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

Sometimes during lunch, I google “romance” or “romantic” in Google:News and see what comes up. Today, the day after Valentine’s Day, I figured I’d find a few articles from the news feeds about proposals, gettin’ some on Valentine’s Day, or what the card stores do with all the leftover heart-shaped boxes of candy.

But no: it’s a cornucopia of the romantic efforts of the vaguely creepy.

First, we have a story about a new website that enables you to track down and flirt online with hot people in neighboring cars when you’re stuck in traffic. Because picking your nose isn’t enough of an activity, Ben Phillips has decided the new and best way to hook up with hot people is to… mark your car with a decal so other people can look you up online. Imagine the poetry that can come of this:

“Your headlights are perfect
and your bumper is, too.
I’ve got your decal number
so how ‘bout a screw?”

Then there’s high school junior Paul Kim, who spent his hard-earned money delivering roses to every female student in his graduating class. Nice gesture, but he underestimated by 100 students. I hope the boy gets at least a date out of it, though.

And finally, which is a more romantic film? Titanic or Brokeback Mountain? And while I’m asking the internet doofy questions, ¿Quién ES más macho, Fernando Lamas, o Ricardo Montalban?

Updated to add:

Wild nights! Wild nights! 
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury! 

Futile the winds
To a heart in port,—
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart. 

Rowing in Eden! 
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in thee!

- Emily Dickinson

Let’s all be shameless saps today. What’s your favorite love poem? Post it in the comments.

Smart Bitch Publishing is now opening its doors - ha, just kidding. Or are we? We forget!

SBP is currently seeking query letters for our new imprint: Why Heroines with Amnesia (WHA?)! We’re hoping you can provide us with an outstanding amnesia storyline, replete with things we can’t quite remember clearly. We’re giving you a wide playgound for creativity, because there were rules but since we hit our heads on Fabio’s man-titty, we haven’t been able to recall what they were. Or what our names are, but we can still remember the basics of potty training. And bitching. We’re good at that, too.

Anyway!

WORD LIMIT: 450 words

FORMAT: Give us the proposed title and length

And then, the summary of your amnesia story! We want to know your characters, their conflict, your theme - and the only requirement is that the heroine (or the hero) MUST suffer from amnesia!

Forget the last part of the standard query about your publishing experience and the part where you kiss up. We know we’re awesome, and we know you are, too.

DUE DATE: Send your entries to both Sarah and Candy by Friday, February 17, 2006.

We want your query synopsis, before we forget why we asked. Entries will be posted for Bitchery voting, and winner will receive a gift certificate for Amazon.com, and a fine piece of literature, only I can’t remember which one.

Pesky amnesia.

Ah, it’s like fish in a barrel: the Native American romance novel cover. The fringe! The headbands! The majestic beadwork. The big bulge in the front of the buckskin trousers!

But what about the poor horsies, forced against their will to participate in this tawdry drivel?

Sarah: The magic in question is how the shirtless comanche is holding onto the stupid woman while she grabs his knee. Poor horse is going to fall the hell over with all that side weight, because the poor thing already has to lug those man titties around on his back.

Candy: Wow, this looks like a figure skating routine, only with a horse. Strapping ice skates onto a horse: talk about cruel and unusual.

Not that it’s any crueller or more unusual than having to bear these two preening asshats on its back.

And is this just a problem with my monitor, but does the man have no discernible nipples?

Sarah: “Stupid woman,” thought Has-Big-Mullet-But-No-Shirt. “Not only is she running around in her nightgown during a brushfire, but she doesn’t realize that horse is going to stomp her head like a melon. Oh well. Maybe me and my man-titties will fit in her shirt.”

Candy: Does it seem to you that BOTH of them are gazing at the horse with unbecoming longing? The girl seems to be gazing wistfully at the horse’s hocks, while the dude seems to be ignoring the girl’s fairly impressive rack in favor of her equine companion. The secret of the book is out: Wind is the name of the horse, and the book is centered around the unholy love triangle between the blonde chippy, an Apache stallion and the horse they both love just a leeeeetle too much for anyone’s comfort.

Sarah: I bet it burns, honey, that “midnight fire.” No one told these two about the romance taboo about buttsecks on horseback.

Candy: That is the BEST expression on her face. Anticipatory, yet blank. Kind of like cousin Bleh in Drawn Together. She knows that he’s promised to remember the KY next time, but she also knows he’ll keep “forgetting.” I mean, c’mon, look at the smug expression on his face. You just KNOW he’s the kind of asshole who’ll slip it up the backdoor and claim it was an “accident.”

The weird disembodied hand clutching at her boob also threw me off for a bit until I realized it was supposed to be hers.

Sarah: And when there’s no horse? Because he done ran off in fear of further trick riding injuries from dangling women off his bridle? Your handsome Apache can yank your arms off and ride you like a stick horse across the prairie.

Candy: All RIGHT! Talk about backdoor love on the range! (Where the deer and the antelope play...proctologist.)

Looking at the supremely awkward angle of her legs, I’m not sure HOW she’s staying upright. Unless she’s being propped up by SOMETHING.

I think there’s definitely a stick horse here, Sarah. Only it’s not the one you think. I think the stick horse is already being ridden, cunningly hidden ‘twixt the folds of the skirt.

An anonymous Bitchery reader was kind enough to send me this splash of a PR release: Romance Novels: Are They the Antidote to a Dreary Sex Life? It’s a promotional piece for a specific book, “Midwinter Turns to Spring,” but it cites two journals as evidence that romance readers know how to get it on:

Women who read romance novels make love with their partners 74% more often than women who don’t, according to Psychology Today. Furthermore, when women fantasize frequently (as they do when they read romance novels), they have sex more often, have more fun in bed, and engage in a wider variety of erotic activities, according to a report in Psychological Bulletin.

Now, I’m having a spot of trouble finding the study in question. I’ve found a previously-linked study about male body issues and the whole size-matters question, and I’ve found articles about using your love story to find your perfect mate. There’s even discussion on the healthful results of sexual fantasy. I’m down with that, but where’s the stuff about how if we read them trashy books wit’ the man-titties, we’re all fired up in the sack?

Hmm. I smell dubious PR.

But being of a mildly scientific bent (read: not scientific at ALL) I queried all of my husbands as to whether my love of romance novels has improved our sex life. He said: “I don’t know.  I’ve never been married to someone who doesn’t read romance novels.  But I’ll go with true.”

I can see how it might be true, certainly. To quote Candy, “Bitch. Please.” One good sex scene and many a reader is all, “Yo! Hubby! BOOTY CALL!”

And it’s not just the external mental stimulation that can make one go off and seek some happy action. Reading romance reminds me of the value of my own romance, and certainly makes me more attentive to the health of my marriage. Erotica & romantica were probably one of the best discoveries I made last year, if you queried the husbands living in my house.

I’m sure that the idea that romance novels are good for the gettin’ it on is sound - but I’m not sure that the referenced studies exist. You can read about what men and women consider romantic but I haven’t found any references to romanve novels on the Psychology Today website. Perhaps a Bitchery reader will have better skills and luck in the search than I have.

But dubious PR or not - what do you think? True? False? Or are you too busy “reading” right now to type?

Warning: nothing to do with romance novels, but I was bored and felt like hunting down pictures of pretty people.

So anyway, a little while ago, I found a meme that told you to list ten famous people you’d shag, but now I forget WHERE I saw it. Regardless, here’s my top ten list. Alex Kapranos and Jared Padalecki didn’t quite make it; James Mercer and Johnny Depp bumped ‘em off. The eye candy factor in this particular list may or may not suit you, since I generally like ‘em small, skinny and goofy, but if you think Spike Jonze is infinitely bone-able, you’ll probably dig this.

Mandy Roth is the romance novel maven who successfully guessed the correct answer to today’s personal ad contest, and for that, she shall be soundly rewarded with one of our Smart Bitch titles! Kneel and prepare to be tapped with a sword. (No, not THAT kind of sword. OK, maybe on alternate Wednesdays, it’s that kind of sword.)

Rise, Mandy, for we dub thee:

Hang on to your panties, because it’s Friday, which means ANOTHER personal ad challenge.

Author + Title + Heroine’s name = AWESOME SMART BITCH TITLE GOODNESS

---

Faux Ho Seeks Groping, Manhandling

Quiet teacher with felonious OMGHOT showgirl twin seeks big, burly law-enforcment type to manhandle and grope her. Long roadtrips a plus; long roadtrips with bitter arguments, big secrets, big misunderstandings and even bigger cocks a bonus.

I read Getting Rid of Bradley upon the recommendation of the Bitchery, who said I should dive in immediately after reading Who’s the Daddy. Indeed, like a fine sorbet, it did cleanse the palette.

The early works of Crusie are fun to read because you see her starting out with some sizeable writing muscles, and you know already that she eventually turns into something of a powerhouse. Not that I’m sucking up or anything. Really. Swear.

You know how there’s always a mind-bogglingly popular, yet not as quality, version of just about everything? Hubby and I call it the “White Zinfandel” effect. Thomas Kinkade? The white zinfandel of art.

Andrea Bocelli? The white zinfandel of opera.

This is nothing against white zin itself, as there are some that are quite good, but it has a major rep as a plebian wine, and I almost busted an internal organ at the absurdity of watching a dude go through the wine sniff-and-taste ritual with a bottle Sutter Home White Zinfandel on a cruise one time.

Yeah, I sound like a snob. But I do have a point. And it’s not that I like wine a lot, even though I really do.

Nicholas Sparks the white zinfandel of fiction, has been nominated for the Romantic Novel of the Year award, which comes with much relative prestige, of course, and, holy crap, £10,000.

Fellow nominees include Brits Veronica Henry and Audrew Howard, Irish writer Kate Kerrigan, and Aussie Asheigh Bingham. I’ve not heard of these people - anyone in the UK Bitchery care to enlighten me?

Sparks was nominated for True Believer, which, judging from the Amazon reviews, was a disappointment to those readers who enjoy romance. One reviewer likened it to Danielle Steele, who also might be called another white zin of romance. Another called it a “watery” disappointment.

I gotta tell you, this just burns my toast more than a little. I’m not sure if Sparks gets the attention for writing treacly spooge because he’s a male writing “romantic novels” or if he’s somehow been singled out as the author of “socially and commercially acceptable and award-worthy romance” for some other reason (perhaps an alignment with Satan?) but whatever it is, it bugs the crap out of me when there are so many other authors who write clever, insightful, and emotionally provocative romance but don’t get nominated for £10,000 awards.

Who would you nominate instead? Maybe we need to create the Smart Bitch White Zinfandel Award for mediocrity in romance, so when we take the award nominations away from people like Sparks we can give them something nice to hold onto in return. 

Amazon.com recently introduced “Text Stats” for many of the books they sell; these stats purportedly record the readability and complexity of a book. Laura Kinsale found out, somewhat to her consternation, that Shadowheart scored as both very easy and less complex compared to other books. Being an enterprising woman, she looked up the stats for another one of her books.

For My Lady’s Heart, with its notorious Middle English dialogue, which you either love because you’re a nerd or hate because it interferes with your readability? It scores just about the same. Now, that’s just mind-boggling.

After being alerted to this, I did some digging around to see how other books compare.

Pride and Prejudice scores as somewhat harder to read and somewhat more complex than the two Kinsale medievals. OK, that’s a fair cop.

Let’s try a more modern novel, then--a nice, big meaty one. Like, say, The Corrections. Turns out it scores as a bit easier than P&P, but still harder than a Kinsale.

At that point, inspiration hit: let’s try some books that are quite notoriously difficult to read. The ones that cause college students to gnash their teeth and grip their heads in agony. So I looked up the stats for your favorite wet fart connoisseur and mine, James Joyce. Specifically, Ulysses. According to the magic numbers, it’s easier to read than both The Corrections and Pride & Prejudice--which brings up the question: IN WHICH FREAKING UNIVERSE would that be true?

(Answer: probably in the same universe where all those non-Muslim sheikhs kidnap shy British secretaries for nefarious erotic purposes.)

But the kicker--the one book whose stats made me laugh and laugh--was no other than The Sound and the Fury. It’s apparently MUCH easier to read than Shadowheart and For My Lady’s Heart. In fact, it scores as being so easy, I’m surprised kindergarten teachers aren’t substituting Dick and Jane with The Sound and the Fury.

I’m thinking they might need to work a little bit more on the algorithms that determine ease of reading and complexity.

Here at the Smart Bitchery, I’m suffering a wee bit of guilt. I’m a pretty fast reader, and faster now that I have a bus ride each morning and evening to use for my reading time. But alas, my free time? It has taken a huge nosedive, caused by major cuteness. Wanna see the cuteness?

Check it:

Yeah, that was totally an excuse to put a picture of Freebird up for much ooh-ing and aah-ing.

But since the birth of this here Bitchery, we’ve been sent many a review copy of many a book, some from publishers and some from the stash of free copies belonging to the fine authors themselves.

And I want to make clear that Candy and I, we are not the kind of assmonkey buttmunches who get all giddy over free books and then never deliver on the review part. We both think that the books we review are worthy of a dedicated critique, and it’s not like we want to dash off eBay-feedback reviews (e.g. Marrying the Tycoon’s Monkey Daughter’s Secret Baby was an A+++ BOOK - great! I laughed! I cried! I’m gonna read it again and again until I can recite it from memory at the next Carnival Cruise line passenger talent show!) You worked hard on writing the book, we work hard on reading it and giving it a thorough evaluation.

So! If you sent me a book and you’re wondering, “What the hell, woman?” feel free to email me. I’m going to update the sidebar to “Books to be Reviewed Really Freaking Soon” because updating “What I’m Reading Now” could turn into an every-other-day event since I am back on the bus now.

But, the reviews? The reading? It continues. 

In a recent Luna release (to be reviewed on this here weblog, yessirree!) I encountered a heroine who had multiple partners in various ways, some of them through actual coitus and some through physically pleasurable exchanges of magic. But either way: one lady, and quite a few dudes.

And yet there was a romance in each of the relationships, with a primary romance as a centerpiece to the story - and it worked for me, as the reader, once I accepted the “monogamy rule” had been broken in a well-written manner.

I also had an interesting conversation with a Bitchery member about the romance novel expectation that once the hero meets and realizes his attraction to the heroine, neither party gets to boink anyone else. I’ve seen that standard undone most obviously in romantic erotica/romantica, and often in fantasy/futuristic and some paranormals as well.

I wondered in the email exchange if perhaps fantasy and erotica are going to be the branches of the genre that break the highest number of rules and expectations of romance fiction, and not just expectations of monogamy. From the exploration of multiple partners to the strong heroine who has more important things to deal with besides winning herself that handsome hunk of man titty, are readers more willing to explore new scenarios for romance, even if those scenes break rules to which we are accustomed?.More importantly, am I wrong that fantasy and erotica are the rule-breakers of late? What other standards of romance do you see being busted down?

I don’t know if y’all heard a pigsqueal emanating from SE Portland at about 5:10 p.m. today, but that’s about the time I got my mitts on an autographed ARC of Don’t Look Down.

Also in the package? An autographed copy of the re-release of Anyone But You.

Is it terribly dirty and/or wrong and/or creepy for me to want to dance around and rub these books all over myself?

Ahem. ‘Scuse me. I have, uh, dishes to do. Yes. Indeed. Dishes.

I was reading Derik’s Bane by MaryJanice Davidson on the bus this morning, and, despite not being caffeinated, my brain started a major rumination. One of the characters has the gift of premonition, and as an illustration of the range of that gift, MJD writes that she predicted a tax audit, and September 11th, 2001.

I imagine people have a range of feelings regarding locating contemporary storylines, be they fantasy or not, in the present-day reality using real news events to establish time and location. Personally, I find that there’s a certain limit to how much reality I’m able to swallow in my fiction, but where specifically that limit is, I have a hard time defining.