by SB Sarah • Monday, May 05, 2008 at 09:09 AM
I’d been thinking about interracial romance over the weekend, while I was trying to draft a section for The Book (OMG The Whole Genre?!) {that’s a working title, obviously} that examined minorities in RomanceLandia. What a verdant, green - or white, perhaps - pasture of peaceful writing that was. Not a landmine in sight for my clodding feet to trip on. No, no. *head desk* So when a friend of mine forwarded me a news article that Mildred Loving, the Black woman whose marriage to a white man overturned laws against interracial marriage died today at the age of 68, I had to think how different the world is in 2008 vs. 1958. Before I move on - our condolences to her family. I always thought it was unspeakably awesome that the name of the court case that declared laws restricting marriage on basis of race unconstitutional was called “Loving v. Virginia.”
Since I count among my neighbors several interracial couples and families, I have been spoiled with an experience that indicates interracial marriage as something that’s somewhat common. As the friend who forwarded me the article said to me over email, I’m nuts if I think that’s the rule across the US. It’s certainly not the case in romance - interracial couples in romance novels are still somewhat rare, though there are more of them of late. One writer of bestselling awesomeness told me recently that many romance writers, including herself, would love to write a romance that crosses racial lines - but those books are difficult to get into publication from established print romance publishers. In the e-format, there’s a more vigorous supply, but then, the “e” in romance is the one area that does tend to push the boundaries of the genre a little bit harder, giving the “nudge nudge” a more diverse meaning. Samhain has an entire section of interracial titles, featuring white heroes and Black heroines, and vice versa—and hero/hero, as well, so clearly someone or many someones are shopping for interracial romance specifically.
On one hand, it’s difficult to ask the right question. Would the presence of an interracial couple stop someone from buying a romance? (Would it stop me? Nope.) Is interracial romance solely the domain - and by domain I mean “located in the bookshop section” - of Black romance, because the minute one half of a protagonist pair is Black, the book moves toward Black Romance as a subgenre marker? Speaking solely for myself, I’m curious why interracial romance appears to be mostly found in epubs, small presses, erotica, or within Black romance publishing lines. Brenda Jackson has written several for Silhouette Desire, but those seem to be an exception among the backlist of series romance - and yet another reason how the dismissed-as-staid category romances can sometimes not just push but shred the envelope of boundaries every now and again like nothing else.
I’m also curious whether it’s a target people shop for, a type of storyline that some really enjoy the same way I am a total and complete sucker for a certain plotlines, including one that is too embarrassing to mention. If people shop deliberately for interracial romances, then why aren’t there more of them in mainstream romance (unless they’re there and my Google-fu has failed me)? Is there a difficult barrier towards publication of a romance that takes place across cultural and racial lines? And what counts as interracial, anyway? Does a Black woman and a Middle Eastern man count as interracial? (This reader thinks so.) Or is “interracial” code for solely white/black combinations? Hell, depending on what anti-Semite you ask, my marriage would be interracial.
Mostly I’m wondering simply why there aren’t more interracial couples in romance. There’s more than a few powerhouse examples in mainstream romance across several genres, so I am curious why there’s not more of it. For example, Ward’s Brotherhood plays with race, and the question’s been asked of her point blank whether the Brothers are Black (her answer was that they are not an identifiable human race so it’s impossible to say). Kleypas’ Mine Till Midnight also crossed a racial line in the historical sense, in that her hero was Rom and the heroine was white - a combination that caused me to question the endurance of their happy ending, given the social prejudice working against them. And someone will hunt me down and kick me in the knees if I don’t mention the multi-book subplot of Brockmann’s Sam & Alyssa. All three examples were holy crapping damn successful. Perhaps the problem is that what I perceive of as “few” needs to be adjusted. Someone else might think that’s plenty.
I’m not so much asking for a list of interracial romances, though feel free to suggest some that you’ve enjoyed, but more of a “Interracial romance: what’s up with that? How come there’s not more of it?” type of random musing. So? Your thought? Ha. I crack me up. I know you have more than one.
by SB Sarah • Monday, May 05, 2008 at 03:07 AM
It’s that time of year again: the 2007 slate of covers in the Cover Cafe’s annual Cover Controversy contest are up, ready for your votes and comments. If ever I’m having a shittastic day, I go back into past cover contests and gaze at the wonderment of covers gone horribly horribly wrong.
This year, the slate of worst covers is pretty damn good, and by “good” I mean, “Eager to make you say WTF were they THINKING?” Kensington Publishing, you are getting a monster load of publicity out of this year’s contest, lemme tell you, because damn. And whoa. And holy crap. So here we have Candy and Sarah trying to figure out which one gets their vote for the worst cover of 2007.
Sarah: There were some gawdawful covers last year. I can think of a few that turned my stomach to an even deeper yogic twist than some of these, but I have to say, as a slate of terrible, this slate is pretty good. Not great - there were plenty that were much, much worse - but on the whole, not bad for badness. I didn’t upload every single one, since some of them weren’t really poor enough to be among the worst. So here’s our slate.
Candy: I’ve seen worse, to be honest, and I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand: it really does seem like publishers are finally learning and moving away from the fug. Some of the Worst Cover nominees from 2006 and 2005, for example, I actually liked--but then I dig the comic book look and don’t find comics embarrassing the way some of the commentators apparently do. On the other hand: I derive a certain measure of delicious masochistic pain from the terrible covers, and lots of belly laughs from the ensuing commentary in the contest. Less fug = less fun. The genre wins, but my selfish side wants the cheap laugh, goddammit.
That said: There are still quite a few gems from this particular batch.
Also: when you’re done looking at the snark, head over to Cover Cafe and cast your vote.
Candy: So THIS is what it looks like when Cousin Itt gets a trim and tries to fuck a tribble! Hawt!
Sarah: Nothing says “oh yeah” like necking in the fiery depths of the earth’s core while feeling your skin slowly melt from your body. Hawt indeed!
Candy: Great. You know Cinemax is starting to run low on ideas when they start resorting to “When PR Interns Go Wild” for the late night softcore offerings.
Sarah: The car! The car is tilting at a not-even-closer-to-horizontal dizzying angle and they’re about to roll off the cliff into a fiery oblivion! Wait, apparently they’ve identified the problem and are going out with a bang. You’d think they’d hurry up and get themselves horizontal already.
Candy: Holy shit! My first thought: Post-op tranny love. And goddamn, that sister wasn’t shy about specifying exactly how big she wanted her bazooms to be.
Sarah: We’re moments away from knowing all there is to know about The Crying Game, with bonus DVD features, like this instructional shot that demonstrates how to grab one’s falsie like Wilson Phillips and hold on.
Candy: We’ve snarked this cover in the past, and I want to reiterate: Come on, Kensington. FOR SHAME. If you advertise big, spankable asses, we want big, spankable asses. We want thunderclap-worthy asses. (Warning: video mildly not-work-safe.) That ass? Not even worthy of a static shock.
Sarah: Not big. Not spankable. Not even close. And if the problem is with the title and not so much the cover image, then I expect “Baby of Shame” to make next year’s slate.
Candy: Oh my God. Between the contrast of the unnaturally perky, clean-cut blonde chick being groped by Gomez Addams’ creepy younger brother (I get the impression he sells used Kias for a living) and the looming house in the background, it’s like Amityville Horror meets the Osmonds.
Make the screaming in my head stop, mommy. Please?
Sarah: Apparently, after the wedding, someone went on a meth bender while operating Photoshop without a license, and this was the result. A bonafide disaster.
Candy: You know, other than the fact that that’s way more skin than I want on the front cover of my book, there’s nothing too horribly wrong with this cover. It’s soft-focus softcore cheesy, and I can practically hear the smooth jazz playing in the background and breathy moans as I look at this, but compared to the other covers, my sensibilities haven’t been ripped out, ripped into shreds, danced upon with three-inch stiletto heels and set on fire.
Sarah: Nothing says, “This book has sex in it” like two people on the cover having sex. Thank you to this book for making it that much more difficult for me to defend accusations that romance = porn.
Especially with the jizztastic explosion of water going on behind her, there. If he orgasms that forcefully in real life, well, no wonder he has to hold onto her by the longhairs. She probably doesn’t have any short ones.
Candy: Touch of Madness? Well, yes, I believe necrophilia is typically a sign of SOME sort of pathology--especially when you start going for the ones who are starting to rot.
Sarah: I can hear the book trailer now: He’s creepy and he’s cooked -EEE!. She’s zombified and ookey. This sure don’t look like nookie. Clamp and Adams, scaring me.
by SB Sarah • Sunday, May 04, 2008 at 10:18 AM
It’s been awhile since I’ve had more than 10 minutes at my computer, alongside my sexy postage scale and my box o’prizes (which, for the record) the cats desperately try to sleep in, but I refuse to allow them to do so. They are miffed).
First, a coronation! After consulting with the Oracle of Bitchery Titles, I am pleased to confer upon Danica, who, about 18 years ago in Internet time, guessed The Seagull Book in a two-part Guess That Lonely Heart. Kneel, Danica, and arise a member of the Smart Bitch Peerage™.
Second, another coronation! To Bronwwyn, who identified all three books in an HaBO trilogy, kneel, and welcome to the Peerage™:
And, prizes! For LOLCovers, which, should you need a reason to wet your pants, well, it seems the Bitchery is happy to provide. By collective voting on- and offline, the winner was Aubrey, for the entry that literally made me snort coffee up my nose. Aubrey, please so I can mail you your prize - the Romance Novel Magnetic Poetry Kit.
There was a tie for second place, and the voting as a whole was so close that I also want to give mad props and big ups and random bits of shouting to Tinkerbon and Soni, whose entries were totally wheeze-worthy. I was long past laughter looking at these entries - I was well into “wheeze and gasp laughter” territory. Good for the abs, I hear.
Third place: to Jenifer, who took the worst of the worst and made them oh-so-awesome.
by SB Sarah • Saturday, May 03, 2008 at 06:23 AM
From Thursday Bram comes this absolutely gobsmacking-badass article about how everything you need to know about strong copywriting comes from ... wait for it… romance novels. It’s not about the sex; it’s about the pain, and overcoming it.
From SonomaLass comes this tale of stacked love: are you a Welsh single in Swansea? Then head to the library’s single’s evening to meet literary like-minded people, and judge them by what they’re browsing. I have to say, I wouldn’t wear a badge to announce I’m single and browsing for books and booty, but then, I’m squidgy about branding myself like that.
And finally: Erotica authors, take note: Ahoy! Thar be plot inspiration, mateys! Dan Filler from the Faculty Lounge blog emailed me about his review of a new nonfiction book by Charla Muller called 365 Nights of Intimacy, a memoir of her experience giving her husband 365 consecutive nights of sex for his 40th birthday.
by SB Sarah • Friday, May 02, 2008 at 10:56 AM
Via Sandra Schwab via email, and the Professors Brilliant at Teach Me Tonight, everybody book your trips to Chicago to go curtsy gracefully to University of Chicago student Elizabeth Litchfield, who won the 2008 T. Kimball Brooker Prize for Undergraduate Book Collecting.
Her entry, A Library of Love: Challenging the social order one couple (or threesome?) at a time, won her not only a monetary prize, but also a special display of eight romances, once of which is Schwab’s The Lily Brand. In the comments on her blog, Litchfield writes,
I really enjoyed The Lily Brand and thought it stood out from the crowd in a lot of respects. I also like that people really hassle me about the cover, but when I get them to read the book they invariably are impressed and enjoy themselves as well. That little surprise and undermining of expectations is one of my favorite parts of pushing romances on unsuspecting doubters.
Well played, Ms. Litchfield, well played. Congratulations!
