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

It’s funny how the books I most frequently re-read are not necessarily the books I count among my all-time favorites. For instance, I’ve re-read For My Lady’s Heart and The Shadow and The Star only once, and some favorites, like Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion, have never been re-read. On the other hand, some Lisa Kleypas books that I wouldn’t rate above a B or B- are frequently re-read. And one particular comfort read of mine is a book that I should hate, by all rights.

I’m talking about Morning Song by Karen Robards.

I don’t know why I love this book so much, but I do. It’s really not a guilty pleasure the way Dara Joy’s campy novels are a guilty pleasure. Morning Song is quite well-written, despite the heroine’s breasts’ tendency to swell and throb when the hero fondles them. But this book is seriously flawed in many ways, and contains several plot devices that tend to squick me all to fuck in a romance novel. Below are a few reasons why I should hate the book:

(Be warned, there are going to be some pretty big spoilers, so don’t read if you’re the sort who can’t stand ‘em.)

Behold, Darlene, for your most speedy and most correct reply, The Smart Bitches Dub Thee:

You know the drill - give us the title, author, and heroine’s name and we shall bestow upon you a spiffy Smart Bitch title.

Raider of my Lost Heart

Heiress to family fortune, born to shop but stifled by parental oversight, seeks young man from the wrong side of the tracks to start a hot, passionate, and impossible-to-resist romance. Must be willing to wade through 300+ pages of big, little, mid-size and Escalade-sized misunderstandings disguised as corporate intrigue thrown in the way of our happily ever after. 

To our readers in the UK:

We are so sorry for what has happened in London today, and we hope that you, your families, and your friends and loved ones are safe.

We know how this feels, and you are in our thoughts.

-The Smart Bitches

Edited to Add:

Maili requested animated gifs to cheer her up. So in solidarity with our friends across the pond, we offer a one-time-only presentation. 

I’m in a cranky sort of vengeful mood today, which I tend to foster by thinking of all the best revenge and just-dessert plot twists that have happened in romances I’ve read.

There’s Julia Quinn’s An Offer from a Gentleman where Sophie smacks her evil stepmother around and delivers the final smack: “THAT was not for not loving your daughters EQUALLY!” That was rather savory - not only was stepmother d’eville smacked around and ruined socially, but Sophie reserved her final smack-down not on her own behalf, but on the behalf of her step-sister, who was standing right beside her during the ruckus. A selfless smackdown. Ahhhh. 

And there’s the one Anita Blake novel where she kills a human to invoke her necomancy, thereby making it nice and soupy powerful, raises a few hundred zombies, and then turns the zombies on the humans who have been keeping her captive. The zombies reduce them to shreds - very nice!

There’s also a very nice amount of just-desserts in the end of Sullivan’s Island by Dorothea Benton Frank, in that the heroine ends up very, very happy, and her ex-husband ends up remaining in the mess of his own making, enabling the heroine to say, “He’s a fool for staying there, but I wish him well.”

I know I get frustrated with books where the villain doesn’t get enough punishment for their behavior - this is my fantasy, after all, and I definitely want checks and big ass balances. But I also do enjoy a book that ends with the heroine getting over her anger and saying to herself that sometimes, it’s best to let karma take care of the imbalance, instead of risking her own karma to get revenge. I do, of course, love it much when the book details how that karmic boomerang came around and whooped the villain in the ass, though.

What about you? What’s your favorite savory just-desserts story resolution from a romance novel?