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

Bejazzled and Beswimsuited, with Romance Titles

Ahoy from the Not Safe for Work department here at Bitchery HQ.

I’m not kidding about the Not Safe for Work Part. Please. Think of the children. And yourself.

From Melissa Marr, we have an amazing and dare I say brilliant link to what truly happens when you become Bejazzled. Bejazzling, if you’re not familiar, is when Swarovski crystals are applied to your waxed hey-nanner-nanner. Instead of a landing strip, for example, you have a sparkly strip.

Wouldn’t that… chafe, should someone engage in some action with her actual and literal glittery hoohah?

But then, nestled intimately alongside Melissa’s email came another email from Gry, who sent in this piece of Norwegian majesty: Ad for over-filled swimming trunks ... sometimes there can be too much sausage.

Ok, that’s Gry’s translation from Norwegian, but if you look at the picture, you get… the picture. Here’s the rest of the article, translated:

The German sportswear store might have selected slightly larger size for the
model.

One of the readers of the Swiss online news page Blick.ch discovered the potent ad picture in the web store of Sportcheck, a german sport equipment retailer.

One of the models is shown wearing a classical pair of swimming trunks from Adidas. But, as the reader discovered, the trunks were either too small, or the model had too much body. Alternatively, somone has screwed up rather badly while photoshopping.

(The picture has been removed from the web shop page)

Wow. Glitter and wang! In one entry! How do I cope?

With a contest, of course. These two are destined to meet, the bejazzling investigator and the overburdened swimsuit model. I’ve got a $25 gift certificate up for grabs (ha!) to the person who comes up with the best romance novel title for these two lovely people. The Overhung Swimsuit Model’s Glittery Virgin? Caught In His Swimtrunks by The Sparkle?

Comments close in 24 hours, and you’re more than welcome to pimp your favorite to try to sway my vote.

Save the Contemporary Winners!

Hot diggity - the winners for the Save the Contemporary contest celebrating Julie James’ Something About You are up on the Save the Contemporary site.

I loved how many people tried the book based on our recommendation and loved it - that makes me so happy. If you have recommendations for a StC candidate book - and we prefer to highlight brand spanky new books so we’re looking for books that are coming soon - visit our Make a Recommendation page.

Cover Renovations: From Fraught to Hawt

Pam Rosenthal’s book The Slightest Provocation is being re-released with a new cover, which she wrote about over at the History Hoydens blog, (which is a rather awesome author collaborative blog and totally worth reading weekly, yo). The old cover, as Rosenthal put it, would appeal to readers who might be “in the mood for something improving and uplifting.”

And the new cover? Rosenthal highlights the fact that it is encoded with, “hawt.” Since it features her “angriest, sweatiest, most contentious pair of lovers,” Rosenthal is quite pleased with the visual encoding of the new cover:

I am SO impressed, NAL. Srsly, you have achieved the romance cover trifecta! Mullet: check! Shirt unbuttoned, but still tucked in? CHECK. O-face? CHECKITY CHECK CHECK. And a two-point conversion for both waxed abdominals AND a strangely bent heroine leg - way to go!

Which cover rocks for you? Would you be more likely to pick up the first version or the second? What do you think of the redesign?

HaBO: Wild West Pornstache?!

Leslie writes:

I just read my first Lorelei James western erotic romance and really enjoyed
it - but it gave me a brain bug for an old, old, old-skool romance I think I
read in high school in the 1980s (because I remember getting in trouble for
having it after a piece on 20/20 or somesuch program about how racy romances
were getting).

I keep thinking it is a Diana Palmer, but I have been on her site and cannot
figure out what it might be. It is not a series title, but may be from one
of those lusty 1980’s imprints. I am pretty sure the cover is a step-back
with a really pink sunset.

Okay - it involves big-game hunting in Montana or Wyoming, a red-headed
heroine (or I may be confusing that with another one from about the same
time), and an uber-alpha hero with a Marlboro-man-style pornstache (that I
believe he uses on the heroine’s nipples). I am pretty sure the heroine’s
daddy is a major tool and that there is a Big Misunderstanding. There may be
hot sex on a fur rug and in a sleeping bag (maybe with daddy in the next
tent?), as well as lots of rugged wilderness and unbridled manliness and
guns - full-on Reagan-Era romance.

Pornstache? Oh, if that pornstache is pictured on the cover, I hope someone not only identifies the book but hooks us up with a link to the cover. There is nothing better than a romance novel pornstache, unless it’s of course accompanied by a romance cover model mullet.

What Romance Readers Want

This week, over at Miller-McCune, results of a study were published that examined the title hook words of romance novels from Harlequin:

Coming from an evolutionary psychology perspective, they hypothesized these titles would reflect mating preferences that have evolved over the millennia — specifically, a desire for a long-term relationship with a physically fit, financially secure man who will provide the resources needed to successfully raise a family.

You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m shocked. I’m Googling the word “agog” to see how I can best modify my facial expression to accommodate the definition. Linda Holmes from NPR’s Monkey See blog asked me to respond to the research study, which I did under the title Beyond Heaving Bosoms, Indeed: Expert Guidance On Romance Titles:

Stop the presses: Harlequin titles reveal our—by “our” I of course mean “women’s”—evolutionary coding and psychological desire for ... wait for it, wait for it ... You sitting down? Good.

We prefer to mate with “a physically fit, financially secure man who will provide the resources needed to successfully raise a family.”

In other news, ice is slippery, water is still wet, and those silly romance readers are once again looking for fantasy men. Pah….

What baffles me is that any of this would be a surprise. Certainly it’s not to any romance reader: a lifetime of reading narrative tales of successful courtship teaches us to value a partner who is a partner, someone who splits the unpleasant tasks and celebrates the joys equally, knowing that each person has contributed fairly.

This is not to say that contemporary men, particularly contemporary fathers, are not getting the job(s) done. Far from it: another aspect of the mythical fantasy male revealed in Harlequin titles is that, for many of us, the wonder male already exists. While popular media portrays fathers as absent, bumbling, stupid or abusive, most husbands and fathers of my acquaintance are more likely to share the sticky and smelly responsibilities and revel in them—just as they share in the wage-earning and home-building.

I grow more and more fascinated with how romance novels portray men because it is so often at complete odds with how other forms of popular media portray them, particularly in fatherhood roles. But I remain unsurprised about what women desire in a man according to this study.