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

Thanks to brilliant reader Michelle, I am now dumbfounded and curious about the marketing decisions of major romance brands.

Harlequin will be offering NASCAR themed and branded romances:

NASCAR™ claims 75 million fans and says 30 million of them are women.

“NASCAR™ has one of the largest and most loyal bases of female fans of any sport in the United States and we are delighted to publish novels that will appeal specifically to them,” Harlequin CEO Donna Hayes said.

Now, NASCAR™ in and of itself is fascinating. Born in the deep South (Darlington, SC, for example, hosted the first “superspeedway” before Daytona built their speedway, though the racing itself started in North Carolina way back in the 40’s) it is a mix of down-home activities like watching car racing and tailgating, only with seriously brilliant participants. The men and women of the pit crews? Multiple engineering degrees. You gotta have some seriously mathematical smarts to be a NASCAR™ crew member - and yet many of them are life-long racing fans from small rural areas who had big brains and a desire to get advanced engineering and science degrees. So the potential for some fascinating heroes is definitely there, along with the opportunity for writers to create protagonists that break some of the rural Southern stereotypes.

But as for the Harlequin connection, are female NASCAR™ fans really an untapped demographic of romance readers? Is this a savvy move on their part or is it destined to be a big boo-boo in the history of romance? And, most importantly, is there going to be a RITA category for Best NASCAR™ romance?

Some of our lovely readers have been kind enough to send us submissions for our cover snark, mostly with quiet pleas of anonymity so we don’t get anyone in trouble. Agreed! The delicate balance of bad cover and good sportsmanship and professional behavior is one we Smart Bitches to not want to monkey with!

To that end, we’d like to open our inboxes to your “Holy God Almighty I’ve Gone Blind” Bad Cover Submissions. Feel free to send us links, cover JPGs or GIFs, or just a title or author name, and we promise to dish out the snark without dishing on your identity.

So, let us have it.  Seriously! I’m 2 days overdue! If anything will send me into labor, it’s bad romance covers! I’ve already tried everything else (except Castor oil because that is disGUSTing).

Edited to add: You can email or . No need to worry about leaving a comment if you don’t want to go public! 

So here’s a question that came up (ha!) while Candy and I were discussing Harlequins with boss/employee relationships. One of my guilty-pleasure stories is a Jude Deveraux wherein the CEO tricks a woman from the typing pool into spending the weekend with him at a friend’s Christmas wedding (why? Because she could tell him apart from his twin brother, duh!).

At one point, they have sex without protection, and she’s wigging out, while he’s totally calm about it. Turns out, of course, he’s never gone without a condom when gettin’ it on, which is a sign that she is The One. One ride on the bareback pony and you’re practically married? Oh. Come. On.

The whole “twin without a condom” true love scenario is just peculiar -almost as peculiar as that one Linda Howard where he rolled on the condom about an hour before they got it on, and just wore it under his pants. It wasn’t hot, it was creepy!

Condom-as-luuuurve-device? Ugh. It’s so not sexy. I mean, there’s no way to make a condom sexy! It’s an obligatory element but it’s not sexy or fun. I mean, it’s a rubber sheath that smacks you with reality. Putting it on with your teeth is interesting, and from what I’ve read there’s lots that can be done with it, some lube, and a hot washcloth, but still, condoms are not romantic.

Then I thought, “Hm! I should ask the Bitchery, for surely they know.” So I ask: can a condom in a sex scene be sexy? Can it be introduced in a manner that carries all the appropriate weight of its use, indicating that the characters aren’t complete idiots about STDs, but also not halt the hot n’heavy chemistry in its tracks? Got any examples of “Hot Hot Condom, Baby, Yeah?”

Deep in the back file cabinet, in the recesses of the Harlequin office, there exists a file folder. It hides behind the “Confidential: Grave Location, Jimmy Hoffa” folder, and the sealed file marked “Truth about Turin, Shroud of.” It’s even nestled in the shadow of the “Dion, Celine: Home Planet Location” folder.

It’s the “Forbidden Titles” file. A list of titles so bad, even the folks down in the Harlequin Presents office aren’t allowed to look at them, for fear they wrest control of the empire away from the publishers and wreak havoc on our understanding of romance as we know it.

Your intrepid Smart Bitches, though, they know how to jimmy the lock on an old metal file cabinet, while holding cosmopolitans in one hand and a stack of Bombshells in the other. Behold: the titles you will never see in a Harlequin Presents novel.

The Painfully Shy Computer Geek’s Russian Bride

The Italian Tycoon’s Restraining Order

The Basement-Dwelling Mama’s Boy’s Virginity

The Stupid White Man’s Dark-skinned Secret Baby

The Heiress’ Purple Cheekbone Bruises

The Crack Whore’s Secret Babies, All Three of Them, Plus a Couple of Toddlers, Too (Hey Man, Who can Keep Track Of All Those Moving Things When You’re High?)

The Boardroom Mistress’s Sexual Harrassment Lawsuit

The Porn Star Thinks Positive

The Morbidly Obese Lady’s Secret Pregnancy

The Heir’s DID Mistress’s Other Personality’s Mail-Order Bride”

The Hungarian Tycoon’s Yugo

Love in the El Camino

The Billionaire’s Incontinent Wife

The Spaniard’s Mostly Virginal Bride, Because Anal Totally Doesn’t Count

The Greek’s Underage Cambodian Whore

A Scandalous Accounting Discrepancy

Pregnancy by Turkey Baster

The Billionaire’s Bulimic Supermodel Mistress

His Secret Weeping Sores

Bound by A Really Fat Dominatrix

The Disobedient Bottom

Herpes Infection of Revenge

Expecting the Playboy’s HIV Test To Come Back Negative

Fellating the Father of the Groom

The Secret of Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch

The Mediterranean Mogul’s Secret One-Testicled Lovechild

The Sheikh’s Obnoxious Halitosis

Via Sara Donati’s blog, I found this Slate article on Diana Gabaldon, the Outlander phenomenon and A Breath of Snow and Ashes.

Have I mentioned how very, very much I love being condescended to? Check out some of the steaming nuggets of wit and wisdom offered up in this article: