You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
Welcome to Tuesday, better known here as HaBO Day! HaBO, or “Help a Bitch Out,” is our attempt to reunite readers with romances that they can remember parts of, but not the important parts like the author’s name or the title. In other words, what my brain is like 99.4% of the time.
This HaBO is from Lauren, who is looking for a book she wasn’t allowed to check out of the library:
I’m hoping the Bitchery can help me find a book I’ve been wanting to read for a loooong time. It’s a book I found in the library in late middle school/early high school (so 1989 or 1990 or thereabouts), but my mom wouldn’t let me check it out. It’s one of maybe three books my mom ever said no to, so I’m guessing it was racier than your average 1980s romance novel. I did get about ten minutes of browsing time before I was dragged away, and this is what I remember:
— It was a fairly thin book, and had a white cover with a picture of a girl on it, and I think some kind of sci fi city in the background or on the back cover.
— It starts out with the heroine shopping. She is wearing a slutty schoolgirl outfit, and notices people noticing her. She wanders into a dusty antique shop (as you do) and gets kidnapped by the creepy store owner. When she wakes up, she’s in some kind of metal box and tied down. She may have been naked, or not. I think she gets drugged or falls asleep, or both.
— When she wakes up, she’s on another planet. I believe it’s a desert world – I vaguely recall some harem imagery (but I could be confusing this with a different book).
— Towards the end of the book, she has gained some power and is (I think) fomenting some kind of feminist dissent, but was also falling for the head dude.
— There were some very erotic (to my young teenage self) sexy times. Possibly some bondage or master/slave stuff.
If this rings any bells, I will be forever grateful!
This description is tickling my memory in a weird way, but I can’t come up with anything when I Google (anything relevant and not freaky, anyway). Do you recognize this book?
I have to agree that it sounds like it could be a Sharon Green novel. The Warrior Within fits the cover description at least and the first few pages describe her sleep suit as “brief enough to earn me a citation from any policeman alive…” There is kidnap, although she didn’t black out in the handful of pages I read. Maybe the cover will ring a bell? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4186916-the-warrior-within