A bath in man-gravy. Eww.
Oh dear me – I shouldn’t have tried to read this and eat lunch at the same time.
As far warm and urgent is concerned … I keep wondering (not entirely seriously) is urgent was a misprint for ungent. But that only makes it worse..
As far as horrible howlers … I remember a reference in Married to the Viscount to the hero’s “tufted armpit hair” which I found immensly disturbing, not that the hero has armpit hair but surely tufted shouldn’t be used in reference to anything except a squirrel’s ear.
And from The Heartbreaker: “[she revelled in] the coarse abrasion of his chest hair on her smoother skin…” Ye Gods, the man is made out of wire wool! From the same book I recall a reference to the “ready prod of his erection” (can you have an unready prod?) and the line “she discovered his small male nipples” (where was he keeping them? Under the pillow?).
Oh, actually, while I’m on this book:
“Her answer was to clench him deep, to hold him and drain him and keep part of him forever with her.” Which part, exactly??? Hopefully not that which has just drained…
I don’t remember which book the following came from but I still sometimes wake up at night sweating at the memory:
“his eyes were glued to her nipples..”
Like .. ouch!
Um. You have already been blessed with the worst I’ve read.
Salmon. Wriggling. Spawning upstream.
A breakfast of Sausage and man gravy.
etc. etc. etc.
*weeps*
Lately I’ve been somewhat awed by the fountains, gushings, runnels (is that like a running channel?) and other diverse water features of Emma Holly’s couplings. (In all senses of the word.) As in, “his seed might as well have been lava, it burned that fiercely, that forcefully through his cock.” (Prince of Ice) Ow. Ow. Ow. The poor man.
But one that managed to lodge itself in my subconscious and only popped out lately while reading up on AAR’s Great Virgin Debate is the hero’s line from a Diana Palmer when he’s about to de-virginate the heroine. “Let me watch you become a woman.”
(I managed to track it down, too, Nancy-Drew style in The Case of the Mesmerizing Boss)
Strong eau de fromage and also gets my feminist hackles to rise until I feel like a stegosaurus.
re: Lady Anne’s Dangerous Man, I can’t remember the author but the entire book had everyone, even the heroine, refering to his doomer as a “codâ€.
I wonder if the author had gotten confused by the term “codpiece”?
I just this weekend read one where the heroines nipples turned to diamonds. No, not diamond hard (which would still be concerning) but turned to diamonds. Really quite a disturbing image. Although at least there weren’t creamy spurts.
Ha – and my word: boys78!
Nope, they really were talking about his penis. I know it’s a slang term. The first couple times were fine by me because they were in context but as the book progressed it was used almost every single time. I’m sure there are other terms, that there were other terms back then and I really would have preferred a different word during the sex scenes.
To this day, my sister and I remember the immortal lines from a Beatrice Small book (can’t remember the title, but her heroine is small, black-haired and is wedded, bedded, raped, raped some more, seduced, and possibly takes over a small Carribbean island with the powerful forces of her charisma and sopping lurve tunnel).
The line is “Conn! Conn! Take me like the stallion took my mare! Stuff me till I burst!”
That was about 15 years ago, and still, all one of us has to to is slide over to the other and whisper “Conn! Conn!…” and the other will starts giggling and mock-moan the rest of the line.
This isn’t really sexual, but I found Karen Hawkins’ latest book, How to Abduct a Highland Lord, screamingly funny because of this extraordinarily bad error on p. 147:
“He shrugged. ‘My grandfather left her entire fortune to me—yet another reason my stepfather cannot abide me.”
Well, I’ll say. Those damned hermaphroditic grandfathers put me off every time! It had me wondering whether Jack, the hero, inherited grandpa’s capabilities and could, at the drop of a hat, grow breasts and go shopping with the heroine.
Oh, and TMI time: Yes, as a virgin having sex for the first time, I did feel it when my husband came inside me. I doubt anyone who isn’t a virgin is tight enough to, though.
I’ve appreciate all the postings. What fun (without having to read the stuff!)!
My most recent howler was so bad that I couldn’t even get to the bad sex stuff.
Ann Gracie’s heroine was so beloved by the poor common people that they brought her oranges! In England! In the 1820’s! Growing them in their poor person’s greenhouse?