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

Sheena asks:

Out of curiosity, are there romantic films that you would unhesitatingly recommend, besides Sense and Sensibility? Is that a post for another day? Two of my favourite films are The Scarlet Pimpernel (the Jane Seymour, Anthony Andrews version) and Moulin Rouge.

We discussed this back in 2005 when I revealed in a multitude of ways how uncool I am in my love of movies and television shows. But I will say that for Hanukkah this past year, Hubby got me a set of the entire season of Cupid PLUS unaired episodes from some bootleg DVD vendor overseas. *le sigh* Jeremy Piven. What a lovely Hanukkah gift.

But it’s never a problem to come back to a topic - particularly almost two years later, when we have more readers with certainly more opinions - many many more opinions! 

Bitchery reader Maya sent me a very smart idea: we need recommendations for the funny-funny romance novels.

She wrote:

As an aspiring writer myself, I’m interested to study what works in comedic writing (I’m plenty capable of finding what doesn’t work in comedic writing myself).  Has the bitchery every compiled such a list ?  If not - dare I hope the question might be thrown out there ?

If someone asked me, for example, I’d lead off with

Mr. Impossible - Loretta Chase - (historical -Egypt)
Crocodile on the Sandbank - Elizabeth Peters - (historical - Egypt)
Fame Fatale - Wendy Holden - (contemporary - Britain)
Pastures Nouveaux - Wendy Holden - (contemporary - Britain)
Alice, I Think, Miss Smithers, Alice McLeod, Realist at Last - Susan Juby - (young adult contemporary trilogy, Canada)

So bring on the hilarity - what funny romance novels, historical OR contemporary, do you recommend? 

I’ve reviewed gay romance twice, and we certainly have snarked our share of gay romance covers, but it has been brought to my attention that we have not asked the Bitchery for Lesbian Romance Recommendations.

So - what lesbian romances burn your carpet?

Personally, I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t read any. It’s not a deliberate slight; I just haven’t come across any romances wherein the protagonists were women. Back when I was a member of BooksFree, I had Pembroke Park on my request list for ages, but it never became available in the year-plus time I was a member. I was bummed when I finally discontinued service that I’d never borrowed that particular book.

Online, I’ve seen a few recommendations, including books by Sarah Waters, but I have seen more discussion about romance readers enjoying gay romance than I have about lesbian romance.

So, I have to ask the Bitchery for a Good Shit vs. Shit to Avoid List: Lesbian romance recommendations? Historical? Contemporary? What’s on your keeper pile from the Sapphic protagonist set?

Bitchery reader Dalia sent us the following email:

I’m looking to read up on romance novels containing a certain storyline and I was wondering if you could help me by (if you’re interested yourself in finding out, I know this could come across as presumptuous!) putting the question up on your site?

I’m looking for romances with a side story line featuring either the heroine or the hero with serious relationship issues with either one or both their parents. Not salad dressing sort of issues like Penelope Featherington & her obnoxious mother dressing her in green (Julia Quinn in whichever Bridgerton series instalment that was). More in line with Kevin’s tv star mother giving him up when he was a baby in SEP’s ‘Heart of Mine’ in terms of ‘seriousness’, for example.

Thanks a lot if you can help me.

Parental dysfunction?! Mega Angst Dysfunction of parental origin!? Oooh, there’s hardly ANY of that in Romancelandia! *snort*

So what do I do when someone says, “Got any romances like this?” I think of, like, two or three, then ask Candy, whose brain flies through the data like one of those rotating shirt hangers at the dry cleaners on high speed and comes up with fifteen thousand examples. And then, as usual, we start talking about WHY this subset exists, and how it came to be:

Candy and I, we should open the Smart Bitch Book Finder service - our readership is so smart, we can describe one third of a novel and get people giving us the ISBN within an hour. It’s pretty awesome. So of course, a Smart Husband has turned to the Bitchery for help:

OK, at the risk of being published, I have a couple of questions that I haven’t been able to answer on my own. As gifts, I like to give my wife romance novels (she can’t stand buying them herself).

She likes ones with a bit more “occurrences” and maybe a slight more description.

She can not stand time travel or some weird metaphysical or strange almost science fiction plot.

She likes historical, in particular kings, princes, castles and stuff.

She will not deal with vampires.

She requires a believable story.

Again, she grades a book by the story, the amount of encounters (once or twice is never enough), and the description of those encounters in an somewhat explicit yet tasteful, romantic nature.

Can you suggest a few authors?  Christmas is coming and I have her stocking to stuff.

My brain first offered up old school Garwood (The Bride and Conquest, for starters) but then I wondered - is there a quality historical romantica author that y’all know of for a recommendation?