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

My mom gave me the heads up about this one - Slate is asking readers to match the prose to the politician who wrote it. They call it “porn.” From the excerpts I’m reading, I call it “crap.” As if we needed further proof that writing a romantic or sensual sex scene is not as easy as one might think.

I want to know how come none of the books I’ve read have featured a heroine “athwart” the hero’s chest with “breasts flailing wildly.” I’m missing out, clearly!

We’ve asked for your recommendations for paranormals, vampire romances, and romantic romps with the undead.

Today I want to know: what book (and if it’s romance-related, even better) scared the ever lovin’ crap out of you?

For me, the romance recently that freaked me out to no end was Nora Roberts’ Blue Smoke. I’m not kidding. Evil fucking insane villain sexually brutalizes and sets fire to one of his victims, and the reader is witness to the whole scene, getting an in-depth glimpse of how well and truly gone-to-hell this guy’s sanity has been. The victim was chosen because of her spouse’s actions, and she had no idea why until the killer told her, and also informed her she was going to die. That scene stayed with me and STILL unnerves me.

There’s not a lot of suspenseful crime stories that I can stomach, because it makes me paranoid and fretful about the random acts of outward evil that people visit on each other. I can be scared by monsters all day long, but the evil of people? *shudder* Thus I have a hard time reading crime novels and books like it - the scariest stuff for me is the things that are so so evil, and yet possible, or even true.

So - in honor of Halloween - what book scared the crap out of you? 

Hey now - Congratulations to Stephanie Feagan, the author who made accountants into hot romance heroines, for being elected treasurer of the RWA.

Congrats, Stef! I hope your calculator is hot pink.

I did the mother of all decluttering cleanups in my house this morning, which consisted of relocating a LOT of books and digging papers out of various locations where I’d stashed them. One paper was an article I’d meant to link to from the New Jersey paper, the Star-Ledger, back on March 26, 2006: a tongue-in-cheek guide to avoiding bad purchases at the bookstore - Don’t Read This Book! by Charles Taylor. (Candy interjects at this point to shriek in horror at the idea of somebody not loving The Lord of the Flies and Catcher in the Rye, but the dude has a point about books labeled as “in the tradition of...” or “This generation’s...")

So...what would the Don’t But This Book list for romance look like?

Heads up! Candy and I are guest blogging about our process of reviewing a book over at Romance Buy the Blog.

Thanks to Michelle for inviting us over.

I realize that asking you to watch a political ad is a LOT to ask. That’s why I’m not embedding the video in this entry, because then you might not be able to stop yourself from watching ONE MORE political advertisement. And then your head would explode. We can’t have that.

But - should you be interested in what some of Theresa Spry’s ads look like for her race in the South Dakota legislature, take a look.

With the recent slamming of political candidates based on fiction they’ve written that includes sex scenes, I think the time has come to formulate the perfect political candidate.

First and foremost, we need to find someone who has never actually had sex. Let’s suppose that our candidate is a woman, because it’s even more important that she be completely ignorant of sex, since everyone knows all women are deceitful hobags, right? Right.

So, no sex. But if this person has children, they were either delivered by stork directly to a basinette on the front lawn (during temperate hours of course) or they were left to her virginal care by her sister, who died an untimely death in a sympathetic and noble accident. Perhaps something with a tree. Or a loose brick in the road. Either way: virgin heroine, adorable children.

She needs to be smart but not too smart, pretty but not too pretty, with wit and charm but also quietly concealed will and backbone that won’t tolerate another man walking all over her, no sir!

Finally, we need no possible rumors of drug use or even an awareness of them within 30 feet of her person. Perhaps she doesn’t actually have lungs or veins with which to carry the drugs to her brain. If she has no lungs and no circulatory system, then there’s no way she could possibly do drugs.

I’m thinking the best possible political candidate might be a member of the virginal undead. I knew all these vampire romances were going to get us into trouble.

Felicitations to Catriona, who correctly identified this week’s Lonely Heart as Jennifer Merrick, from Judith McNaught’s A Kingdom of Dreams. Well done!

Kneel, and arise a member of the Bitchery Peeresses as:

You know what to do: title, author and heroine’s name? Smart Bitch Title™!

We are Sworn Enemies! Got That?

Feisty Scottish lass seeks wolfish English duke to abduct me from my convent-led education and teach me the ways of hot, scrumpin’ luuuurve.™ Despite the fact that we’re sworn enemies, you’ll save me from a marriage to an old, wrinkly man who only wants my unspoiled lands and my unspoiled lands, if you catch my meaning, and from the machinations of a father who is blind to the evil of others and the goodness, purity, and bravery that is me.

Several, and I mean several, Bitchery members have written to give me the heads up about his buxom fabiosity, Fabio, appearing on America’s Next Top Model this Sunday night. And yes, I have asked the DVR to save me that special hour of Fabio so I can enjoy it and share it with you. I’ll be honest with you: I love Fabio. I’d love to buy him a beer and interview him. He cracks me up. He is a romance novel cover model who attracted a margin of fame, and is now pretty much a caricature of himself - yet he doesn’t take himself seriously at all. The Butter Romance website? The old-man-Fabio in the gondola? The over-the-top hot air balloon party to advertise a margarine spray? Cracks me up every time. But then, I find men who don’t take themselves too seriously incredibly interesting.

So when Kylara sent me this link showing the assignment for the models, I had to take a look. Note: the comments are fractious and cranky.

Seems the show, which I don’t watch so I don’t know the first thing about it, asked the contestants to design and shoot a romance novel cover with Fabio. The results are really poor. Snark-worthy, even, save for one.

I’ll be curious to watch and see how much of a snide beating the romance industry gets from the hosts or the contestants. But yet, I will be watching reality tv, which is among my least favorite things, so at least admire my fortitude.

Wired magazine asks several authors to write six-word stories, including people like Margaret Atwood, Orson Scott Card, Gregory Maguire, Neil Gaiman, David Brin, Joss Whedon, Kevin Smith, Michael Moorcock and Vernor Vinge. You can read the wonderful results here.

My favorites:

Check out this succinct diatribe against what is wrong with book publishing from Gawker, usually a site that focuses on other elements of media brou-haha.  My favorite part of the whole rant: “Books are important.” Hell, yeah. I raise my mug of “Haterade” in salute to that.

So while Gawker and I were pondering editors, each in our own corner of the internet, I had to stop and ponder something a Bitchery member said in a comment thread, and with my Swiss cheese memory I can’t remember when or who so please let me know if I need to attribute the following to your illustrious self. To wit: it’s not so much an author we should be glomming, but an editor’s work. The editor you follow as a fangirl should consistently deliver the kinds of stories you enjoy, because most likely, they are the kinds of stories h/she enjoys.

I was recently added to the Avon ARC list, and hello, there’s now a bag of books once a month on my porch. A satchel of romance, as it were. Most of the ARCs are introduced on the back cover with a letter from the editor, and I’ve noticed that of late, I’ve been enjoying the various books edited by Erika Tsang - many different authors, but one editor in common. (So of course, like the giant dork I am, I wrote her an email and told her so.)

Until Aaron Sorkin gets tired of behind-the-scenes dramedies of television shows and starts working on a behind-the-scenes story of a romance publishing house (with Fabio, if I get any vote in the casting!), I’m guessing the work of the editor will remain somewhat mysterious to the average reader. It never occurred to me until I got additional publication education courtesy of the Bitchery (thanks, Y’all) that editors, among the unsung heroes of romance, would need some deserving attention.

So - do you follow an editor as well as an author? Do you buy regularly the works that come from a specific editor’s office? And if you’re a writer, what editor would you “I’ll-send-her-a-muffin-basket” love love love to work with?

You’re working on edits to your manuscript, or maybe you’re locked in your office, in your favorite sweats with a cold glass of carbonation and some cookies. Maybe you’ve washed your hair. Maybe...not. You struggle with yet another euphamism for the clitoris and as your fingers type the words ‘love nubbin,’ you realize… you smell.

But what do you smell like?

If you’re a romance author, I bet you smell like Danielle. Danielle who?

Danielle Steel, of course.

Click the page of her manuscript that floats gently in midair, and you’re invited, after you install Flash, to sign up for a free sample. I know I did. I’ll let you know how it smells.

But if the Bitchery takes time out from the nonstop reading of the Journal of Feminist Esoteric Studies for a short break with People magazine, and don’t lie because I know some of y’all do, you’ll see an ad for this lovely parfum featuring Danielle herself deftly avoiding papercuts as manuscript pages float around her. You can sample the floral madness right there in the gossip pages.

Take a look.

If only the internet had smell-o-vision - you’d get the full Danielle experience.

Now, this ad does beg the question: are writers the next celebrities to jump on the fragrance gravy train? Will there be Eau de James Patterson? Savage by Cassie Edwards?

And - most importantly - what does Nora, by Nora Roberts, smell like?

My friend Katie and I were chatting on Instant Messenger last night, and the subject of trashy books and trashy book covers somehow came up, and before we knew it, we were looking at the Changeling Press website--specifically, the Paranormal Mates Society series. And that’s just asking for a world of hurt for your retinas.

What choice do we have but to share that delicious pain with you, our Faithful Readers?

Sarah: White hair, ok. I can deal. But did he have to spend a year in the Hollywood Tans ultra-booth for that nice burnt sheen? He’s going to have sunburn itch like nobody’s business. And I won’t even go into why he let someone draw on his mantitty with Microsoft Paint.

Candy: How much of a gothy bitch must you be to get a tattoo done of a black crescent moon in fluorescent inks so that you glow under blacklight? I mean, really. Though I suspect that something in that ink is a neurotoxin, because homeboy there doesn’t look like he’s firing on all cylinders.

Sarah: Somewhere, Joan Collins and Linda Evans are crying that no matter how much time they spent at the lat pull-down machine, they still had to wear shoulder pads. This guy here? Mr. Long Tall Furry? He can take advantage of the comeback of 80’s fashion with no need for padding in the slightest. Even his hair is ready. Lucky, lucky man. And lucky, lucky us!

Candy: So much for truth in advertising. This dude’s not long, tall and furry so much as he is squat, freakishly over-muscled and freakishly over-waxed.

Though maybe “furry” refers not to his body, but to his fur suit sex predilections.

...great, now I’m picturing him in a squirrel suit, telling a girl with balloon-like breasts dressed in a skunk outfit to “lick deez nutz, bitch!” Why does my brain insist on doing this to me? *weeps*

Sarah: Now there’s a pickup line for the ages: “Hey baby, wanna stroke my stretch marks?”

Candy: “Duuuuude, you wouldn’t believe the herb I just scored. No, seriously, it’s premium ganja from Maui, dude. It’ll seriously fuck you up. Have a toke. Dude I got it from said that smoking to much gives you bitch-tits, but I think he’s just paranoid. Huh huh huh huh huh huh.”

Sarah: I know there are all kinds of jokes about the ideal man, but I hadn’t yet considered the possibilities of a man who can bend himself in half backwards for easy storage under the bed, with hair that’s useful for dusting the venetian blinds.

Candy: WHAT THE FUCK IS ROSEMARY’S BABY DOING ON THE COVER OF A ROMANCE NOVEL? 

Bitchery reader Eggs sent me a link with the subject line, “You’re a man, baby!”

Seems there’s a Gender Genie online (of course there is) that uses an algorithm to identify words which betray gender. Developed by professors at Bar-Ilan U. and Illinois Institute of Technology, the Genie analyzes texts and scores them according to weights given to “Masculine keywords” and “Feminine keywords.”

Eggs was kind enough to score two pieces of my writing from SBTB, and sure enough, I’m a dude.

The Genie prefers a sample of over 500 words, so I’m going to plug in

Now, writing from my personal blog scores a significantly female verdict. But my writing on SBTB, which is more analytical and often much more cranky, is decidedly male. What’s up with that?

More curious is the sample of words used to develop the algorithm. “Not,” “where,” and “with” are high-scoring feminine keywords, along with “should” and “her,"while “around,” “are,” and “What” are more masculine. Since when did dudes co-opt the conjugations of the verb “to be?” Interesting that the algorithm thinks that men are more declarative in writing while women are more suggestive and hesitant.

The idea of forensic linguistics drives me into fits of wiki-googling, but some of the generalizations in the New York Times article don’t ring entirely true either.

I have to wonder, much like eggs asked in her email, what’s the “Gender Genie” gender of my favorite authors? And, more to the point, can one write something that’s 100% male or 100% female?

Here’s the kicker for me - I just fed this text into the Genie: by a score of 758 to 379, I’m so totally a dude.