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

:red:

I know such books!  It’s the literary equivalent (for me) of a hot bowl of macaroni and cheese, a fresh sleepshirt, and a blanket to curl up under while listening to a good thunderstorm.

I suppose for me it’s the entire catalogue of one particular writer, the category Harlequin Presents author Lynne Graham.  Each story ALWAYS involves a rich, powerful guy who’s strong and often has (falsely) negative ideas about the heroine.  The heroines are nearly always poor and powerless, almost to the point of invisibility it seems, yet manage to bring the guy to his knees.  Often a surprise pregnancy is involved.  About 99% of the time someone in the girl’s own family betrays her in some way.  The thing that should bug me, I think, is that her plots and characters are nearly always more or less the same and yet I’ll go out and buy each and every one of them.  I know what’s coming and yet I still want more.  And in between-times I’ll re-read and re-read the ones I’ve got.  I don’t understand it, but have learned to just give in and go with it.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Nobody’s Baby But Mine.

The heroine deliberately uses the hero to get pregnant *but she doesn’t come, because that would make it Wrong.* This happens TWICE.

Every feminist nerve in my body stands up and screams.

and I reread it kind of a lot…

I LOVE Morning Song. In fact, I special-ordered a copy a few months ago because my previous one fell apart. And as you say, there are so many reasons not to like the book, but I love it anyway. I also like Robards’s Forbidden Love for many of the same reasons.

OK, prepared to totally lose all respect for me. My favorite guilty pleasure is Christine Feehan’s Dark Prince, the first Carpathian book. I know I’ve lambasted the whole series for getting unwieldy and the dialogue sometimes rambles and the plot twists are just… well, let’s draw a curtain of oblivion over the flaws. I just really like the book despite my cringing every time I run across another beat-to-death cliche.

Also, there’s Linda Howard’s All The Queen’s Men, which is a misstep by an otherwise-fantastic author. The storyline is just so ”no-way-in-hell can I believe this”-- come on, a highly-trained covert operative taking a virtual greenhorn on a mission just ‘cause he wants to lay her? But despite that, it’s Linda Howard, who I love, and the yacht scene just kills me each time.

There, my filthy secrets are out. Sigh.

I also like Robards’s Forbidden Love for many of the same reasons.

Ooooh, I just checked out Forbidden Love at Amazon.com, and holy shit, it sounds SO WRONG on so many levels.

Forbidden Desires…

He was her guardian, absentee landlord of her neglected life--until Megan Kinkead returned to Maam’s Cross Court, determined to make Justin Brant notice her.  She finally commanded the attention of the sixth Earl of Weston when she burst into his room and caught him stark naked in the tub.  Suddenly she knew a woman’s hunger--and a woman’s needs....

Forbidden Kisses…

When had the scrawny brat from hell become a fiery, raven-haired, violet-eyed temptress?  Justin told himself she was still a child as she offered him a seductive yet innocent kiss.  He tried to remind himself that he was her guardian, her protector.  But the flashfire desire that blazed between them ignited a love neither had ever known before.  Then he told her he was married…

I love it. I have to read it.

Ooooh, my library has it! YES! I’m putting a hold on that sucka.

Anyway, Lilith, no need to feel ashamed. I mean, check out the book I’m so excited over.

My guilty squick-pleasure reads?

3 words: Biscuit Lovin’ Cowboys.

Biscuit Lovin’ Cowboys rule!

And Harlequin Presents, especially Lucy Monroe’s, are my guilty pleasures. Powerful Italian businessmen just have a thing for short squat Brits/Americans, don’t they? Tall, thin gorgeous Italians just get so boring, I guess…

Candy, I’ll be very interested in what you think of Forbidden Love. Well, you’ll probably think it’s pretty sick, but I look forward to hearing whether you like it anyway.

Well, you summed up why people read those old bodice rippers. Colorful, silly books filled with melodrama are loads of fun if the author is in on the joke. I think the romance genre currently could use a lot more over-the-top nonsense.

Wow, I can honestly say that the minute someone is married, I’m out.  It’s not like a moral issue or anything it is more of a lying issue.  I remember reading a book (now I’m going to say Iris Johanson but I’m not really sure) where the hero is pursuing the heroine and about half way through the book they are sailing into home town (this was a historical).  His buddy says something about how he’s in it now.  Yeah, how am I going to introduce her to my wife and kid.  WHAT!?

I was so fuming mad.  I think I did finish the book because I had to know if the heroine killed him.  She didn’t.  I would have thrown his ass overboard and then dropped the anchor on his head!  It was weird because he still kinda loved his wife.  I was so not happy.  Anyone know for sure what book I am talking about?

I’m not really worried about my re-reads anymore.  I don’t re-read Palmer as much as I used to and yeah, I do get a bit squicked out with all the stepbrothers but I am with you on the melodrama of forbidden love.

Also like you I have only ever read Kinsale’s books once.  I think FFTS will be re-read soon.

Anne Stuart is my top re-read author.

CindyS

Two titles for me:

The Mackenzie series. I swear these guys are all super heroes in hiding, and there is so much sexist and racism in these stories, I’m embarrassed everytime I realize I’ve got the urge (and I use that term on purpose) to have a reunion with Breed Mackenzie. That large, silent, powerful, pilot whose Indian blood runs hot in his veins. I’ve been tempted to cross out those paragraphs where she goes into the visions of him with long hair riding across the plains.

The other one which is really guilty is Son of the Morning. I know I shouldn’t be looking for realism in time travel, but please. There are so many things wrong with the historical aspects of this that if feels like a trip to Disneyland. And the heroine is a PhD who, when researching something, goes to an ENCYCLOPEDIA. What the fuck? I remember reading that again and again in disbelief.

But the sex scenes in that book, and the big bad powerful magical he-can-do-it-twenty-times-a-night warrior. It’s the dialogue, I’ve figured out. The things he says to her that get me.

You are now free to mock me.

I loooove Son of the Morning, too.  I’ve read it and reread it, as I have all of Linda Howard’s books.

Gena—I can’t say I love Son of the Morning. I re-read it now and then because I find it… titillating. And that’s exactly the right word.

Also, it occurs to me that one of the things that make me so nervous about the Mackenzie novels is this: I’m sure they are all republicans. It’s never stated clearly, but come on. They are all military types, ranchers from the west. While those family get togethers sound like fun, I’m sure they’d hang me from the nearest tree. Or use me for target practice. The first time I voiced an opinion at the dinner table.

But still, they make my heart beat faster.

my favorite guilty pleasures:

Perfect Partners, Golden Chance, and Family Man by Jayne Ann Krentz - sure, I’ve read them several times. sure, their characters are interchangeable. sure, it’s basically the same story all around with every single one of them.

But God help me, I love me some vintage Jayne Ann Krentz.

A Q. for you… Might you be willing to be interviewed for Revision 14?  It’s a Web site to inspire unpublished writers and highlight published authors.  I’ve been a lurker here and like your honesty about what you’re reading/have read.  Might you be interested?  Thought I’d ask!

As for my own guilty pleasure...I’m loving the Carpathian stories by Christine Feehan!

I forgot to add After the Night by Linda Howard. It has a lot of gross, squicky, skin-crawling scenes, and the hero is a bastard, but I keep going back to it.

I can’t ever forget the sex scene in the women’s bathroom where the hero is giving it to the heroine right by the door and when the door tries to open, the hero just slaps a hand on it and keeps on pumping. Gross.

Can anyone tell me if you know the title of this book about a supermodel nymphomaniac who is married to this rich publisher, but she runs away with a matador who is sexually abusive, but she likes it and almost dies? That book is the ULTIMATE guilty pleasure, but I can’t remember the author or the title. All I know is the first name of the heroine was Sloane.

Hmmm, swelling and throbbing breasts? Well, if Hero is stimulating each side for about 10 minutes, seven or so times a day, she could be LACTATING. That would account for the swelling and throbbing.

I’m at the point where I re-read my favorites for the craft of the writing as much as the story.  Those non-reference books nearest to hand (literally) on the shelf next to my desk include THE WINDFLOWER by “Laura London”; Carla Kelly’s novels, esp. MISS WHITTIER MAKES A LIST and MRS. DREW PLAYS HER HAND; Mary Balogh’s THE TEMPORARY WIFE; and Lois McMaster Bujold’s canon, esp. SHARDS OF HONOR.

Every now and then if I’m waiting on a download or something else puts me in a holding pattern for a few minutes I like to grab one of them to read how the author does it. It both inspires and depresses me.  Inspires because the writing’s so grand, depresses because we all have those days when we think we just don’t measure up.

Hi, my name is Sandy and I’m an Anita Blake reader.
(Waits for chorus of greetings)

The Anita Blake books have nearly all the things that annoy me most.
Inconsistent characterization - Check.
Inconsistent mythology - Check.
Main character with God-like powers - Check.
Plots that wander all over the place - Check.

And too much sex. Now, I like sex. A lot. I like my books to have appropriate amounts of sex in them. But I think that if I am reading a paranormal/mystery and there is so much sex that the author is not left with any time to resolve the mystery, perhaps she should rethink either her plot or her genre. I actually found myself going back through Incubus Dreams, calculating how many times Anita had sex in a two day period and wondering how she kept from getting sore. Maybe that’s her true supernatural power: she doesn’t get friction burns.
Anita Blake - women hate her; men wanna f**k her.

And I read them anyway. I can stand the Merry Gentry series a little better. At least those are supposed to be about sex. Merry does men, women, and little sentient bug-like creatures. All with equal enthusiasm.

There are other paranormal authors that I think are so much better:
I like some of MaryJanice Davidson’s stuff.
I like Charlaine Harris so much that I will buy her Southern Vampire books in hardback.
Kim Harrison is good.
Kelley Armstrong is magnificent. I want to be her when I grow up.

But I still keep reading Anita Blake. I complain about them the whole time I’m reading them, but I just can’t help myself.

Shee-yit Sandy!  You are braver than I was.  I don’t even mention on bulletin boards that I read Anita anymore!

I loved it to book 10 which seems to be higher than most people who felt it died around 7 or 8.  Do I still buy her books?  Yep. In hardback.

As long as she is having sex with men who she has known the entire series I don’t get squicked out.  When she jumps on men who we’ve never met, yeah, I’m all WTF.

I read on her blog that Edward is supposed to make an appearance in the next book.  Edward is my favorite character - okay, she de-balled him a bit in book 10.  So yeah, another book in hardback.  I’m scared Anita will have sex with him and then I think, well, why not?

Sheesh, bonafide Anita fan girl, that’s what I am.  I keep thinking I’ll pull free.  Good news?  I bought the last Merry Gentry but never picked it up to read it (I mean, 17 men? Come on!), maybe I am finding a cure!

CindyS

off subject as usual—The prez of RWA explains the point of the survey. I put her note on my blogola.

Cindy,
I do have the barest scrap of self-respect left. I manage to keep myself from buying Anita Blake in hardback; I get on the long waiting list at the library when they come out. I am still buying the paperbacks, however.

I can pin-point the exact spot where the series went bad for me - yep book 10, Narcissus in Chains. Where she begins the book with tantalizing hints of that long-awaited three-way with the Master Vampire and the Wolf King. Yippee! Then she wakes up in bed with kitty-boy and it’s all downhill from there. Sigh. Maybe there’s a 12 step program or something.

My teen-age daughter refers to the Merry Gentry series as The Fornicating Fairy Books. I reluctantly let her read the first one, with the firm request that we discuss it afterward. She got about 40-50 pages into it and handed it back. ‘Thanks but no thanks.’ At least Merry’s honest about her motives. None of that I’m a Good Girl and I only screw everything in trousers because of this mystical, badly defined, straight-out-of-left-field vampire mumbo-jumbo.

Yes, it’s okay to have a hisem as long as it’s to make babies....

Would it be wrong to say that I loved Danielle Steel’s ‘The Ring’ or Barbara Bradford Taylor’s, ‘A Woman of Substance’?