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

Sarah: Did you like it, though? And how did that title come to be birthed?!

Candy:  I liked it, but I didn’t like it enough to put it on my keeper shelf, either. I don’t know about the title. Maybe Mary Jo Putney was thinking “Days of Wine and Roses” but the huge pot of chili she ate the night before inspired the “thunder” bit? I don’t know. Maybe it’s a metaphor for Nicholas’s rampaging, Zeus-like masculinity stampeding through Clare’s fragrant femininity?

Sarah: PAH! Fragrant femininity! Clare’s fragrant anything, coupled with the chili thunder, is not something I can bear to contemplate right now, I tell you.

Candy: That’s OK. Clare’s thunder smells like roses, doncha know?

OK, that was a TERRIBLE joke, but I had to make it all the same. I was compelled.

Hey, I don’t know if you noticed this, but Putney came up with two very cheesy devices for the Fallen Angels series:

• The characters are named after archangels (Rafael, Michael), saints (Nicholas) or angels (Lucien, which is obviously a reference to Lucifer, who’s the only actual fallen angel in the whole lot)
• All the book titles for the main Angels have weather themes: Thunder and Roses, Petals in the Storm, Dancing on the Wind, Shattered Rainbows.

Sarah: I didn’t notice that the Fallen Angels have meterological titles, but it makes sense. I mean, that falling part might have been influenced by a low pressure system, or something. Like the one is dumping snow on me right now.

Seriously, it is pouring snow.

The whole “we must form a society club or reason for all being the best of friends” device is ridiculous. Why they couldn’t just play on the same rugby team or just room together at Eton is beyond me. They have to be Bound by Tragedy. And with titles that imply the hearts of gold and strong moral fiber lurking beneath their rakish exteriors.

Metamucil: for your moral fiber needs.

Candy: I’m not sure what exactly was running through Putney’s mind while she devised the names and titles of the Fallen Angels series, but I bet she was all “Hmmmm, gotta make this as celestial and heavenly as possible without turning off anyone who’s not religious… Hey, weather is safe and is associated with the heavens....”

And she can even use the same theme if she decides to continue the series in a contemporary setting. Nicholas’s great-great-great-great granddaughter and Lucien’s great-great-great-great grandson can get together in a fiery romance about love in Tornado Alley, called “Twisters and Trailer Parks.” See, the title is also alliterative. Sorta. The hero could be named Zavael (who is allegedly the angel in charge of whirlwinds) and the heroine could be named Sangrariel, who guards the gates of heaven and lets only the worthy in (the gates of heaven being analogous to her heavenly portal, if you know what I mean, nudge nudge wink wink).