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

Cheryl is seaching for a category she read in the mid-to-late 70’s:

-Setting was in England, I believe.

- Heroine was a store owner dealing with textiles, I think, or some kind of boutique shop..

- Don’t remember the hero’s profession, but he either kidnapped the heroine or lured her under false pretenses to another country where the textiles that she imported were being handmade. And forced her into slave-labor weaving until her fingers bled. Don’t remember what, if anything he was trying to teach her, but I definitely remember the bleeding fingers.

- There was another woman competing for the hero’s affections who was a real bitch. I recall one scene occurring on the plane ride back home- I think she made the heroine trip or something, and the heroine wanted to retaliate, but the hero told her to be the more classy one and ignore her.

-One love scene involved the hero telling the heroine to ride him like a horse. That raised my eyebrows because it was at a time when pre-marital sex was just emerging in categories, and even so, were defined in very euphemistic terms.It al seems so quaint now, tho.

Ride him like a horse while her fingers were bleeding? Now that is some romance, right there.

Bitchery reader Rina says, “Help, please?”

I have a pretty good memory for the plot, but I’m totally at a loss for the title or author.

I got it from the library when I was about 10 years old, so it would have been published in the 1980s or earlier.  Would be given a G-PG rating (no sex at all, IIRC), but was written for adults.  Hardback, fairly thick, green or blue cover, female author.

Candice is working on a paper “considering the elements of romanticism, eroticism and feminine arousal in the modern romance novel” and seeks a book from the wayback machine to help out her literary analysis:

I think it was a Harlequin Mills and Boon from about 10-sih years ago. The hero is a cowboy - fully maladjusted when it comes to relationships. I think he was an orphan and was raised by an aunt and uncle - uncle slapped him around I think. Umm… heroine is his wife who left him because he was so cold. They have children - twins, a boy and girl. Hero wants his family back but can’t bring himself to “love” anyone because of his childhood.

At some point the children get the chicken pox. The hero, feeling all rejected, barricades himself (literally) in his house - also with the chicken pox - and the heroine has to crawl through a window to get to him. And they all live happily ever after.

Reminds me of those parents who schedule play dates with children who have chicken pox to ensure that their kids get it as well, only with more romance. Anyone recognize this book?

Bitchery reader Gillian writes

OK, maybe you hate these vague questions (I’ve worked at a bookstore and I know I hated them), but I have to ask..

Around Christmas, I was in Barnes & Noble and saw a romance novel. I didn’t buy it (it was right before Xmas, I was swamped, I knew if I bought it, I’d go home and read it and I had a million things to do) and I stupidly also didn’t write down the title or author. It may have been a category romance, but I can’t say for sure. The cover photo was a man, with a woman (standing on a porch?) in jeans and a t-shirt looking at him from behind. I do remember that she had a (spunky!) short haircut, because I am SO SICK of flowing tresses. The plot was something like he returned home, she was the tomboy girl next door all grown up. As I write this, I’m thinking, this plot is so tired, but at the time, it sounded like a good book and I have been wishing I bought it ever since. Do you have ANY idea what book I could be talking about? It was on one of the center displays, with multiple copies, which makes me think it was more than just another category romance.

Anyone got a clue which book this is? 

John Lennon once wrote a love letter to his first wife, Cynthia, in which he said, “I love you.... I love you like guitars.”

*sigh*

Gets me every time.

Elizabeth has a similarly musical love scene in her quest to find a lost book, and hopes you can help:

I was hoping the Bitchery could help me identify one of the first romance novels I ever read.  It involves a woman who is kidnapped by a pirate who mistakenly believes her to be wealthy.  When she first meets him, she nearly faints from hunger because he has a loaf of warm bread in his pocket and she’s overcome by the scent of it.  After she’s been kidnapped, one of the crewmen is injured or ill, and she sends another man to collect crewman A’s ration of grog.  Crewman B is about to be whipped (?) for trying to take more than his allotment.  She confesses her responsibility, and this (of course) gets the crew on her side.  There’s a subplot involving the first mate, who falls in love with a Scandinavian woman.  This Scandinavian woman looks down on the heroine because she’s the captain’s mistress by this point, and the crew all insist that the captain has to marry her so she can keep her head up.

The heroine’s meditations on sex are probably the most distinctive thing about the book (the plot is generic and the characterizations are thin).  Basically, she imagines a different instrument playing in her head every time - sometimes the sex makes her think of trumpets, sometimes drums, sometimes flutes...you get the idea.  I’m not sure if she winds up with the whole orchestra by the end of the book, or if it never gets better than a string quartet.

If anyone knows what book this is, I’d be incredibly grateful for the help.

Anyone got an idea which book this is? And really, is there a more lovely expression than, “I love you, I love you like guitars?” I’m all warm and fuzzy from the memorable dialogue discussion, and that just keeps the soft-focus glow going and going.