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

Bitchery reader Elyssa wrote me to say she has two books she can’t find:

I actually have two books that I’ve been looking for and my usual great memory has been failing with these two.  I know I haven’t dreamt these up, at least I don’t think I did.  I read---or should I say stole---this book from my mom’s nightstand, and I’ve been looking for it everywhere.  I’m sure it won’t live up to my memory since part of the allure was reading the book illicitly.

Book One:

I remember that this book takes place in England, and I’m pretty sure it’s Regency era.  The heroine is 17 and is blond but an orphan (so sad).  She went to school with a bunch of other girls and made friends with another fellow orphan who’s a brunette.  Somehow, the blond heroine has a guardian (the hero, who’s also blond) and there are two meddling aunts who want the couple to get together.  But, alas, the hero is sort of engaged.  And there’s one scene in the novel where this cunty ex-mistress of the hero who comes onto the heroine.  There’s also a secondary romance with the brunette friend and the hero’s friend who, of course, is a a Rake.  Oh, and the hero of the story is in his 30s (I want to say 36) and wants to marry the heroine off for some reason but can’t when he starts desiring her.

Book Two:

I also think this book takes place in England although it could start in America, too.  For the most part, the setting is on a boat and then somewhere else (possibly a desert).  The rich heroine is chasing after her fiance who’s off searching for a treasure or researching (not sure which).  The fiance keeps giving her the run-around to marry her, and heroine’s getting fed up and decides to find out what’s up.  Heroine goes to the boat-yards, smacks into the handsome hero who’s shirtless.  She hires him and gets on board.  Of course, her room is right next to the hero’s, who’s the captain of the boat.  They travel, fight sexual attraction, although there’s one scene on the boat where hero goes down on her in his cabin and she begs him to take her.  He doesn’t.  They land where they’re supposed to and find the fiance who’s been whoring and not doing what he’s supposed to.  I think the heroine has a map to where the treasure is and leads everyone to it - the hero decides to leave, thinking the heroine is better off with jerk fiance.  But heroine comes to her senses and everything ends HEA.  (For some reason, I thought the hero and heroine were named Jack and Sophie and the book had a yellow cover - but I haven’t found any books that fit this description, so I highly doubt it).

Both books would have been published during 1990s (somewhere in that decade), possibly early 2000. 

If there’s any chance that you know what these books are, it would be greatly appreciated! 

Handsome shirtless heroes? Orphans with lusty-eyed guardians? Man, there’s hardly any books like that- bring it on! 

Bitchery reader Liv is totally inspired by our romance sleuthing:

I’m amazed at how good the Bitchery is at identifying books, and I’m hoping they can do one more - the first romance I ever read.  Here’s what I can remember:

The heroine is visiting someone, and gets put up for the night in a bedroom that turns out to be the hero’s (who’s away somewhere).  The hero returns unexpectedly late that night, crawls into bed and immediately falls asleep.  Of course, the next morning, the hero and heroine are found in bed together and must marry to stave off any scandal.

They move away to some grand but dilapidated estate, which the heroine begins to fix up.  The hero is described as a dandy or a fop, and the heroine is an uptight, spectacle-wearing prude.  Through the joys of house rehabing or somesuch, the hero starts to think the heroine looks kinda sexy in soot and construction dust.  At some point, the heroine gets kidnapped and taken to a cave.  The hero tracks her down, beats up the bad guys, and rescues her.  The heroine realized he’s not such a dandy after all but a hot hot manly man.  Much sex and at least one baby ensues.

I remember that it was Harlequin - and I think it was published in the mid-nineties.  I hope this is enough for someone to identify it!

Bring it on - sexy heroine with construction dust? Mrwor! 

From Bitchery reader Charity, who used the subject line, “The Power of the Bitchery Knows No Bounds” - damn right, ma’am. And flattery will get you everywhere, including perhaps to the bookstore to fine this rare gem:

Since checking out the success of the “Help A Bitch Out” Name This Book, I thought I’d ask if you’d post mine.  Here’s what I remember:

I don’t remember much but I do remember that the story began in England and most of the story took place on a boat headed to America. The hero was the ship’s captain.  The heroine was either raped/or almost raped repeatedly.  Her skeezy relative (male) planned to pimp her out to three men but somehow, she killed all of them.  Maybe with a fire poker??  Then she ran away and found passage on the ship to America.  The only name I can remember was the name of the bad guy. He was a pastor/reverend and completely corrupt.  His name was Sebastian.  He wanted to rape the heroine.  He had raped several of the other female passengers (members of his congregation??) already. I don’t remember what all else he did but I remember being so disgusted by him that I couldn’t even stand the name Sebastian because I associated it with pure evil.

The only scene from the book that I can really remember was about the old homeless woman who helped her escape after she killed those men. After she helps the heroine, the homeless lady tries to remember a time when she was as beautiful as the heroine.  The homeless lady picks up a brush and tries to run it through her hair but that makes all the lice (or other bugs) scurry down her back.  Gross, I know.

I don’t want to spoil the perfect record, but I’d like to know if anyone remembers this book.  If not, then I will assume that I made this up from the deepest darkest recesses of my mind and will be forced to seek professional help.

If that came from the recesses of your mind, lice included… nah, there’s no way. Anyone recognize this book?

When Bitchery reader Ricki sent me this request for help, I emailed her back and asked if she was sure it was a book, and not, perhaps, a funky dream she’d had one evening. She assures me it’s a book - so maybe you’ve heard of it.

I read a book when I was a teenager that I borrowed from a friend.  The details that stick out at me are the sex scenes, which were pretty creative as far as I was concerned then.  The plot I remember very sketchily.  I remember that the hero and heroine met on the estate on which she grew up.  She was a poor relation/orphaned niece, and he was a servant or something like that.  She was orphaned when her mother was hanged for something.  I don’t remember if any details were given about her father.  They had a romance when they were teenagers, and then he left.  He may have been kicked off the estate; it may have been because they consummated that romance.  Fast forward some number of years, and he’s the captain of a ship.  It may be a pirate ship, or it may just be that he’s very successful at thwarting pirates, and therefore just as scary as them, or maybe he’s pretending to be a pirate for some other purpose . . . I don’t remember.  I think he’s not actually a pirate, but piracy comes up a lot. 

Anyway, she ends up getting kidnapped by some of his crew members for some reason, and they bring her to his room and restrain her, at least in part by putting something around her neck, which freaks her out, because of her mother.  (I realize anyone would freak out about being restrained by kidnappers, and having something around one’s neck would certainly not help that situation for anyone, but the way it’s written, she has a very special and unusual fear of things being put around her neck, because of her mother.) I don’t think she knows whose ship she’s on.  He comes in and is very angry that his men put something around her neck, and she’s very touched that he remembers that she freaks out about things around her neck, and possibly this is how she realizes that he’s the old stableboy or whatever he was.  This is all in the first third or so. 

What I remember after that is the sex parts.  They get stranded on a deserted island and have lots of sex, including a time where he uses wet sand to restrain her wrists and ankles (but not her neck), and a time where she tries to give him a blow job underwater.  And also she makes a sand model of his penis.  Later on in the book, after they are not on the deserted island anymore, they are in a cave, where there are empty wine bottles, and he uses one of them on her as a dildo.  That is what I remember.  Also, at least one of them, if not both, have very dark hair.  Does anyone have any clue what this could be?

Wine bottles?! In the hoohah!?! This book sounds like The Windflower crossed with Blue Lagoon and Madonna’s Sex. So please, if anyone knows what this book is, let me know, because I’m so very, very curious.

Bitchery reader Elizabeth asks for help - and when I wrote back I had to say, she might have described at least 16 different old-school romance novels with this one. But let’s see if we can come up with a short list for her to go hunting for this vintage romance:

I have been wondering about a book I ran across in my friend’s summer cabin when I was about 14. I glanced through it long enough to go “Are the fucking kidding me?” and giggle over the sex scenes under the covers, but didn’t really read it. Now I’m having a fit of nostalgia over how awful it was and want to look it up again.

The heroine was a lady of some respectability, but met the hero in circumstances that made him think she wasn’t, I THINK but am not sure. He had an amazingly loyal servant of some sort who helped him kidnap the heroine and put her in a box on a train (maybe a train) they were riding on. I remember this because there was a brief panic when it was realized that she was in a trunk with no air holes, and she was rather worse for wear because of it. The hero also had some sort of drug that made the heroine mad with lust, and he used it on her a few times before realizing he kind of liked her and decided not to use it again, but then the butler gave it to her and that Broke Her Trust. The only remedy was to have lots and lots of sex, I think.

Isn’t the proper remedy in a romance novel ALWAYS to have lots and lots of sex? I mean, really. It’s the best remedy for everything.