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

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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.

HaBO: She Read it in Swedish

Lisa writes:

I’ve been looking for this book on and off for the past years - the problem
is compounded by the fact that I first (and second, and third, and
fourth…) read it in its translated to Swedish Harlequin incarnation, so
have no idea what it might have been called in the English original.

At the beginning, the woman is working as some kind of showgirl in Paris,
when she meets this guy who’s been watching the show. Turns out he’s her
step-brother, and he’s come to find her cause her mother, who by all
accounts was a selfish bitch (and not in a good way), managed to persuade
his father before her death to bequeath half of the inheritance to the
daughter, to spite the son.

So naturally the step-brother thinks she’s a golddigging bitch like her
mother, but despite this takes her to the chateau she now owns half of (or
something like that). I remember that they together discover some hitherto
unknown cave paintings on the estate, and that she manages to get lost in
there, but he finds her and declares his everlasting love.

Would you be able to help me find? I don’t know why this one has stayed
with me, but I’d really like to try and read it again!

Given how much the titles change in translation, this would be hard to locate in English, I think. Anyone read this one?

HaBO: Greek Secret Babies!

Anna writes:

The book is a romance novel, I think from the 90s, and it’s about a Greek woman who’s father has recently died. She marries a wealthy Greek man that she does not know very well(I think that the fathers arranged this to end some kind of family feud?).I think that the man’s name is Nic or Nico. They go on a cruise for the honeymoon and fall hesitantly in love.

But it turns out that the man’s cousin(Katrina) is jealous of the match and tries to break it up by making it look like the woman has cheated which makes the husband very upset and jealous. When his wife ends up pregnant he tells her that he knows it isn’t his but that he’ll accept it in public. Lots of heartbreak ensues on both sides until the truth is discovered. I think that in the end of the book the now happy couple has had their baby and they name her sofia. At least that’s the way I remember it. I read this one a quite some time ago and I could just be mixing up my books.

Nico’s ex is on their honeymoon? Oy. This sounds like a Presents - anyone remember this one?

 

HaBO: Memorable Pot Roast is Memorable

From Faye, you have to read this one to believe it:

Can you help a bitch out? I’m trying to track down a book with a contender
for possibly the best internal dialogue of any hero I’ve read:

“Sure, he loved pot roast, but he was careening completely out of control
here.”

Even my husband remembers this line.

I believe it was published with another short book (maybe by HQN? I think?).
I’m pretty sure the hero is dating his secretary, and the above brilliance
occurs when he goes to her house for dinner (pot roast, of course) and
realizes he’s in love.

I think the other story in the book also featured a similar very wealthy
hero falls in love with working class gal plot, but I’m not sure of that
either.

Really, all I remember is the pot roast. The rest of the story was
distinctly lackluster. I’m sure if anyone else has read this book, they’ll
remember the pot roast too.

The pot roast! Remember the pot roast! Please - this is cracking me up so I hope SOMEONE remembers it!

 

HaBO: MIMES!

Leah writes:

I’ve waited a long time to send this one, because I have so few details, but maybe you or the bitchery can help.  Ok, I read this book around 1993, and it may have been published much earlier than that, because that was in the days of sneaking my best friend’s mom’s romance novels.  Anyway…

It is set in Italy, and the heroine is a mime.  Yes, a mime.  Who knew those annoying people could be so sexy. The hero is rich, and I remember a scene where she is demonstrating how difficult it is to be a mime by showing how her hands are so flexible that she does exercises where she sets her hand flat on a table, and then only lifts the palm (no fingers lift).  Try it- I have for years and it is impossible.  Anyway, I think it was a mystery, definitely a contemporary, and that is all I can remember. It was one of my first and favorite novels, and I think it might have been one of those ones where there are three stories by different authors in one book, which makes it even harder to find.  Any help would be much appreciated!!

Searching for “mime romance” on Amazon gave me this:
http://www.amazon.com/Cirque-Soleil-Alegria-Enchanting-Fable/dp/6305772215/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1264697561&sr=8-2

Not helpful, and also slightly creepy.

DEAR LORD. Mime heroines? I bet someone knows this one immediately.