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

Elizabeth Wadsworth (paranormal): It is a truth universally acknowledged, that any single Vampire Lord newly arrived from Transylvania with a wad of cash and several wooden boxes of dubious function, must be in want not only of prime London real estate but several nubile females upon whom to slake his insatiable bloodlust.

Elizabeth Wadsworth (contemporary): “Damn you, Brad Parker, damn you to hell!” gritted Verity Toussaint, her pearly teeth clenched, full, moist pink lips compressed in an unfeminine snarl of frustrated rage, dark eyes flashing sparks like a malfunctioning electrical outlet as she struggled to contain the snarling beast held captive between her quivering, glistening thighs; then, with a wild mocking laugh in which triumph and revenge commingled, she gunned the vintage Harley forward and ground to a powder Brad’s cherished, fragile collection of Weird Tales pulp magazines.”

Lyvvie: Brandy let out a long sigh when she realized she was caught with no chance of escape from Captain Armatey, the filthy pirate, which was a big mistake as no sooner was the rib-expanding breath out of her then a faint ripping sound was heard traveling from her heart to her navel and suddenly her ample pink globes burst forth for all the see, heaving again and refusing to be restrained behind her dainty hands.

Lyvvie: Sophie was very nervous about having her “woman’s” examination in this new city with a new doctor. Yet when she saw Dr. Holding’s lush as an Irish field green eyes her knees fell open before he even had to ask her. When he ran the speculum under warm water before turning to her, she knew he was The One.

AnimeJune: Lady Eleanor Wadsworth-Pennington had always thought she’d understood her mother when she said, “Beware the rakes, they cause only pain and misery!” until she finally stepped on one and the stout wooden handle swooped up and smacked her on the face, breaking her nose and causing her to curse the lazy but irrepressible gardener Louis in a most unladylike manner.

AnimeJune: The interesting thing about living with one’s vampire boyfriend, thought Candace, was that they both craved comfort food at a certain time of the month, at the same time, and for exactly the same reason.

Marna: There was nothing quite like hearing protestations of love and devotion from a man on a second date while also hearing him thinking “How much more of this crap do I have to spout before she goes down on me?” to drive home to a girl just how much it really, truly sucked to be a telepath, completely unable to indulge in the pleasant fantasy that somewhere out there a man really was interested in intelligence, wit, charm; indeed anything more than big boobs, flat abs and an ass tight enough that he’d be able to bounce quarters off of it in some sort of obscure drinking game dreamed up in a college frat house ten years earlier.

MS Jones: The Billionaire’s Secret Foot Fetish
Sophia entered her Italian boss’s boardroom trepidatiously, ready to retreat like a snail, which she could do faster than any gastropod because the only similarity between her jelly shoes and a slimy Tuscan molluscan was the translucent shiny gleam so like her boss’s eyes when they fell upon her toes.

MS Jones: The Blood-Stained Glass
If Vheronica could have studied her reflection in the mirror she would have seen eyes the deep purple color of eggplant, lips that pouted like a pigeon in heat, and fangs like one of those sunsets when the sky is all kind of streaky red and yellow; but she was a vampire so she couldn’t.

MS Jones: The Ballad of the Bodacious Bust
Prudence swept onto the train platform, her bustle rustling like a passel of cattle thieves, marched up to Jake and said, “You’re my ticket out of here, cowboy,” and just to make sure he got her drift she ripped open her bodice to display breasts the creamy, soft consistency of Brie cheese.

Esri Rose: Portia Delacroix’s dainty kid slippers faltered to a halt beneath the whispering willows as two swarthy men, their faces hidden by filthy rags, stepped onto the path ahead of her only to run for their lives as Lord Rakeraven’s horse’s hooves, the size of French porcelain dinner plates, pawed the air above their greasy heads, its master shouting, “Lay a hand on her fair head and I’ll eat your nadgers on toast, come the morrow!”

Alex: Hi my name is Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way and I have long ebony black hair (that’s how I got my name) with purple streaks and red tips that reaches my mid-back and icy blue eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like Amy Lee (AN: if u don’t know who she is get da hell out of here!).

Carrie Lofty: Thrusting and thrusting again into the gasping blonde groupie sprawled across a hot pink Naugahyde loveseat, Leo “Nasty” Houston’s member was like a hard-working mole digging its winter shelter: its snout slick and hairless, blind to all but its instinctual purpose, and intensely fond of warm, dark, welcoming warrens.

Ellie: Trevor reached out a hand to his new bride, Valerie, who looked up at him through her eyelashes, her gaze an equal mix of fear and raw passion, and as he pulled her towards him, the scent of her hair, orange and jasmine, filled the air in the honeymoon suite, which was hot and close and full of promise, like a Southern summer night, but without all the June bugs.

Anonymiss: Whimpering prettily, as she had been taught, heiress Daphne du Bazoombas scolded her seamstress for using a zipper on her bodice instead of flimsly ribbon ties - how, she reasoned, was she supposed to meet the broodingly handsome titular Lord Manly Pectarious by page 20, receive three punishing kisses by page 65 (spurring heretofore never felt sensations in her regions de nether by page 66), and ultimately end up by page 93 in a windswept cliff-filled valley surrounded by rearing horses, Ionic columns, erect moonbeams and tangerine colored peacocks with Manly driving his knee improbably into her sacral spine and his hands rapaciously down her chemise (causing her mouth to form a perfect ‘o’ like the wedding band of gold he would give her no later than page 587 after she had borne him two children and one nasty rash), if for heaven’s sake he had to find and pull down one of those little zipper pulls that disappears into a seam?!

Lyra: The Pirate Rogue’s Nordic-Ethiopian Bride
Captain Llwyn trapped the jewel of his latest plundering between his leathery, anchorchain arms, regarding her with a smug, anticipatory grin that showed off his rotten and broken teeth to their full effect; she was a pretty one, this wench, with her dark, volcanic soil skin, her eyes the colour of his salty mistress after a storm, and her spun gold hair that tumbled and twisted in the air as if pulled by some non-existent breeze—he would enjoy the process of taming her, of teaching her that the proper place for a woman was strapped to the helm of his pirate ship as an ornament.

Lyra: Blood Drive
Pynylope shouldn’t have been surprised that it happened at twilight, dusky with its lacy, gently wafting curtains of cloud, her transformation to vampyredom; still, nothing prepared her for Edmynd revealed in his full glory: his eyes, green as phlegm from a congested kid’s nose, stalking her; his lips, redder than Cartier rubies, whispering sweet nothings; his teeth, spears more penetrating and sure to satisfy than any phallus, sinking into her flesh with a ripping, tearing sound that reminded her of the neighborhood butcher.

Ellie: If you make me marry him, Mother, I’ll kill myself!” screeched Alveola, referring to the Duke of Mahntitte, who was a cad and a scoundrel and scarred to boot, and the object of her deepest loathing, because she had not yet discovered that his daring playboy exterior was just a cover to hide the pain of an unhappy childhood, and he had gotten the scar duelling to defend the honor of Aldenta, her half-sister whom she would soon meet for the first time.

Karen: James Wright didn’t just think he was God’s gift to women, he was reminded of it every time a pretty little skirt decided to join him back at his place for a ride on his pony, if you know what I mean.

Suze: Miyuki gazed in wonder at the tall, very-long-legged, blue-eyed, silver-haired Japanese billionaire-ninja-rockstar-host who was also the president of their high school’s student council (so accomplished, and only 17!) and sighed happily, wondering why such a beautiful bishounen was so attracted to her short, plain, ordinary, nerd-like self that he needed to blackmail her into becoming his maid-mistress-secretary AND make her fill in for their missing maths teacher (and she was SO bad at maths!) by threatening to reveal to the school population that she worked part-time as a famous model in disguise; and she hoped desperately that she’d be able to get home (where she lived alone because her parents had recently been transferred overseas for two years, leaving her behind by herself) before her cruel lover’s legion of rabid fangirls chased her down and cut all her hair off, stole her shoes, and threw mud on her clothes.

Malin: Mama had always insisted that chasing after men was vulgar. Thus, Sophie (instead of stalking her man as would have been more convenient) was obliged to lay in wait along pathways, ready to pounce.

Laura: “She writhed against him, rotating her hips as though they were blades on a wind-powered turbine generator, the bulbous white expanses of her heaving breasts undulating like water balloons resting upon a vibrator powered by a bank of fully charged hybrid fuel cells.”

Gail S: IRIDIA AND THE SWORD OF LOVE
Iridia struggled, flailing her pearlescent limbs, thrashing her platinum-tressed head, heaving her creamy bosoms upward in a frantic battle to free herself from the dreams that held her captive, and yet did little more than free those bosoms, luscious, orbs glowing with the moon’s sensuous intensity, peaked with rosy tips the size, shape and hardness of erasers on the end of a pencil, from the diaphanous gauzy fabric of her gown, and all the while Hygenio, Duke of Alhambra, watched and lusted in his heart after her, as well as in the prodigiously hungry and growing sword of love in his groinal region.

Pamela: Bruce left a lasting impression, like those memory foam mattresses – sure, he was a bit dense and quick to mold to anyone who put pressure on him, but he offered firm support and automatically adjusted to weight fluctuations which more than made up for the occasional bit of off-gassing.

Lyra: The Argentine’s Secret Graveyard Mistress
Despite the sudden thunderstorm that plastered their clothes to their heated, writhing bodies, Francesca knew that they were too far gone in the throes of passion to stop and seek shelter in the memorial garden’s gazebo; Andreas, the gorgeous stallion of an Argentine she’d only met hours ago, ran his rough manly hands over her, eagerly denuding her body and exciting her to screams of ecstasy that surely would rouse the dead from their nearby graves.

Phadem: The Island
Olivia Pendlebottom was getting off that damn island, even if she had to hump a humpback to do it, but the only male in site was Timothy Bareback of the Derbyshire French Letter factory fame and as she was quite beyond the pale desperate at that point, she had only one last thought before the plunge: At least he’d come prepared.

Ellie: Victoriana was blonde, leggy, and had curves in all the right places, except the top of her head, which, Buck noticed, was actually quite pointy, not to mention, as he now couldn’t stop noticing it, very distracting.

Malin: Crossing the plaza with her arms full of books, Beth suddenly felt a horrible, consuming urge to scratch an intense itch in her crotch.

Marna: Mellisande d’Alagnace listened fearfully to the snorting and snuffling outside the thick oaken tower door, crossing herself and praying that this time it would be some great hunting hound instead of the Duc du Beringion, the man-beast bent on plundering her maidenly virtues and vast tracts of land.

Alex Ess: In the darkness of her room, Clarice thought of the day of her engagement when the maid had compared the size of the Duc’s machinery to a pepper grinder, and holding the pepper grinder against her body she wondered how she would be expected to move her lungs and liver out of the way for her betrothed.

Pamela: As the sun set below his beachfront mansion and Kyle strummed yet another love song in a voice as smooth as melted chocolate, Tiffany wondered that as handsome and rich as Kyle clearly was, could she ever marry a man who played air guitar in public?

Pamela: Bob hoped this blind date would be better than the last one who grilled him about his past not like a young Japanese chef with a sushi-grade tuna steak barely seared on the outside and tender on the inside, but with the brutal and determined thoroughness of his Aunt Gerda armed with a pan full of pork chops and a pathological fear of salmonella.

There are myriad issues surrounding their relationship, from letting go of their high school impressions of one another, and of the “jock” and “nerd” roles they played at that time, to determining whether acting on their attraction is worth the risk should they be caught, not to mention the obvious “is this a passing fancy or is this permanent?” wondering on the part of both parties. It’s been a while, now that I think about it, since I’ve read a story that includes the “does s/he like me, or does s/he like me like me” uncertainty. In this case, it was quaint and effective.

The story is told with a lot of head hopping between Brandon and Jake, so the reader experiences the story through a rapidly shifting point of view. That switching can be distracting, as there were moments when I wanted more of Brandon’s impressions or more of Jake’s perspective. Overall, I thought more of the story was explored from Brandon’s point of view, but Jake was a slightly more fascinating character to me: a silly, casual guy who loves sports, loves his job, and misses the opportunities that might have been his had his health and his joints not been sacrificed too early in this lifetime. But that is no slight to Brandon, who is quiet, adorably dedicated in the same way that Jake is to his job and his life, observant, wickedly smart and adaptable in most situations.

Two things that I noticed, one a minor nitpick. I wonder if one of the writers isn’t Australian, because I caught a few instances of Aussie idioms ("What are you on about?” and “good on you,” for example) that I couldn’t quite imagine folks in Georgia using - though one of my friends who lives in Georgia is an Aussie ex-pat, so maybe she’s influenced the world of gay romance. But if I go down South and hear someone ask me if I want a cuppa, I’m more than happy to admit I’m wrong on this one.

The other thing was a potential scene that I kept waiting to materialize but never did. Brandon is a former med student with two Masters degrees in various sciences. When Jake’s shoulder is seizing up on him, causing him considerable pain, Brandon (in a scene of electric sexual tension like yowzer boy howdy) gives him a massage, and explains where the injury is, revealing both his own understanding of human anatomy, and his ability to translate that in to a practical understanding for himself and the reader of how much pain Jake tolerates on a daily basis to simply do his job. Because Jake had surgery on his shoulder, knee, and ankle, and was pushed to keep playing by coaches and his own need for continued scholarship, his body bears a good amount of painful damage, and with Brandon’s explanation, Jake’s dedication and commitment to his teaching job and his coaching responsibilities become more than his joking, laid back persona reveal.

Brandon then offers Jake a massage, using equipment that he has at home from his med school days, and Jake grudgingly accepts - but no massage scene!? What what?! But, but! I was anticipating that scene for many reasons, and was so disappointed when it never arrived. One, hot hot! Two, electric tension, they has it. And three, the power dynamics in Brandon’s and Jake’s relationship are constantly shifting, but most of the time, Brandon is the fish out of water in Jake’s athletic world, and Jake is the individual with the most power, control, and authority. If Brandon gave Jake a therapeutic massage (or a non therapeutic one, nudge nudge, wink wink!) then the authors would have had the opportunity to show off even more of the depth of Brandon’s knowledge (which is holy shit considerable) and his dedication to his own medical school career. At the beginning of the novel Brandon mentions his doctorate, and when his overloaded schedule reaches a breaking point, he has to decide what to do with all his commitments, but I really missed this possible opportunity for these two characters.

However, I have to say, my goodness, I really liked this book. There wasn’t a tremendous amount of angst or “Oh, oh, the anti-gay lynch mob is after us!” fear, but both men acknowledged the reality of being gay within their community that seemed appropriate without being overwhelming. Caught Running grabbed me, and left me with a big fat smile on my face. Those who reject gay romance out of hand would do well to try this story, as it balances well the sexual, emotional, and social elements of contemporary romance between two very real and very captivating men.