Bitchery member Sara forwarded me a link from YA-powerhouse Meg Cabot’s website, wherein Ms. Cabot poses her favorite 80’s romances gently on the sofa and talks about how much she loves some seriously cheesy comfort reads.
Oh yeah, Meg. I hear you on old school comfort reads. Come on over here and sit with me and my copy of Midsummer Magic.
Her summaries of some of the books are just like some of my dusty recollections of romances I read when I first discovered romance: …he thinks she’s a boy during the day, duh, and because she has to shut him up or they’ll get arrested or something. Look, my memory on the details are a bit sketchy. I just know it was good when I was 19 or whatever…..
Plus, there’s a shot of Fabio with green eyeshadow.
But the part of the entry I keep re-reading is her romantic swooning over sheikh romances. Far be it from me to ever knock another person’s reading choices, because I love and cherish my share of very bad romances, but I do not understand the appeal and allure of sheikh romance. Please! Enlighten the bitch?
Candy and I were emailing each other about this yesterday:
Candy: I get that it’s all about the All-Powerful and Mysterious Other Who’s Hugely Rich And Takes You Away Like Calgon, etc. etc. It just amuses me that the fact that the dude’s probably Muslim and would make his wife convert and wear the hijab is almost always neatly avoided. Lucy Monroe went so far as to make her Sheikh a Christian in one of her books, which was godawful and hilarious. I get that it’s pure escapism, but its unblinking oblivion at how badly it’s butchering the culture needles me just a touch. It’d be like somebody writing a romance featuring Chinese characters who can’t pronounce Rs properly going around quoting Confucius all the time.
I wonder if people in the Middle East write romances featuring charismatic billionaire Southern Baptist televangelists rescuing some hapless habibti from her workaday drudgery?
Sarah:LOL like AOL at the idea of hajib-wearing women reading escapist fantasies about having hot toupee sex with some conservative coalition member.
I’m always flummoxed when I look at sheikh romances considering the amount of Arab distrust in the US. It’s a strange dichotomy: Arab men of that age bracket are often feared, distrusted, and objects of suspicion, except in romance, where men of that age in that culture are objects of sexual fantasy.
Now granted, I haven’t read a sheikh romance, save for Silver Angel, which I barely remember the salient details of, save for the old school cover with that woman who went prematurely grey and grew her hair to the floor. But judging by the recent releases, there’s sheikhs-a-plenty available for your reading pleasure.
Aside from my vicarious thrill at seeing an old-school romance shelf that embraces some really gawdawful titles that are so very very similar to my own, I have to stop and wonder some more at the prevalence and popularity of sheikh romances (attention: if you’re still playing the drinking game, rumination means that’s 1 more sip). If I head past the new releases at Borders or B&N, there’s still a selection every month of sheihks doing what-all with young women.
Fess up – have you read them? Did you secretly like them? What’s the deal? And if my romance education is 100% incomplete without one, an idea I’d dispute except for how freaking many of them there are holy crap, which one must I read?
I was way into Sheikh romance for a while as a teenager, before I went to college and engaged in Muslim Studies, at which point I realized that with the way the characters are behaving, “Happily ever after” is followed shortly by a one-way ticket to stoning. That, and oh yeah, he forced her to marry him in the first place.
That being said, I think there’s a certain appeal in bucking the system and becoming part of the fantasy. Thinking “If I were to hook up with the young, devilishly handsome ruler of an oil-wealthy, non-theocratic Islamic nation, I WOULD CHANGE HIM AND ALL THE CENTURIES OLD WAYS LAID FORTH IN THE Q’URAN!”
Well, no discussion of sheikh romance would be complete without mentioning the original sheikh romance, named…er, “The Sheikh” by EM Hull. It was published in 1920 or thereabouts, and then made into a movie starring Rudolph Valentino.
It is SUPREMELY politically incorrect, featuring the kidnapping, rape and subjugation of our feisty English heroine. She finally decides that this submission must be love, and resolves to stay with her desert lover despite his control issues. To add even more fuel to the fire, it turns out that her desert lover is not an actual Arab (God forbid that one of those should despoil the flesh of a fair English maiden). No, no- our ‘hero’ Ahmed is a half-English, half-Spanish guy who somehow (I forget how) wound up in charge of a desert Arab tribe. Fun for the whole family!
I’ve never read one, either, although personally I think a lot of the appeal is “he’s got crazy money and his own private gas pump”, which is really sexy in the current economy.
At least, that’s my theory. That and that a lot of women still secretly dream of being taken to a harem and pampered like shar-pei’s all day long. Too bad it wears on one and you can’t exactly just leave.
It’s funny – I LOVED the boss/secretary stories. The millionair/poor girl stories, those Diana Palmer cowboy stories. Still have a few on the keeper shelf.
But I just couldn’t get into the Sheikh stories. (Although that cover with the woman in the silver hair does look familiar). I could never get over the idea that more than likely this woman would be sharing her husband with other wives/mistresses. And with more information sufacing regarding how women are treated in some of these countries… it gets even worse.
How is it possible to separate the fantasy from reality – when the reality shows up on the news nightly.
Maybe back in 1980 – you could over look it, but today? I would be interested in hearing from writers too – what steps they use to explain aspects of the culture that make the HEA harder to pull off.
Trac’s point above about completely ignoring cultural realities is an excellent one.
Wasn’t the appeal for this setting generated partly by movies such as “Lawrence of Arabia” and actors Omar Shariff, Yul Brenner, et al? Didn’t all of us want to waltz with the King of Siam? Any whiff of the exotic and forbidden, whether it was men or locale, seemed to have American women yearning to step right into those harem pants or whatever costume the scenery required.
While I’ll gladly confess to the hots for kilt-wearing men, I never read the sheikh romances; they rank right up there, IMO, with the having-the boss’s-baby, corporate-take-over-by-unplanned-pregnancy embarrassments.
My first recollection of coming across the sheikh-fantasy thing was from reading Lace, after which I couldn’t think of Arabs and goldfish in *quite* the same way ever again.
Since I don’t really have a thing for them, it’s very likely I’m talking out of my ass here, but I’ve always had this vague idea that the sheikh romances were really in their zenith during that same period when romances were in that phase of the masterful hero who knows all/little woman who must be saved, protected, told what to do, and be called a “little fool” at least once during the course of the story.
It’s as if the sheikhs are the most alpha of the alpha-hero type, which never appealed to me since it always seemed like the heroine has to do all of the conforming to the desires of the hero. Perhaps the appeal for some women is that aspect of giving up complete control and having the person its given to acting in what the woman can perceive as in her best interests?
On another note, I don’t know if the romance version of a sheikh is better or worse than Scott Adams’ version.
Sandra Brown wrote a sheikish romance. He was the illigitmate son of a sheikh really. I read it when I was a teenager and romance was a new genre. Anyway, I have found memories of that book. The Tiger Prince.
If I read it now I probably wouldn’t like it as much. But the memories of it are good.
I have an irrational affection for The Tiger Prince. It’s on my keeper shelf. One of those books that I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t like—given my highly evolved feminist sensibilities and all—but I’m a sucker for it nonetheless.
I am so bemused by how many people I hear say that about their favorite old school romance – myself included – “I shouldn’t like this, but oh, I love it so.”
It’s such a trait of romance fans.
My weakness is for men in kilts, gladiators, that kinda thing (yeah yeah, sue me).
Since Middle Eastern Dance is a consuming hobby of mine (like six classes a week and a performance troupe). I know WAY too much about ME culture to even remotely find sheikhs sexy. Toss in a stint in my younger days dancing in a Moroccan restaurant and dealing with the owners, family and customers.
Nope nadda. Uh huh. I know too much.
HOWEVER, Kilts, gladiators, vampires, paranormals….sheesh, even pirates. Guess ignorance is bliss for cheesy reads.
And my word is easy 43,
hrmpt.
My mother was, apparently, a big fan of the sheikh romance back in the 80’s, because that’s what most of the romance novels I snuck out of her room to read when I was a teenager were about. So I have fond memories of them because they were the first romances I ever read (the very first one, however, was Kathleen E. Woodiwiss’s Shanna), but I have absolutely no desire to reread any of them.
You think it has to do with the powah of love overcoming even the hugest of problems—in this case a sociocultural one?
Kinda makes sense when you look at other themes like paranormals, secrets, time travel, etc. All these problems are pretty insurmountable the same way the sociocultural ones used to be. In a sense, the werewolf is the new sheik.
But the sheik is still around simply because we love tradition.
I dunno. Just a thought. LOL. Word veri is analysis21
I’m sure I read a sheikh romance or two in my early teenage years, when I was mass-consuming romances for the illicit thrill they provided (hormones overcoming feminist sensibilities, like whoa), but I can’t remember any specifically. Recently, however, I flipped through a newish sheikh romance at work and was far less than impressed.
I’m just too informed on current events and ME culture to buy into the world that book tried to set up, and my hormones are no longer strong enough to overcome my good sense. Consequentially, I spent most of the time talking to and mocking the book (which had my co-workers giving me some funny looks).
The woman had a pretty good life, a good job, decent income, etc. Then she gets kidnapped by sheikh-dude and after getting brainwashed by his c**k of multiple orgasms, decides that she’s going to give it all up to be his little woman out in the middle of the desert? Um, WTF?
No mention of the likely multiple wives, her having to convert to Islam or having to wear the hajib, and certainly no mention of her being stoned or the husband’s right to damn near whatever he wants with and to her, legally. (Unless one or both are things the “hero” threatens her with in a sexy way to get her to do what he wants. Yeah.)
I’m just too much of a feminist these days to enjoy kidnapping, forced sex and the woman making all the compromises, giving up her identity utterly on the man’s demand. “Plots” like that are a guarantee that the book in question is soon due to make a short trip, ending abruptly against the nearest wall.
I can’t stomach sheikhs, secret babies, or kilts. They jar me out of the fantasy wham bam, no thank you sir. However, some of my comfort reads have elements of the All-Powerful Calgon, disguised differently. Calgon in a form I can swallow.
I do like one sheikish story: Robin Schone’s The Lady’s Tutor. I suspect Schone tried to subvert the typical sheikh theme. The hero has a strong mother who owns her choices, he lets the heroine find her own way out of her situation, and he schools her most awesomely in teh sex (no wham bam little fool).
My comfort reads are from my teen/I’m different/so very special period, and they mostly have talented/different/strong heroines. I got off on lonely, not helpless.
My old school “I shouldn’t but”s are ‘90s Harlequin Presents/M&B set in Australia (Susan Napier, Lindsay Armstrong, Robyn Donald). When I’m sick and need predictability I read Betty Neels. O BBQ! The shame!
My “I was sooo a teen”s are Ann Maxwell (Elizabeth Lowell)‘s fantasies like Timeshadow Rider and Name of a Shadow.
My newer comfort read is Stephanie Laurens’ A Secret Love. It has a lovely relationship between the h/h (and friends/families), and it rings those almost-sibling, not quite squicky bells.
I see others upthread have mentioned having good memories of some romances but no desire to reread them, and that triggered a few memories for me. I have to agree; I went through hundreds of romances in my teenage years and there are a few that really stand out in my memory as so incredibly hot and romantic, but after making the mistake of trying to reread one—Upon a Moon Dark Moor by Rebecca Brandewyne—I realized that those books are better off remaining good memories. I’ve just changed too much as a person, learned too much over the years to find the same naïve enjoyment I once did.
Add me to the list of people who don’t want to read sheikh romance, though I know someone’s buying it, otherwise HQ wouldn’t keep churning them out.
However, having said that, I am a fan of Loretta Chase’s Captives of the Night and Catherine Asaro’s SF novel The Veiled Web. The latter is a futuristic about a Western ballerina who ends up married, somewhat against her will, to a Moroccan tech genius. She’s secluded in his family’s estate and the novel deals with her adjustment—or lack of adjustment—and some tech skullduggery.
How did I not say this?
Ultimate comfort read: Pride and Prejudice 🙂
There’s some definite yearning for Calgon in P&P… but they all had to work for the Calgon ending. It isn’t over-the-top unrealistic like sheikh books; E’s a woman I can relate to, someone who yearns for the Calgon but knows the price is high. But she gets it anyway. Extra big sigh.
When I tell a man I love P&P, I feel a little of that “I shouldn’t like this, but oh, I love it so” because I know the face he’ll make. It’s considered such a women’s book. Not in the ghetto of Oprah books, but definitely pigeonholed. The saving grace, that keeps me from feeling outright shame, is that it’s a “classic” and well written. And it severely lacks man titty.
Oh, and I got so caught up in the sheikh thing I forgot to mention my comfort reads: The Grand Sophy, These Old Shades and The Devil’s Cub (Heyer), P&P (Austin), Windflower (“Laura London”), The Temporary Wife (Balogh), Miss Whittier Makes a List (Kelly), Midsummer Moon (Kinsale), and The Duke’s Wager (Layton).
I think the secret is that harem pants flatter and hide hips. You feel sexier, and since tall-dark-and-repressive is right there… :shrugs:
Does Cleo Cordell’s “The Captive Flesh” count as a sheikh romance? It occupies a place of honor in my porno box. (Didn’t care for the sequel though. Bleh. Disappointment.)
I’ve never been a big fan of the sheikh thing, although I’ve read a few historical romances with that device. (DEFINITELY don’t like any of those cheesy Harlequin categories that feature sheikhs.) A part of me is still wide-eyed over the infamous plum scene from that Susan Johnson book. I was young and impressionable at the time. I’m not sure I’ll ever recover. Maybe I don’t want to.
My comfort reads are my Nora Roberts and (older) Linda Howard books. They’re infinitely re-readable for me, and that’s comforting. Another comfort read, while not a romance, is the Belgariad and Mallorean series by David Eddings. I probably re-read them once a year. Mostly for Hettar. I just love me some Hettar. (Speaking of long and lanky dudes.)
Brian Whitaker, the Guardian Middle Eastern correspondent, wrote an excellent piece on Shiek Romances a while ago:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/brian_whitaker/2006/03/those_sexy_arabs.html
Being of Arab decent as well as romance reader, I find these Sheik romances annoying, yet often hysterical. Annoying because I think they smack of Orientalism, and hysterical because….well, if you met enough real-life sheiks you would understand. Sadly, I have not heard of many Muslim women reading romances about touped television evangelists, and I am plugged into the Arabic fiction scene. If that happens though, I would definitely check it out 🙂
Not that I love the sheikh romance, per se, but I have read a bunch of them. Mainly during my Bertrice Small phase in high school. The heroines of her novels were constantly being abducted off to a harem where the had the dirty, dirty “up-the-butt” sex with someone. Then they went back to being Lady Whatshername in England after being rescued or escaping.
Didn’t Nora write a modern day sheikh romance? The heroine was a jewel thief, and she was stealing a necklace from her father, who abused her mother. Jeez, what was it called? I remember the hero’s name was Philip and he was ALSO a thief. Huh. Can’t remember the name, although I own it.
I feel a re-read coming on.
I generally steered clear of both the sheikh romance and the strong brave marries white captive girl romance after reading one or two. There was something about the disconnect from reality that has to happen. Although the idea of a pampering spa-like harem might be nice for a vacation…
My comfort reads…well, I don’t go back much anymore. My romance choices and experiences have vastly changed since I got in a relationship…and not because it’s spoiled the fantasy. I just have less time on my hands and I find that if I put a romance down, I lose the momentum of the plot and when I try to pick it up again I find that I’ve lost interest. It actually makes me quite cranky.
MaryKate, I wanna say that was Hot Ice. And iffygenia, I have a deep love for the Elizabeth Lowells, many of which I first read as a teenager. Some of them have the women-being-treated-as-property-and-learning-to-like-it themes that irritate me now, but found incurably romantic when I was younger. Most of them are also historicals, so it is a teensy bit more acceptable, but only teensy. The contemporary Donovan books? LOVE THEM.
By the way, I want to make it very clear that I don’t think there’s anything at all wrong with somebody converting to Islam or making a choice to wear the hijab; in fact, I’d have a great deal more respect for sheikh romances if the heroines ended up doing both. I just find it funny that so many authors either ignore those aspects of the culture, or they contort the story in all sorts of hilarious ways to find an out for the heroine (Oh, he’s Christian! Oh, he’s not actually of Arabic descent! Etc.)
I started reading romance in the era of the sheikh romance, and I think they are unintentionally funny. And doesn’t the sheik have to also be a playboy raised in Europe? That seems to be a theme….even at the time I thought they were silly.
I’m currently making my way through all the very early Linda Howard novels, and I’m surprised at how much I like them, although I tend to dog ear all the sections that bug me for later reviewing reference. I just finished one Linda Howard that had practically every other page marked, and was giggling through a large chunk of the book. (There was a sheik in that one, too!) I love the old romances where the heroine makes the hero pay for all the crap he does. Make him suffer, girl!
But what is WITH every single woman in these novels being a secretary? Was that really the only job choice for women in the 80s? Or is it just a romance fetish?
my verification word: how15 (I’m having an 80s Indian captive flashback!)
Natalie – Shanna was my first romance as well. Those are books that I remember fondly – but I’m almost afraid to read because I’m not sure how they would hold up. The one where the hero is the monster/husband and devilish flirt – that one still has to be good. Doesn’t it?
Same with Johanna Lindsey. Man I loved those books! There was that one with Russian Prince who drugged the lady (or his servant did) and she turned into a horn dog and he HAD to have sex with her for her own good. That was a favorite when I was 17 – but today? I don’t know.
My comfort reads – Jayne Ann Krentz – and I know I’m going out on a limb but I do believe I have her complete backlist. So that’s a lot of comfort. Linda Howard – her Silhouette years. Nora, of course. New reads I find myself going back to – Julia Quinn – To Sir Philip with Love – LOVE that. Someone mentioned a Stephanie Laurens – that’s may favorite of that series.
I love diving into new books. I love the excitment of a new story. My favorite thing is to find a new author.
But when it’s been a tough day, week, whatever – there’s nothing like a comfort read.
“It’d be like somebody writing a romance featuring Chinese characters who can’t pronounce Rs properly going around quoting Confucius all the time. “
Charlie Chan has romance books? Oh my!
I’ve read more of those awful Bertrice Small harem books than I care to remember. Definitely just an excuse for anal sex, threesomes, and pube shaving.
I also seem to remember a book where the teenaged heroine is kidnapped from her finishing school along with her stepmother. During the sea voyage, the kidnapper (who, it turns out is a westerner acting as the factotum for some nasty sheik) tutors the girl in sexual techniques without actually deflowering her by getting it on with her stepmother while she watches. Then he makes the heroine go down on some burly, blindfolded seaman, just for practice. She ends up in the harem, where she’s obliged to use her new skills on the sheik but eventually escapes and falls in love with the guy who kidnapped her.
One of those raunchy/squicky reads that’s lost in the mists of time.
It strikes me that the appeal of the Sheikh romances has to do with a certain fantasy element of imagined Sheikhdom, namely, a supposed heightened sensuality—hot desert winds, cool fountains, slight and slithery silk garments, unusually juicy fruit, attar of roses. If only one could have a really intense sensuality as part of a fictional culture without the elements that are so incompatible with a modern woman’s self-determination.
Somebody sent me to this column today and after reading the topic and replies, I remembered why I dislike this site. It should be titled TrashyBitchesNoBrains.com
I think there’s a lot of truth in this. I’ve read the odd sheik romance in my time (although tried one recently as a quick read while waiting for son to come through surgery and just “gack”) and I was trying to figure out why as the comments made so far didn’t resonanate with me.
But I think this might be it. I’m a fantasy reader first, and this is the answer that sounds right for me personally.
I’d like to second Catherine Asaro’s “The Veiled Web” that has some of the staples in an SF-ish story but actually tries to address the issues of differing faiths and if that can work in a marriage. Includes a nice scene where the heroine goes to the baths with the hero’s female relatives and realies the cross she wears around her neck and never really thinks about is what is suddenly culturally inappropriate. And one of the big issues for them is how to raise children within two faiths. Even if they’re not ready to have children, they recognise the need to discuss the issue before making a real committment to each other.
So while I’m sure there are some simplifications and I can’t comment on the accuracy of the Muslim household shown, it certainly tries to take the issues seriously.
MaryKate, if you can remember the name of that modern day sheikh book by Nora, could you post it? It sounds far more interesting than the usual run of the mill sheikh fetish books.
My word: size12 Um…ouch? Crossing my legs now.
The Nora Roberts book is Sweet Revenge. It has a very real feeling for what life would be like in a harem, both the good side and the bad. Its one of my favorites.
For comfort reads I always stick with Nora or Jayne Anne Krentz, in any of her personalities, Jayne Castle or Amanda Quick. Usually sweet romances with just a touch of mystery make me all warm inside.
Thank you, KristenMary! Hopefully it’ll be waiting for me at work tomorrow. I’ll get to spend my weekend enjoying it.
Word: expected85
Heh. Yeah, if I’m not careful I’ll end up reserving just about that many of her books.
sheikh sheikh sheikh your Nora?
Well, darn, I almost had a shot at my first comment here being something useful, but KristenMary beat me to it by noting Sweet Revenge (which I love) is Nora’s contemporary harem book.
As to sheikh fantasy, I’ve never been into it and view it much in the way that I view novels set in India: It’s the exotic fantasy without being TOO exotic. It’s the Disney brown hero or more socially acceptable half-breed or the “no, I actually just have a tan and was adopted by the unwitting A-rabs” guy and the “fair maiden” experiencing a furren culture without having to really pull the reader into the icky stuff like religious issues or actual interracial romance.
And Bertrice Small scarred me for life with Wild Jasmine. Emperor Akbar sleeping with Skye O’Malley? Eek! (Not to be confused with Admiral Ackbar, though I’m sure it’s happened.) Not to mention that she turned one of India’s most famous starcrossed heroes, Selim, into an incestuous freak and had Jasmine’s only Indian husband as some dirty mistress keeping, anal-lovin’ oppressor.
One thing that irks me about the sheikh romances (besides being highly improbable) is their need for a white, anglo woman. I know that’s how most readers are able to identify with the heroine but it seems to imply middle eastern women aren’t good enough? Like they don’t have enough problems.
One of my old favorites was Wishes by Jude Devereaux. My first chubby heroine. The hero tells her he likes girls with a little meat on their bones because his mama was a large woman as well made me smile then though it makes me wince now.
my code problem41
so true, so true
Oh God, did someone just mention Admiral Ackbar in the context of a romance novel? I have to go hurt myself now.
Nien Nunb, on the other hand- woo hoo!
Security word: cans38. I swear they’re real.
I do not think you have thought your cunning plan all the way through.
Maybe these writers only want white, anglo woman to wind up as politically oppressed sex slaves hopelessly isolated in a far Middle East country.
I myself have often thought that would be a promising career move for someone like Paris Hilton.