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!
This HaBO is from Jen, who is searching for a heroine-disguised-as-a-boy historical romance:
I’m hoping the Bitchery can help me find two of my earliest romances. These would both be around 25-years-old.
The first was a girl running away from some bad guys who had beaten her. She dresses as a boy and I remember her cutting her eyelashes because they were apparently so long and lush they would have been a dead giveaway to her uber ladyness. She joins a cattle drive and causes the leader to doubt his sexuality since that young man was looking mighty fine to him. The reveal comes when they stop at a town (did cattle drives stop at towns on the way to wherever cattle drives went?) and he catches her in her bath in her hotel room.
The other one was a southern lady traveling west after the Civil War to be a school teacher. She is traumatized from things that happened during the war and has been left with a limp. The train she’s on is boarded by bandits – and the lead bandit turns out to live in the town she’s going to and his kids are in her class.
Would love to track these down and reminisce while basking in their old skool glory.
Cutting your eyelashes seems a bit extreme, since I know some men with gorgeous eyelashes.
I definitely read the first one. The second one sounds familiar too, but I 100% remember being baffled when she cuts her eyelashes because all the most extravagant eyelashes I’d ever seen were boys’.
I have no further information, alas. I picked books based over the top cover art, not author, fwiw.
No ideas for the HaBO, but funnily enough I was just rereading Laura Kinsale’s “Prince of Midnight” last night, where H surmises that heroine has cut her eyelashes to pass as a boy. Who knew it was a thing?
I think the 2nd book is Outlaw Hearts by Rebecca Brandewyne.
Outlaw Hearts is immediately what I thought of too for the second one. It actually mostly holds up pretty well.
First one sounds familiar.
And I don’t get how the eyelashes thing would work. Because my son is very obviously a boy, and his eyelashes should be illegal (framing huge, dark blue eyes, no less, but the fact that he has Mater teeth and braces will be a thing tempers the legality of how pretty his eyes are).
@Crystal “Mater teeth” LOL! Fortunately braces are a thing. 🙂
Cutting eyelashes would need really sharp scissors and seems pointless given, as has been said, how many men have gorgeous long thick lashes. And it makes me go a bit ‘nails on blackboard’ shivery too.
About number 1… it certainly sounds familiar… is it a contemporary or did it take place in the 19th century?
#2 also sounds familiar… LaVryle Spencer, maybe?
I have defs read #1. I feel like it was Judith McNaught? Or maybe Christina Dodd? I’ll scan through my books when I get home. This is driving me crazy at work now haha.
You guys are fan-freaking-tastic! Looked up Brandewyn’s Outlaw Hearts and that’s definitely the 2nd one (though that cover art is way worse than I remember.)
The 1st one was a historical western, 19th century. Cannot get the eyelash cutting out of mind. For the life of me I cannot remember author, title, or cover details, but those lashes – yep that’s what stuck 25-30 years later. 😉
My brother has these amazing blue eyes with very long eyelashes. From the time he was a baby everyone was always exclaiming over how gorgeous his eyes and eyelashes were. Sometimes they’d even say to me, ‘Don’t you wish you had your brother’s eyelashes???’
About two years ago I had a Loreal makeup guru at Macy’s put makeup on me just for fun. She completely freaked out over how long my eyelashes are, and I belatedly realised, at the advanced age of thirty-three, that I’d had the exact same eyelashes as my brother this entire time. Somehow no one, including me, had ever noticed this.
Which is to say, my experience as a clandestinely long-lashed woman is that for some reason eyelashes on women are invisible? except to makeup artists? so she definitely had no reason to cut hers. Also shudder.
Is the first one possibly by Diana Palmer?
The first one reminds me of
Ecstasy’s Trail by Elaine Barbieri. I at least remember the girl pretended to be a boy and was part of a cattle drive
The first sounds very, very familiar to me as well. I think it’s definitely Johanna Lindsey. I just can’t remember if it’s “Brave the Wild Wind” or “All I Need is You”. All of her stuff is pretty bonkers, so they plots tend to run together after a while. Hope this helps! 🙂
Whenever I hear the “woman disguised as a boy” trope, it reminds me of the FUTURAMA episode “War Is the H-Word” where Zapp Brannigan encounters Leela disguised as a man: “That young man fills me with hope. Plus some other emotions which are weird and deeply confusing.”
For the first time ever, I knew an HABO (OUTLAW HEARTS)–and I’m beaten to it! Alas!
My mind is at rest! But not my pocketbook. You’ve solved this for me. I’ve checked all the suggestions and Ecstasy’s Trail by Elaine Barbieri is the first one.
Thank you for racking those brains guys! The Bitchery rocks – as per usual. 🙂
The first one reminds me of a Lindsey! I’ve definitely read it… will hunt through Lindsey titles.
I too think the first book may be a Johanna Lindsey,like Desiree suggests.
Hey guys, thanks again. Just got the first book in the mail. After a quick scan, it’s definitely the one I was looking for, “Ecstasy’s Trail.”
The tag line on the cover says:
[cue dramatic narrator ala Jane the Virgin]
“The law wanted her for murder – and he wanted her for love!”
Ahhh, I love the 80s. 😉