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

Crap, I’ve read that book, I know I have, but I don’t remember what it is.  Which is so not helpful, I know!

Bet not, and it’s one of the reasons I can’t (or rarely can) read historicals; I’m a history major, I know history, and the past was not that fun.  It was dirty and smelly and disease-ridden; womens’ lives were tightly controlled and the things that we take for granted today - about life, about people, about our places in the world and our relations with others - do not apply. 

So if you want to write a romance that women want to read, you have to include anachronisms like this - you just have to, because an historically realistic romance would be just icky. 

And I say this even though my all time favorite romance - and I’ve read many - is The Windflower, by Laura London (IIRC, that’s a pen name of a husband and wife writing team) - wherein a handsome Duke, who happens to have a half-brother who is a famous pirate, and who happens to dabble part time in piracy himself, kidnaps an innocent young American girl during the War of 1812 and they proceed to raise hell on the Atlantic crossing back to England - stopping for a break at the Carribbean retreat of the pirate captain - before returning to England where he marries her and she becomes a Duchess.  And she becomes best friends with all the pirates in the crew.  So I don’t disapprove of anachronisms, I just recognize them when I see them.

I’m starting to write again myself, and I’ve always wanted to do a western romance, but I can’t do a real western because - ick.  Totally non-romantic.

I don’t know if this is right, but for some reason an Easter anthology is coming to mind - something with purple on the cover.  Drat, I wish I was at my parent’s house, because I know exactly where it’s sitting!

Okay, am I the only one who read this HaBO and started singing, “Oooooooooklahoma!”?

Anyone?

Hmmm, the only book I’ve read with a charity picnic auction is the 4th of Forever by Mary McBride I think. But it’s definitely not that, ‘cause FOF is set in America.

Good book though IIRC, the heroine fills her basket with apples which I think she scrumped.

*sigh* I’ve read this one too but I’ll be darned if I can think of what it is!

Off topic:

Scrumping is suck a great word for what is in fact fruit larceny.

Are you sure it’s England? It sounds like a Pamela Morsi book I read a while back, but I could be wrong? She only does American, though (at least as far as I know.)

FINALLY a book I recognize! I read that book! I KNOW I did!

Oh wait, you wanted to know the title and/or author too, didn’t you? Be damned if I can remember them. Even google books didn’t help with a “romance basket auction” search or a couple of others I tried.

And yes, it’s England during the Regency period.

Oh crapping-damn, I SO know this one too.  But I have to go staff the reference desk.  Pray for no patrons and lots of Google time :)

I am positive that I’ve read this...but I think it wasn’t set in England. I think it might’ve been set in America or even Canada.

If it is the book I’m thinking of (which...I have no idea what book that is) , then I’m also thinking it might not be a romance novel in the traditional sense. Because I didn’t read them until my 20s, and I know I read this particular book in my teens.

Unless, of course, this exact plot has been used several times by several authors, which is entirely possible.

This sounds a lot like a Marion Chesney - possibly one of the Six Sisters series (Minerva, Annabel, Deirdre, Daphne, Diana or Frederica) maybe?

Oh, wait. I know what book I was thinking of, and I think it is NOT the book Kim is looking for. Mine was Joan Lowery Nixon’s A Deadly Promise, which is a YA historical/romance/thriller set in the Old West.

Seconding Tumperkin’s—this sounds like Chesney to me too. The description made me think of Minerva, but I’m not any kind of sure this scene was in that book.

I’m amazed that there seem to be so many different stories that are close to this description and setting off people’s memories! I guess everything really has been done before, eh? :D

The pretty ribbons blowing in the wind really got me. Dagnabit, I know this book.

could it have been SCANDALOUS LOVE by Brenda Joyce, it took place in Victorian England though, but I do remember a charity picnic...now I need to go find this again!

Stubby:

So if you want to write a romance that women want to read, you have to include anachronisms like this - you just have to, because an historically realistic romance would be just icky.

I dunno, a lot of women I know seem to like Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, and I don’t think they included anachronisms in their fiction.

I dunno, a lot of women I know seem to like Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, and I don’t think they included anachronisms in their fiction.

Touche. I think if you read contemporary letters of any time period, you’ll find that 100% of the people weren’t miserable and disgusting. Sorry. I’ve read wonderfully romantic, loving letters written between married couples.

When Charles Kingsley wrote of his wife-to-be: “My hands are perfumed with her delicious limbs, and I cannot wash off the scent, and every moment the thought comes across me of those mysterious recesses of beauty where my hands have been wandering, and my heart sinks with a sweet faintness and my blood tingles through every limb.” ... I don’t think he was talking about fish tacos. Or smelly pits.

He was a Victorian clergyman, btw. Fucking romantic as hell.

Also, upper class women LOVED charity stuff. It was a respectable way to fill their time. On its face, this doesn’t seem impossible, certainly not in the Victorian. You could feel good about yourself without mixing with the lower classes. Wait, that sounds familiar. *G*

was it a Lyverle Spencer? I really think I read it

Naomi - you’re right, of course.  I was thinking of modern romances - the “trashy books” that I like to read.  I used to read a lot of Amanda Quick and other Regency romances, and I read a few Western-themed ones as well - and of course Laura London.

Jane and Charlotte would not have thought their time particularly icky and, compared to earlier periods, it wasn’t.

I think this is a Chesney (Amanda Quick) romance. Isn’t there a whole boat trip to an island part, too?

And a little brother?

I would have sworn that I had seen it, except then I realized:

1. Gilmore Girls episode
2. Similar idea in The Quiet Man, except it was hats fluttering around with ribbons, not baskets.

So I think my brain invented a memory.

And one more thing, cause this is interesting and it got me thinking.

Whatever the circumstances of your particular time period are, that’s normal to you.  A middle class or upperclass woman in Regency England would probably not complain about the state of modern sanitation, personal hygiene, etc., because that is all she knew.  My mother, growing up on the Gulf Coast in the 40s and 50s, did not think she was going to pass out from the heat all the time - but now, in 2008, if she had to go without air conditioning for a week or more, she’d be some kind of pissed off.  We are creatures of our environment.

When I read a Western romance, I think about stuff like - makeup.  Shampoo.  Baths.  Paved streets.  A readily accessible source of fresh water.  Lack of all of the above - or at least a regular supply of all of the above.  This is not a problem of the author or the genre - it’s just me.

And I know that people in times past were just as romantic and sexually attracted to one another as they are today - cf. Napoleon’s instruction to Josephine not to bathe, because he was coming home - it wasn’t necessarily the sexual I was thinking of, just the day to day circumstances of life.

Oh well.  Sorry for the threadjack.

That was my first thought to, that it must be an early Amanda Quick.  But Google-digging is bringing up nothing.  So I changed tactics to Virginia Henley and Catherine Coulter.  AQ, VH and CC were the majority of my early romance reading and I thought for sure I had read this in one of their books.  OK, back to digging!!!

Bet not, and it’s one of the reasons I can’t (or rarely can) read historicals; I’m a history major, I know history, and the past was not that fun. 

I was just very taken aback by your above statement. A charity basket auction seems like good, clean fun. I mean we’re not talking a bachelor auction in the Victorian! The past was fun enough, at least for rich people, and often fun for poor people, too, on special occasions like harvest celebrations or May Day.

I am officially going nuts.  Like all the posters before me, I KNOW I’ve read this.  I think I even enjoyed it quite a bit.  I have this distinct impression of chicken or something in the picnic basket.  And eating it under a tree. 

My Google skills are totally letting me down right now.

Victoria: again, you’re right and I think I expressed it poorly.  People had fun; it’s just that I can’t imagine myself enjoying it, from my modern perspective.  Does that make sense?

I just read a really good YA novel (I like YA paranormals) - Gideon the Cutpurse, about a couple of modern English kids who get whomped back in time to the 1730s.  It was really well done - very vivid characters.  But her descriptions of the clothing, the food, everything was well done as well.  The weevils crawling in the bread; the stuff floating on top of the soup; the flies at the dinner table; the corsets that had the teenage heroine gasping for breath because she didn’t know how to move and sit in them; that’s the stuff I get distracted thinking about.  Like I said, it’s not a genre or author problem - it’s a me thing.

It does not affect my partiality for pirate romances, when I know full well that life on a sailing ship was 5 times ickier than anything on land.  I still want to live on a clipper ship.

The weevils crawling in the bread; the stuff floating on top of the soup; the flies at the dinner table;...It does not affect my partiality for pirate romances, when I know full well that life on a sailing ship was 5 times ickier than anything on land.

We’re in total agreement there!!!  *g*

Count me as another person who’s read this one, but can’t remember anything much beyond the picnic scene. 

That scene stuck with me because I remember thinking as I read it about how the basket auction was like an annual one we did in one of the youth groups I belonged to, but we did ours “blind”.  No one was supposed to know who had prepared which basket so they were bid on by presentation alone.  Though of course, where boyfriends and girlfriends were involved, somehow (oh, the shock!) the couples always seemed to end up having their picnics together.  And in the cases where some terrific cooks had prepared the baskets, there was an active black market related to knowing who had prepared which basket so a good meal would be guaranteed for the bidder.  Bribes and blackmail were not uncommon, but only the very best sort of bribes and blackmail since it was all for charity after all.

Victoria: again, you’re right and I think I expressed it poorly.  People had fun; it’s just that I can’t imagine myself enjoying it, from my modern perspective.  Does that make sense?

Something along these lines is why I don’t really read romances with contemporary settings. There are no REAL problems, just a lot of people who can’t get their shit together, pull up their big girl/boy panties, and GROW THE HELL UP. Or that’s how I frequently end up feeling when I attempt to read one (with certain exceptions, such as Nora Roberts *grin*). After wading though too many that left me annoyed by page 100 I just gave up on the subgenre entirely.

FiveandFour: You’re cracking me up. Graft on the basket circuit!

I agree with Amelia - I think it is Brenda Joyce’s Scandalous Love.

Dang. I also feel as though I’ve read that plot line. I want to say it’s an LM Montgomery short story, but I could just be creating memories out of my childhood… Oklahoma and LM Montgomery were not strangers when I was a young tween.

But whatever book it is, I am very excited to read it!
(Sorry, not helpful)

Absolutely definitely not an Amanda Quick.  Not much help, I know, but at least it will save people searching under her name.

I’ve read Scandalous Love by Brenda Joyce a dozen times.  If that isn’t it then there are two books out there with a very similar scene.

In Scandalous Love, Nicole Shelton brings a box lunch to auction off for charity.  At the auction, the men bid on all the ladies lunches for around 10-20 pounds and then share that lunch, picnic style, with them.  Nicole, who is not very popular due to an engagement she backed out on (I think), does not get any bids, at first, when her lunch is being auctioned.  The hero’s sickly fiancee asked someone to bid on it so she wouldn’t be humiliated, but that person doesn’t show up.  And instead of getting a starting bid of ten pounds or so, some drunk guy only bids ten pence, just to humiliate her. The hero, Hadrian the Duke of Clayborough, gets pissed off and bids 500 pounds.

Esri Rose, when I later read The Great Sermon Handicap I thought of those charity baskets.  If only we had Wodehouse to write about those auctions; I could never bring out the hilarity of that juxtaposition between the charity event and the black market goings on with even a portion of the humor it deserves. 

Oh, the things people will do for good fried chicken and potato salad!  (Or, it must be said, to avoid the wrath of a girlfriend.)

Okay, if somebody doesn’t answer this one soon I’m going to be forced to unpack 15 boxes of books I’ve just packed for our move. Then there will be one hellaciously ugly scene with my husband as to why I’m online at all today I’m supposed to be packing. Aaarrrghhh!

Third Scandalous Love, Brenda Joyce.

Okay, am I the only one who read this HaBO and started singing, “Oooooooooklahoma!”?

Anyone?

Kimberly Anne, you weren’t the only one.

Don’t know the answer to the HaBo - but the whole picnic basket auction but made me immediately think of So Big by Edna Ferber...considered more an American classic than strictly romance, but still.

The whole thing sounds so completely American to me, anyway:  we just don’t do this sort of thing, and I honestly don’t think we did in the 19th or 18th or earlier centuries. 
I love, in Kim’s original description,

The book is set back in the 1700-1800’s in England or nearby

What’s ‘nearby England’?  Scotland? Wales?  France?
:D

Kimberly Anne, you definitely weren’t the only one!

I think it was Brenda Joyce.  Like everyone else, I remember reading this scenario, though I think I only read an excerpt and not the book.

Uhm...do I get points for actually knowing all the words to “Oklahoma”....and the hand gestures used when it’s sung at Girls State?

Like everyone else, I know I’ve read this book but it’s been absolutely ages and I think it was something I picked up in a waiting room to read. When this gets figured out, I want to know so I can get it to read again.

This is one of those “universal themes” that gets recycled a lot, which is why I’m sure it triggers everyone’s memories.

It’s definitely not one of the Six Sisters books, and i’m quite sure it isn’t an Amanda Quick either.

Me too! I’ve read this book too!

But I can’t remember the name of it either. Or author. But I’m 99% sure it’s an American setting. Old West. Could be an early Linda Lael Miller, really early. Could be a LaVyrle Spencer, but I don’t think so. Or maybe a Jude Devereux?

Oh, it’s going to drive me NUTS!

I have also read this book and haven’t a clue!

Is it an old-school Christina Dodd?

Or that one author who writes about uncut wangs....oh, she wrote a bride trilogy....what was her name…

Feather!  Jane Feather.

I second the Pam Morsi suggestion - either by her or very in her style. But that wouldn’t be in England. So I’m going to fourth the Brenda Joyce. Because I’ve read two like this, and in on the thing I recall most was that she’d made chicken. I really wanted chicken more than I wanted to finish the book at that point, and some BJ books are a struggle for me.

It has to be Scandalous Love, it has everything as described. And Fabio on the cover…

You know, it’s just my luck… I got so hooked by the premise that I got up from my spot in Barnes and Noble’s cafe and went to buy Brenda Joyce’s Scandalous Love.

Dangerous Love had 8 copies on the shelf.  Scandalous wasn’t there.

Now I have to stop on my way home.  LOL

pressure83 lol

Just searched the Jane Feather archive and didn’t come up with anything picnic-baskety.  Have to close up the reading room and head to class, but if anyone else wants to search under Heather Graham, that might also be a possibility? 

At this point, I’m willing to side with the Brenda Joycians. :)

Memorable novel if all we can remember about it is the peek-a-neek basket with a fluttery ribbon.

Like almost everyone else, I remember reading this one . . . no idea who it might be, but it sure does seem like an American sort of story, maybe in the South, doesn’t it seem like a southern thing to do?

Can’t wait till there’s agreement--I’ll go check it out of the library.

Lucia I heart you so for the Yogi moment.

Once I had the vision of The Quiet Man in my mind (and I can’t get it OUT) I was done guessing.

The mention of Pamela Morsi brought back some great reading moments, even if, or maybe because, they weren’t “rock your world” romances. She wrote some of the most interesting and unusual characters doing nothing special--- just being great characters in sweet romances. Her Simple Jess about a mentally slow hero was a heart-string tugger. And Wild Oats was another wonderful vere off the ordinary path.

AND: could I get more off topic? Sorry!

well if it is Brenda Joyce it’s going on my to be read list

damn you all, me without a public library and having to buy all my books now!

There are 5 copies of Scandalous Love (well, 4 now - I just mooched one) over at Bookmooch.com.

Can’t remember the title or the author of the one that happens in 19th century Texas, but I do remember the plot - it starts off with a group of men who are trying to hang the hero in the front yard of the school marm (I think that is who she is) but she goes out with a shotgun to save him because she doesn’t want a dead body hanging in her front yard. But hers is the only tree in the area!

Later on she brings her picnic basket to the charity picnic and he bids a great deal on it. Actually in this book, she is a very good cook - I can’t remember if others bid on it or he paid a hellacious amount for it- but she has to eat the picnic lunch with him (that’s the catch).

I hope this is solved!  It sounds great… I love when there is antagonism between the h/h right off the bat!

Good luck

Picnic basket auctions were common in Victorian era.  Here’s a description of a re-enactment put on by the American Civil War Society.

Sounds like a LaVyrle Spencer or Pamela Morsi book to me.

Doing a search inside at amazon of SCANDALOUS LOVE by Brenda Joyce -
p1 Dragmore, 1898
p 118, “Every year she holds an American-style picnic… The young ladies bring a box lunch, which the gentlemen bid on.”
p 119 “...picnic baskets all merrily painted and decorated in ribbons...”
p 127 “… I only bought her basket to save her from embarrassment...”

It’s in the de Warenne series. http://www.thedewarennedynasty.com/scandalous_love.htm

I remember the chicken too!

I’m pretty sure the one I’m thinking of isn’t a Brenda Joyce, ‘cause I never read any of her books except the Chicago amateur detective series.

I did read some Morsi...that’s sounding possible. Or maybe Spencer. Or...Jodie Thomas?

Can’t remember the title or the author of the one that happens in 19th century Texas, but I do remember the plot - it starts off with a group of men who are trying to hang the hero in the front yard of the school marm (I think that is who she is) but she goes out with a shotgun to save him because she doesn’t want a dead body hanging in her front yard. But hers is the only tree in the area!

Later on she brings her picnic basket to the charity picnic and he bids a great deal on it. Actually in this book, she is a very good cook - I can’t remember if others bid on it or he paid a hellacious amount for it- but she has to eat the picnic lunch with him (that’s the catch).

This one is “If My Love Could Hold You” by Elaine Coffman.

Could it be THE OUTLAW HEARTS by Rebecca Brandewyne(http://www.amazon.com/Outlaw-Hearts-Rebecca-Brandewyne/dp/0505523604/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210132257&sr=1-1 )

This was set in the Ozarks in the US, but there was definitely a picnic basket bidding scene and the hero paid a big sum for the heroine’s basket when no one else was bidding. It came out in the late eighties, but looks like it was reissued and given a new cover in 2000.  I liked this book. It was one of the first romances I read where the heroine wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous, and she even had a limp from a horrible incident in her past.

If it isn’t your book, sorry, but this is the only one I remember with a picnic basket bidding war :).

I totally know this book....*thinking of title* I’m 99.9% sure it’s either a Rebecca Brandewyne book or something in that range.  I’m dragging my mind.  The heroine is a Plain Jane who has never fit in.  And this book was based in the US, not England.  It’s a daytime picnic & she’s not aware she’s supposed to have made her basket all pretty.  Oh, it’s on the tip of my tongue...Crap!

I’m thinking it’s The Outlaw Hearts.  The hero is a train robber who robs trains.  The heroine is a schoolmarm w/ a bum leg.  He shows up at the picnic & buys her picnic basket, even though a goober of a guy wants to buy it for a piddling amount.  See, I knew I remembered this book.

Is it the right one?  Here’s the blurb:  http://www.brandewyne.com/titles/outlawhearts.html

I believe it is Brenda Joyce’s Scandalous Hearts. ^_^ I just read it.

Picnic basket auctions were common in Victorian era.

But in America - not in England or even ‘nearby’.  The original description suggested an English historical setting.
;-)

From the replies, it would seem that there are scores of books with this plot point.

I loved that book (Scandalous Love) by Brenda Joyce.  This scene was the highlight, especially when the hero bid $$$$ for it.  It was also the first book I read where the “other woman” was a bitch.

I fifth or sixth the answer being Scandalous Love.

(indeed44!)

The problem is I’m fairly certain that I’ve never read a Brenda Joyce book in my life. I only read a limited number of historical authors, and more or less stopped in the mid-nineties. That’s why it was so easy for me to narrow it down. But I agree, apparently this is a plot device in a lot of books. Crazy frustrating because with my last move I lost all my keepers, and the keepers I’ve had since are packed up for my move. Otherwise I could at least identify the author of the book I’m thinking of.

Okay, am I the only one who read this HaBO and started singing, “Oooooooooklahoma!”?

I didn’t start singing it, but I definitely thought it.  Of course, I also saw it twice last weekend as an usher.

I’ve read wonderfully romantic, loving letters written between married couples.

Three words: John and Abby.

The book in which the heroine saves the hero from being lynched in her front yard (because she has the only tree in the area) is called If My Love Could Hold You.  I don’t recall the author, but I saw it at the UBS a couple of days ago and thought about buying it.  But I didn’t because I’ve already got about 500 books in my TBR pile.  Spamword “include52”.  No thanks!

I haven’t read Brenda Joyce either. I have read a book with chicken and a picnic basket auction I really thought is was Spencer but couldn’t find it. maybe it was a Linda Lail Miller, I’ll search there.  I just remember the one I read as a sweet story. This is driving me insane!

HUMMINGBIRD by LaVyrle Spencer. Yes, she did use the plot.

Now, it takes place in Colorado, not England. Not even “nearby” England. The hero is a railroad owner who is mistaken for an outlaw and shot by a shoe salesman who thinks he’s holding up the train. The heroine is a rather prim spinster who volunteers to take care of the injured man until he’s well enough to be tried for his crime. They do not get on well at first. There is a charity picnic basket auction in it--but I think the shoe salesman and the railroad man bid each other up for hers… But maybe this isn’t the one she’s thinking of…

The book in which the heroine saves the hero from being lynched in her front yard ( because she has the only big tree in miles) is If My Love Could Hold You. I don’t recall the author’s name.  I actually found it at the UBS two days ago, skimmed it, but didn’t buy it, because I already have 500 books in my tbr pile, and I’m trying to cut it down.

This is totally out of place, so I apologize in advance.
Where is Candy, why am I not seeing more of her? Candy, when will you be back? Are you working on that book of yours or do you not want to come and chat with us no more? Please, please come here more often or I will commit suicide very soon. We all miss you so much! 

I think I’m going to have to get out Scandalous Love by Brenda Joyce from the library!!! *grin*

Hmm I’ve studied history (just finished my bachelors, hoping to do a honours year at some point) and this by no means puts me off reading historical romances. In fact, they may be my favourite type. Maybe I’m just a hopeless romantic :) :)

Am I crazy, or was that in Anne of Green Gables?

If that was Anne of GG that would explain why I think the plot device sounds familiar, but have never read any of these other books…

Amy, Anne was my first thought too.  Can’t remember who bought her basket:  was it Gilbert or Matthew?

Amy--you’re crazy. :) Never happened in Anne of GG, or in any of the other books. There were picnics aplenty, but never any kind of auction for charity.

Heeey, Boo-Boo ...

I know I’ve read or seen this scene, but I haven’t read any of the books mentioned. The cold chicken was what really had me saying, “Hey! I remember that!” OTOH, cold chicken seems to have been pretty standard as a picnic item of this sort. I get the feeling that this plot devise has been used (or “re-used") by a lot of authors. It’s too good.

But there’s also an historical incident with the Duke of Wellington tossing a half-eaten cold chicken leg over his shoulder, so maybe I’m mixing that in with my “memories.”

This also sounded familiar to me the other day, although I really don’t think I’ve read the Brenda Joyce. (Maybe the Elaine Coffman but not sure.)
I was actually thinking it might be a Deveraux book. Possibly Wishes even, as I remember something about a picnic and I remember the heroine was a chef, but not sure.

Definitely not in Wishes by Deveraux. Recently read that one so I’m fairly sure. But my first thought was this sounds Deveraux-ish. I’m fairly sure I’ve read something very similar if not this exact book. How crazy that this plot line has been used many a time.