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

Christine Sanders is an American heiress who inherits a considerable shipping fortune when her father dies. Her heinous uncle and legal guardian (Romance Novel Commandment Number 19: Thou Shalt Not Allow an Orphan Heroine to Have a Decent Guardian, Unless Thou Art Setting Up The Scene for a Guardian-Ward Romance) rushes her into marriage with Justin Delerue, Earl Smithton. Unfortunately, Christine hears some extremely unkind remarks bandied about by Justin and his best friend on the night before the wedding. You see, short of scoliosis and a lazy eye, Christine is inflicted with just about everything a young woman of her time dreads: she is six feet tall, obese and pimply. As a consequence, she feels socially awkward; in fact, she overhears this conversation as she hides in the balcony over the library, her nose in a book, hiding in the dust and looking out the window.

Caught between a less-than-stellar guardian and a fiancé who seems intent on marrying her, dumping her in Devon and then forgetting all about her, she decides the only way to freedom is to drug Justin on his wedding night. That way, she can run away and hope that Justin annuls the marriage once he realizes he’s been abandoned. Unfortunately, Justin’s trouser monster remains fully functional even after he’s been drugged, and the wedding night boinking commences. So much for an annulment. (Romance Novel Commandment Number 30: Thou Shalt Not Avoid Boinking, Even While Under The Influence of Narcotics)

Once he passes out for reals, Christine gets to haul her (rather substantial) ass to her godfather, Julius Davies, a former pirate who likes the lads. (And let Sarah just interject here: the meeting with Julius made me laugh out loud. For I ask you, if you were to meet a pirate, what would you expect him to say?)

While hiding out with him, she comes up with an idea: she can masquerade as a pirate and steal her fortune back by raiding Justin’s ships. Julius is skeptical, but Christine’s Staunch Determination persuades him, so he puts her through some rigorous training to effect her transformation from Christine Sanders into the pirate Christopher Daniels. Some of this training involves putting gourds in her pants, woot! Gourds in her pants to pee out of, too. Because the GoodVibes Softpack didn’t exist yet, sadly.

Oh, and besides turning her into a convincing man, they also take the extra precaution of hiring only gay pirates as their crew. Yes, you read right. A ship literally filled with asspirates. Except for the gunner and his companion, Sally, who is a goose. Yikes. But what’s a little bestiality between pirates, especially with a well-dressed goose who understands spoken English. And spoken pirate English.

After Christine/Christopher gets her swishbuckling crew together, the raiding commences and everything goes swimmingly, until Christine encounters the ship carrying his lordship. She uses the opportunity to capture him, bring him aboard her ship and demand a divorce. Justin, who had been going sick with worry for Christine ever since her disappearance, is at first shocked and furious that Christopher Daniels is actually his missing wife, then decides to use this opportunity to rock Christine’s boat. Ship. Whatever. Can their love survive the turbulent seas of misunderstanding, recriminations and the fact that Christine has a bigger gourd tucked away in her pants than Justin?

Courtesy of Sarah’s friend, Iron Lesbian #1.

I have absolutely nothing clever to say about this picture. Maybe later, when the feeling of horror has passed.

I’m reading Candy’s copy of Emma Holly’s Strange Attractions on the subway. In light of the debate about sexual language, terminology and propriety, I have to say, reading erotica in public gives me the frequent impulse to make sure I put my clothes on this morning.

Normally I have no embarrassment to read whatever romantic literature I want on the train. I mean, I sat down next to a woman who was, much to the shock and amusement of the women across from her, putting on her makeup and curling her eyelashes while on the train. And the train was moving. It was both fascinating and gross. I mean, no one wants to see eyelash torture devices in use in public, and no one wants to see the covers of some of the books I read, particularly the open-mouthed-clinch covers with the big phallic pillars in the background. I get some raised eyebrows if the cover is egregious, but hey, I don’t care. Anything’s better than curling your eyelashes.

But today, reading erotic literature, with bum humping and S&M and bondage and sex and humpity hump hump humpity hump hump look at Frosty go, I had to hold the book inches from my face. I look at what people are reading all the time. What books, what magazines, what genres - I’m always checking out other people’s reading material, and if someone glanced over my shoulder to the goings-on of the pages I read on the train… oh my.

I wouldn’t have been embarrassed per se, but I would have felt a little naked. I would hope if someone did glance over my shoulder they went to work with as nice a flush to their face as I did. Surely, their poor manners shouldn’t and won’t change what I read.

But I do have to say, reading the naughty naughty in venues where the literary equivalent of eavesdropping is possible and frequent does make a difference in how easily I lose myself in the prose. 

Meljean analyzes in detail why Teela and Prince Adam never got it on, with lots of pictures. And I mean LOTS of ‘em. See Cringer and Adam get caught in a compromising position! Ponder what lies under Skeletor’s loincloth! Speculate on who ultimately looks more gay: He-Man, or Prince Adam? (I still say He-Man takes the cake. You KNOW he has a Digweed and Sasha CD at home that he dances to all the time while using his sword as a glowstick, all the while wistfully wishing Man-At-Arms would take him away like Calgon.)

Step 1: Instead of ass say buns, like “kiss my buns” or “you’re a buns hole”

Step 2: Instead of shit say poo, as in “bull poo”, “poo head” and this “poo is cold”

Step 3: With bitch drop the t because bich is latin for generosity

Step 4: Dont say fuck any more because fuck is the worst word that you can say

So just use the word mmmkay!

Big flappedy-flap-flap going on about those naughty words certain romance authors like to use and those naughty acts these same authors like to write about.

A quote from a letter to the editor published in the RWR:

“There’s a big difference between sensual romance and erotica, and I think we made a big mistake in lowering our standards to accept such a publisher.”

Ahhhh. Right. Must not lower those professional standards. Nope.

Let’s play a game. Guess which type of passage I MUCH prefer reading (and which sounds more professionally-written, period):

A. She had even pretended to be a man while on the opium-carrying ship! Even though dressed again like a man this night, she at least admitted to being a woman, which she most surely was!

B. Trembling now, Eric tried to breathe as steadily as his friend. His own erection felt like a club, hot behind the cloth B.G.’s feather-light caresses tugged. His employer was always gentle, always careful not to hurt. It was the only complaint Eric ever had.

Passage A contains no mention of sex at all, but frankly, I find it much more offensive that a book containing sentences like that (and trust me, the book this was excerpted from was FULL of gems like those) was published.

Now sit down and brace yourself, because this may come as a BIG FUCKING SHOCK (whoops, sorry, BIG MMM-KAYING SHOCK), but I generally don’t judge the merits of a book solely on sex scenes or whether naughty language is used. If the characters engage me, if the craft is solid, if the plot is entertaining, I’ll enjoy the book whether it had 20 sex scenes or none at all. What a revolutionary concept!

And actually, if the romance novel (especially a contemporary) contains explicit sex scenes like, ohhhh, say, humping of the ta-tas, and the characters don’t dare to so much as say “cock” or even “penis” and instead use ridiculous euphemisms like “arousal” or “manhood,” I WILL laugh at inappropriate moments, read the passage out loud to my husband so HE can laugh too, then proceed to make fun of it in excruciating detail in on a website I run with an equally snarky partner. There’s a time and place when no-nonsense descriptions and those naughty Anglo-Saxon words come in handy, people.

I understand that reading about throbbing staffs and moist orifices being violated in a variety of graphic ways does not float everyone’s boat. That’s cool--there are PLENTY of books out there with non-graphic sex scenes. But why these prudes gotta ruin my shit and try to make it harder (huh huh, I said hard) for these books to be published? Leave me to my happy, pervy, foul-mouthed fun, goddammit. I’m certainly not lobbying to have romances that use too many exclamation points or ellipses be banned, no matter how much it offends my tender sensibilities.

Anyway, I’m not going to say any more, because Sylvia, Shannon, Monica and HelenKay have done a more than adequate job of stating how I feel, and repetition is tiresome.