Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Every so often I get a slap-upside-the-head reminder as to how big and important and powerful romance novels can be. Case in point: the following message from Bitchery reader N, who asks for your collective help in assembling a reading list:

Several people have suggested that I ask you and your readers.

I am looking for a book which may not exist.

I have a friend whose mother is a battered wife. She reads romance novels.

I am looking for a romance novel which I can lend her which has the
following themes/ideas/plotpoints/whatever-you-want-to-call-them:

-woman leaves abusive spouse
-woman is okay on her own
-woman finds true love with non-abusive man

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Novels that portray the healing of fair and respectful love and the triumph of people over abusive pasts? There are more than a few in romance, obviously. My first recommendation, Montana Sky by Nora Roberts, which features three women in varying stages of strength, one of whom is on the run from an abusive, obsessive spouse.

However, books aside, please know, N., that I hope your friend’s mother finds her own strength to move to a place of safety and healing very, very soon. 

Bitchery reader and aspiring writer Sarah (not me) writes in with a request:

I am an aspiring writer, and am working on some of my first manuscripts after years of anime fanfiction and original fantasy shorts. Most of my readers have been saying I should get published, even if I’ve never taken one creative writing course, and am finally breaking down to maybe give it a try. Most of what I write currently is almost kitchen-sink type stories, some action-adventure, some suspense, plenty of humor, deep philosophical discussions, and lots of sex and romance.

Problem is, I’ve never picked up a full-blown romance before. I’ve been a fantasy/paranormal reader for the longest time, but after getting down right pissed after reading Sara Douglass assassinating her own female characters in the Troy Game series, I gave it reading mass-market fiction of all kind . . . except the last book of Harry Potter. I’ve been working on my own stuff ever since, and want to try to get something published. Only, I don’t know if my ideas would even stand a chance of being publish since the one I’m really rooting to research and start is completely off the wall with what I know of all the books floating around out there.

So, here’s where I need the bitchery’s help.

Has anyone ever written (or read) a romance set in Medieval Japan involving ninja? That’s right, I said ninja. I asked a friend who reads a lot more than I do and whose husband actually studies ninjitsu, and neither of them has seen ninja novels outside of Japan. Are there any ancient Asian culture novels outside of the East? Historic romance maybe?

Jade Lee’s books come to my mind first, but what recommendations do you have? And would you as a reader be interested in romances set in historical Asia? 

Cat Marsters emailed me a very interesting question, one that I hadn’t considered: what romances do you know of that feature sane exes?

Usually, the ex is a horror show, either a monstrous vindictive batshit crazy lady with an array of romance shorthand markers for shallowness, such as an obsession over nail polish (read: claws/talons), an over-attentive focus on her looks (read: vanity) or just a cold, calulating beauty (read: she’s evil).

As Cat puts it:

Why is the ex always a) a thousand times more beautiful than anyone else, including the heroine, and b) why is she completely evil?  Not just I-hate-you-after-the-divorce angry, but totally-unhinged fount-of-all-evil-since-dawn-of-time eeevill!!

Quite apart from my total pet peeve on the hysterically jealous beautiful = eeevill!! equation (so you hate her on sight because she’s prettier than you?  Gosh, what a mature, well-rounded adult you are), I’m getting really fed up with the automatic shorthand of ex = eeevill!!  It’s just rent-a-villain.  If she was so damn evil, why was he engaged/married/shagging her rotten in the first place?  Are we to believe this paragon of manly virtues is really that susceptible to a pretty face?  Especially when our heroine is less attractive than the ex?  Yes, it’s realistic he’s dazzled by the red lips and giant bazoombas, but I’m sorry, but I don’t buy him as wonderful hero material.  I buy him as a shallow jerk (now that’s realism).  And what about our heroine whose horrible-but-gorgeous fiancé was screwing her over?  Couldn’t she see he was just a giant ass with a pretty face (I’ll let you enjoy that image).

Aren’t there any books out there that have a hero (or heroine) with an ex who isn’t 100% evil?  Dead spouses don’t count. Can’t we have a mature ex-girlfriend who doesn’t wish painful death on her replacement?

While I was typing up this entry, Cat emailed me back:

OMG!  I just remembered.  Jill Mansell can do this.  She writes very complicated used-to-be-married but-then-fell-for-your-brother whose-daughter-I-adopted then-she-married-your-new-wife’s-son type relationships, which take some keeping track of, but the exes in her book tend to be more...well, sane.  Sometimes they’re even friendly.  In one, there was a Jerry Hall/Mick Jagger type next-door thing going on, and the ex ended up with the heroine’s sister.

It’s rare, isn’t it, the normal, we-broke-up ex? There’s not much drama in it, and it forces the tension and potential antagonism to find another route since that easy shorthand of “beautiful ex = eeeebil” inaccessbile.

Sometimes that shorthand is used to build the nobility of the character, who despite the relationship being over, still cares for or takes care of the ex in question. There was one book I read a while back wherein the hero is constantly taking care of his ex-girlfriend, who is beautiful but utterly mentally unhinged and keeps taking her clothes off in his backyard. Of course, now I’m wondering what book it was. (I’m one big HaBO I swear.)

The Mentally Stable and Not Evil Ex is a rare find in romance, in my experience. The stable ex means that the hero/heroine has had sex with someone else, has had a healthy relationship with someone else, and has ended that relationship for whatever reason. Does stability in a protagonist’s past relationships, and the fact that those relationships fizzled, somehow cast doubt on the S/He’s The One-ness of the relationship detailed in the romance? Is there such thing as enough reassurance in the “we’re just friends” and “you’re the one for me” departments such that it satisfies any doubts on the part of the reader? Or do readers by and large prefer as much as possible a virginal sexual past for the heroine, and a virginal emotional past for the hero?

What about y’all? Have you read or enjoyed a book wherein the ex was normal, functional, and maybe even casual friends with the hero or heroine? Or does the idea that either the hero or the heroine may have had sex and a stable relationship with someone else who is potentially likeable turn you off as a reader that you prefer your protagonists to have either an unstable ex history or no ex history at all?

Here’s an unusual request for help from our masterful collective mental library of awesome: Andrew, who has been lurking for awhile, sold a book. Yay, Andrew! Funny thing is, he’s a novelist who’s publisehd 17 novels, mostly Fantasy and Science Fiction. Trouble is, this time he’s being told by the purchaser of his manuscript that he’s written a… paranormal romance.

“Really?!” says Andrew.

“Oh, yes,” sayeth his publisher. “You’ve written a ‘dark historical paranormal fantasy romance.’” AND, hot diggity for Andrew, it’s a series.

But Andrew, he is befuddled, and he is no dummy. Instead of being all, “Eeeeyew I don’t write romance!” he turns to the Bitchery for help. He needs a reading list:

Thing is, since I’ve been a SF/Fantasy writer for the past fifteen years, and not a romance author, my knowledge of the genre is only a few pages deep.

What I’d like is a good crash course in (preferably in-print and/or readily available) books you all think a neophyte (paranormal) romance author should read.  Not only archetypal examples I’d need to be familiar with, but if you’re inclined, a few examples of “Oh God, please don’t do this!”

I asked Andrew for more specific details about his book, because the term “paranormal romance” encompasses as many diverse varieties as the word “food,” and he wrote:

Bitchery Exchange Student Mads is an Aussie in France, and she needs le help! She is looking to build a reading list of bodice-rippingly-good saga romances for her reading pleasure.

Recently I got the opportunity to become and exchange student in France- and voila, here I am. I’ve been in France for six weeks now and despite the freezing, disgusting weather (I’m Australian; this is my idea of hell. Well, this and that Hoff strippy, trippy thing you posted) I’m really enjoying France. But I have an incredibly obvious problem: A lack of books. I tore through the Quinn and Kleypas I brought with me and I’ve been indulging in ebooks since.

Here is my question. My anecdote wasn’t long and rambley without reason- I need Smart Bitch help.

I would really love to read some epic romance. I’m sick of regency, my usual romance fodder, and I’d love to try something with a bit more kick. I’m open to paranormal but my true love is always going to be historical. I’ve been thinking about the long and rather terrible epic sagas of the 80’s like Jane Feather and other authors.

I was just wondering if the very capable bitchery could help me out: I have far too much time on my hands with nothing to do but drink Chocolat Chaud and enjoy the French hotties (Quel Horreur!) and I’m in serious need of very long romance novels, preferably with a good plot line in addition to being a bodice ripper.

Well, I’ll leave this in your capable hands.

First, you might like Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris about an Aussie lady who marries a Parisian man and learns to cross naturally exuberant Australian friendliness with French culture. It’s hilariously awesome.

But saga romances? I confess I am a complete sucker for one of the first romances I’ve ever read: Blaze Wyndham. It may not be in print or easy to find, but it’s bodice-rippery and saga-licious like damn and what.  What’s your pick?