OK, you know that horrible, horrible, tawdry and really skin-crawlingly revolting song by Heart that I can’t even name because just READING the title puts that earworm bastard in your head for the next six to eight weeks? The one about the one night stand that ends up in a pregnancy because the chick wanted a baby and so she banged some guy on the side of the road? No, wait, you like that song? I will pay you cash money not to sing it to me because I cannot stand it and it stays in my head for years. Oh, crap, I can hear it right now in the back of my mind… MAKE IT STOP.
Anyway, my mental torture notwithstanding, I have a HaBO from Suzanne, and while it doesn’t involve a pregnancy, it does sound very close to that creep-ass song:
I have been amazed at how well the Bitchery can determine a book from minimal hints, and wondered if you would be so kind as to ask them about a book I read years ago (probably early eighties, and I think I got it out of a bag of books my Mom kept). I was a young mother staying at home with the kids at the time, and was very caught up in reading romances (still am!). I don’t think it was a category book.
All I remember is an attractive woman whose car breaks down while she is driving in the country, and she is stranded and rescued by a handsome guy (of course). He takes her back to his cabin (or country house?), and of course they have a romantic encounter; she knows everything about him, but she doesn’t tell him anything about herself...very mysterious. Of course, she is gone in the a.m. when he wakes. He searches, she hides, etc. etc., then they finally meet at a party or something, and it turns out she is unhappily married to an older guy. Thus the conflict, as he feels betrayed, yada, yada, and I remember vaguely, I think the old guy gets sick or dies, and anyway, after much hurt feelings and conflict, they get together.
Wow, can’t believe anyone will be able to tell me the name of this book from such a miserable bit of info, but would really love to read it again.
Do you think they can help??
Does this ring a bell? Anyone? Wait, what’s that you’re humming? STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW.
Thanks to Kate Duffy, who sent me a link to the Times online article, I have reason to start haunting the travel airfare sites (pass the smelling salts, omgwtfbbq) for airfare to Manchester. The Mills & Boon exhibit of book cover art is now open at the Manchester Public Library through 30 July - before it goes on a national tour. I’ve been wondering lately as I chase Fabio (who will not return my calls, dammit!) why some of the cover art isn’t re-examined as art, even pop art. Granted, some of the cover images of the 80’s are the height of absurd, but the talent of the illustrators is considerable, especially when depicting the loving windswept curls of the average heroic mullet. So to have M&B art displayed as a journey through the cultural evolution of romance is very cool, indeed. According to the article, the art is placed in an order that “serves as a guide to the changing patterns of courtship through the decades:”
Mills & Boon celebrates that other “right to choose” – the young girl’s ability to choose a mate, at the one and only time in her life when young men queue up and she does the picking and choosing. But what is going on in Utility Wedding (1946)? Is this the body language of the tormented man, back from the war? It looks like it. Behind, in the houses, lies the possibility of domestic bliss, but will she say yes? In her eye we read: “Do I mean to put up with him and his neuroses, or shall I say no?” For once, doubt and emotional distress enter in. But mostly what comes next, true and lasting love, is never in doubt.
The companion book will be published in August. Hopefully I will cross the pond by then, but I’m not holding my breath. With gas prices, I don’t even drive that much - to say nothing of the fact that due to the toll structures, you have to pay to get out of Jersey (it’s free to get back in).
If anyone is near Manchester and checks out the exhibit, would you please let me know what you think?
Bitchery reader Gillian writes
OK, maybe you hate these vague questions (I’ve worked at a bookstore and I know I hated them), but I have to ask..
Around Christmas, I was in Barnes & Noble and saw a romance novel. I didn’t buy it (it was right before Xmas, I was swamped, I knew if I bought it, I’d go home and read it and I had a million things to do) and I stupidly also didn’t write down the title or author. It may have been a category romance, but I can’t say for sure. The cover photo was a man, with a woman (standing on a porch?) in jeans and a t-shirt looking at him from behind. I do remember that she had a (spunky!) short haircut, because I am SO SICK of flowing tresses. The plot was something like he returned home, she was the tomboy girl next door all grown up. As I write this, I’m thinking, this plot is so tired, but at the time, it sounded like a good book and I have been wishing I bought it ever since. Do you have ANY idea what book I could be talking about? It was on one of the center displays, with multiple copies, which makes me think it was more than just another category romance.
Anyone got a clue which book this is?
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Maybe the naked man-flank? That certainly distracts me! It was definitely a skin issue for the buyer, though as so many have reminded me in private emails, anyone willing to buy a book titled Sexy Beast in large, black letters,…
Oops. Just re-read your comment on your site about the book-buyer, Kate. (Can’t imagine what distracted me from taking that in the first time. snort) Huh. Weird.
Anyway, my sister got me “How to Shit in the Woods”…
Just to throw in my 2 cents on the man-flank: Judging by your other covers, Kate, are you sure it was the skin that was the issue? I did notice that your name got un-stacked in the second version, and…
‘The Virgin Black-Footed Ferret’s Secret Baby.’
LMAO! I choked on my diet Coke!
Love that the bff is forever and indelibly associated with the romance novel. Brings a tear to me eye, it does.
I haven’t yet seen anyone making a comparison with this kind of fiction and D/S (domination/submission) relationships. Just because there’s no overt flogging or suchlike doesn’t make it any less kinky.
I have. I said on my own blog: …
