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

I totally owe a bunch of reviews, but here’s a little tidbit for you:

Thundering Roses makes a great all-purpose curse word. I just dropped a phone book on my toe: Thundering Roses! I just attemped to read a Cassie Edwards novel: Thundering Roses! I just ate a stock pot full of four-alarm chili, a pound of refried beans, some corn, and a bag of air while wearing rose-printed pedal-pushers: Thundering Roses!

In a recent comment, the lovely Shannon Stacey expressed shock that Sarah is having me read SEP’s Honey Moon as part of our April Bad Book Challenge. (Her task is to read Desire’s Blossom, and may I say that I think she has the short end of the stick? Like, the SEVERELY short end; so short, it’s more a nubbin than anything actually stick-like.)

And that got me thinking: you know, there are quite a few really, really popular authors other people love that I don’t get. Some of them actually produce books I detest. So here I go again, busting out my bulleted lists:

Authors other people love that I think are just kinda meh:
• Nora Roberts
• Suzanne Brockmann
• Amanda Quick/Jayne Ann Krentz/Jayne Castle
• Jude Deveraux (yes, even her old stuff, and yes, including A Knight in Shining Armor)
• Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Authors other people love that make me go “WHAT THE HELL? AAAAAGH!”
• Linda Howard
• Liz Carlyle
• Stephanie Laurens

But you know what I truly think are the most grossly overrated author and love story of all time? Emily Bronte and Wuthering Heights.

Am I actually allowed to be romance novel reader and say that out loud without being punished severely? Like having the soles of my feet whipped with birch rods for seven hours straight. Or being locked in a room with only Avril Lavigne to listen to and nothing but potted meat product and pickled pork rinds to eat for a whole week straight.

I think Shannon’s right. I’m going to burn in Hell. S’OK, I’ll request that my family burn me little paper effigies of SPF75 sunblock during the Hungry Ghost festival. Hey, if my other dead relatives get Hell passports, Hell electric razors, Hell TV sets, Hell furniture and Hell money, I can request that mom and dad get me some Hell sunscreen, right? I mean, if you think cracked, peeling skin is a bitch here on Earth....

Addendum:

More authors I don’t get: Julie Garwood (meh), Adele Ashworth (about 50-50 meh and EEEGAH!), Sandra Brown (99% EEEGAH!) and Elizabeth Lowell (meh).

Us Smarty McSmart Bitches were talking about Books That Suck today, and in the course of the conversation, it was discovered that Cassie Edwards has earned nothing but Fs at All About Romance. Seven different reviewers gave seven different books Fs, and then LLB stepped in and said AAR was no longer going to review any more Cassie Edwards novels. Seven straight Fs. Good God, that’s some hard, hard punishment right there, and you know I’m talking about what the seven different reviewers went through when they had to read those books. Even Connie Mason got a few Ds, though LLB threw in the towel for her too at nine books.

Which leads to the question: Is Cassie Edwards real? And its corollary: who buys these books? Because obviously she’s been writing for a long time, and she sells enough books that the publisher keeps renewing her contract for her to produce new ones. But back to “Is Cassie Real?” Sarah’s theory is that Edwards is what she fondly calls “Crap by Committee,” in which various ghostwriters write books under the same pseudonym. I disagree. I think Edwards’ books display a frightening consistency that indicate yes, all those words emanated from the same brainpan. Plus she has an official website (which isn’t working right now). And a fan club! These surely indicate that she’s real, and not Crap by Committee.

Please tell me only one person and not a multitude are responsible for books like Savage Surrender, Savage Bliss and Savage Embers. (And really: SAVAGE EMBERS? What are they doing, running around maliciously and brutally singeing holes in your good blouse?)

So Cassie Edwards is real, and only one person, right?

Right?

*crickets*

Please hold me, I’m just a scared girl in a hard, lonely world.

Thanks to Jay, here’s a list of 110 banned books. I’m jumping in late on this game, but what the hell. Bolded items are books I’ve read, italicized items are books I’ve read partially.

¹ Indicates I first read it in college
² Indicates I first read it before I was 16 years old (actually, a lot of them I read before I turned 12)
³ Indicates that I think it’s one of the greatest books ever written

I’m so grateful my mom and dad allowed me to read anything I wanted. Well, OK, not anything, they did make an effort to hide actual pornography from me, though I found Dad’s stash of Playboys when I was 10 years old (and was completely horrified by the sight of pubic hair). Then when I was around 17 years old and they realized I was going to go to college some time soon and live on my own, they started freaking out about my movie and book choices, which was really funny because man, talk about the horse having long bolted from this particular barn… Here’s an example: I was reading Perfume by Patrick Suskind one day, and this particular edition’s cover was a close-up of some old painting featuring a nude girl sleeping. Very tasteful, very pretty. And my dad freaked out. “Mummy, come see what your daughter is reading!” he yelled. They didn’t stop me from reading the book, though, just gave me a really dirty look and fussed over the “indecent” cover.

And really, if they’d actually read Perfume, I think the cover would’ve been the least of their objections.

Anyway, enough babbling, on to the list!

Candy posts so much more than I do, I am embarrassed that I'm half of the dynamic smartly bitchy duo on this site. I mean, I got other locales where I bust with the snark, but still, I'm slackin' and for that I apologize.

While cute cashiers never see me scanning naked dukes (is that produce or canned goods?), I do have a rather arge stack of romances to be read. I don't buy them, however, as I subscribe to Books(not)Free and have them delivered to me by mail. The shipping is slow (It is media mail, after all) but I do get a good amount of backlists of authors, particularly editions with goofy covers that reflect the sensibilities of romance readers back about ten to fifteen years ago. Right now, it seems folks
go for jewel tone fabric covers with flowers or jewels on them, perhaps with a half-naked stepback image of some beefy dude and a long-limbed (and strangely hairless - anyone ever wonder why romance heroines appear on covers as if they wax their legs? I mean, some of these women should have dark leg hair judging by their described "dark exotic looks." Was there hair removal back then or are we just ascribing 20th century sensibilities on 18th century women?) heroine reclining on a sofa or chaise in an artless and doubtless uncomfortable position.

The Books(not)Free copies are old enough that sometimes I get beefcake on the cover - and I love when that happens because cashier smirking has NOTHING on a subway car full of snide New Yorkers checking a glimpse of the beefy and hirsuite Earl of Gogglestaff and his buxom lovely, Lady Chessa, daughter of the Duke of Putsaught. I generally put my bag on my lap and use it like a pillow so as to hide the cover.

In the past week or so I've read "Duke of Sin" by Adele Ashworth,which received very high reviews, particularly for the hero, on LLB, but didn't leave me with any memorable impression. In fact, when I looked over at the Reader Survey at LLB, I thought, "Didn't I just read that?" Then I dug through the pile of to-be-mailed paperbacks on the hall table and found it. I think I read it last week? It left no impression on me, which isn't much of a recommendation, but at least I didn't hate it. I certainly don't think it was a book of the year.

However, Candy is much better than I am at reading books and remembering authors, titles, and plotlines than I am. I tend to mix them up. I once mis-remembered a book as the plotline to a Garth Brooks' song. I'm not even kidding. Mostly I remember the feeling I got when reading the book. If it made me cry, if I wanted to curl up
and whimper with glee at the characters, if the whole damn story was so good I was about to pummel anyone who interrupted my reading. There are a few books like that, and I should pay more attention to them, if only because far more bore or irritate me with lame conventions and poor excuses for storyline.

One was "Bitten," by Kelley Armstrong. Talk about hot attraction and damn fine characters. Wow, I get the vapors just thinking about it. Another was "The Duke and I" by Julia Quinn. Quinn is interesting for a good many reasons, one being that she can write a "light" romance without the story or characters being "light" on quality and depth,
and another being that she picks interesting and clever personal flaws or the heros to overcome or deal with, from stuttering to parent death. "Undead and Unwed" by Mary-Janice Davidson cracked me up, and I totally loved the imperfect heroine who had a moral code and a love of shoes. And that Eric dude. Yow. Something about dudes with prickly exteriors (no pun intended) and mushy interiors that they struggle to keep hidden, damn that's hot.