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

Because Romances are written so tightly to genre, and the predictability factor is so important to their buyers, they can’t overhaul their image that much. The explicitness of the sex scenes is the only wiggle room they have.

Whuh? Has this woman checked out the romance section in her local bookstore lately? Horny vampires (color vision optional). Chaste Christians. Werewolves. Spies. Assassins. Navy SEALs. High-in-the-instep aristocrats. Fairies. Witches. Mermaids. Rock stars. Poets. Actors. Nurses. Doctors. Threesomes. BDSM. Murders. Betrayal. Adultery. Secret babies. Cowboys. Sheikhs.

So, uh, sex is the ONLY wiggle room romance authors have? Bull. Fucking. Shit. The only requirements for romance novels to be considered as such, near as I can tell are:

1. It must be a love story and focus on the budding romantic relationship (usually between a man and a woman, but erotic romances are fast changing that).

2. There must be some kind of commitment and happily-ever-after ending.

Draconian constraints, indeed.

When a woman buys a traditional Romance, it’s like a hardcore porn fan buying a XXX video. She wants her money shot. She does not want distractions. She wants familiarity, to connect with “the childhood masturbatory feeling,” as my friend and offbeat Romanticist Pam Rosenthal so perfectly described to me.

You can say very much the same thing about ANY book in ANY genre. Do mystery fans buy a book just so they can read about how the mystery is unsolved, the investigator is dead halfway through the book and the murderer/other variety of Very Nasty Person still running loose? Do erotica authors buy a book so they can be lectured on the evils of sex? Hell no. People buy books because they EXPECT something. If I pick up a literary novel about a Jewish family’s internment in a concentration camp during WWII, then by golly by God I expect a story about just that; I certainly don’t want blue fairies with tentacles to show up out of nowhere and turn it into a Merry Gentry novel.

The point is: Closure matters. Expectations matter. There’s no difference whether the book is literary fiction like A Sacred Hunger (can’t recommend that book highly enough, by the way--GO GO GO READ READ READ) or an SF novel like Hyperion or a romance like Bet Me. If enjoying fiction and the closure it brings = shooting my wad into my own hand, then consider me a chronic masturbator--and proud of it.

The tension between Erotica vs. Romance isn’t sex, it’s writing style.

Nope. I’d say three things separate erotica from romance:

1. Romance focuses more on romantic relationship, erotica more the sexual relationship.

2. HEA is de rigueur for romance, but not for erotica.

3. Erotica HAS to include sex. How’s that for conforming to formula? Romances can skip the sex entirely and still work. How’s that for busting a genre convention?

Let me examine one of these desires as an example: Inter-racial relationships. Even though they are an exploding statistic in American life, they are still frowned upon- to say the least. (...) However, in “Romance World,” everyone is likely to be in bed with someone of a different “color” than themselves. White women with black men, and black women with white men, is a hot ticket.

I know I’m not up on the hippest, happening-est romance trends. Fergawdsake, I discovered MaryJanice Davidson and Emma Holly just a couple of months ago. But inter-racial relationships are common in romance novels? What. The. Fuck. I have read hundreds--actually, come to think of it, I’ve read well over a thousand romance novels in my lifetime. Romances featuring inter-racial couples that I’ve read are as follows:

The China Bride by Mary Jo Putney
Harvard’s Education by Suzanne Brockmann
White Tigress by Jade Lee

In each book, the inter-racial aspect was NOT glossed over (though I read the Brockmann book so long ago that I can’t remember much about it); the concerns about two different races marrying were very, very real and are central issues in the book.

Now, if she’d addressed how class issues are handled in European historical romances, THAT would’ve been more on the money.

Another Romance fetish is overt bondage, and domination/submission. Rape/forced sex is de rigeur.

Oh yes. That infamous preponderance of rape in modern romances. I’ll just repeat what I said in my drive-by bitching, with minor modifications: “Do you wish that Susie Bright has read romance novels that were published in the last 10, 15 years instead of being stuck in Woodiwisslandia, circa 1975? Yeah, me too.”

You know how women’s bodes are the ones that always have to be perfect in porn, even if the men are kinda droopy or overweight?  It’s the same with romance, in reverse. The men’s bodies are all PUMPED— the women can be whatever. Her imperfections are irrelevant or sympathetic; the hero has to be an oiled stud muffin. Fabio is Jenna is Fabio.

OK, she has a point here. But not all romance readers find grotesquely muscular men attractive, and not all romance readers find Fabio to be the beau ideal. I certainly don’t. I love me a nice, skinny nerd hero like Jack Langdon in The Devil’s Delilah. Oh, wait, it doesn’t feature rape, which according to Bright is de rigueur for a romance. Maybe it’s not a romance novel after all. *wrinkles forehead in deep thought*

The biggest difference between my Best American Erotica and one of the “Sexxxy” Romances isn’t the sex… it’s the style of the writing (genre vs. literary fiction). Every romance has a ‘happy, monogamous ending” while BAE stories are more diverse, without that guarantee.

She’s clearly talking about two different things here but conflating them into one. One is writing style, and the other is genre constraints. Erotica has a genre constraint, and it’s every bit as inflexible as the HEA ending demanded of all romance novels: it has to have sex. Loads of it. In fact, it has to BE mostly about sex. What constitutes a literary writing style is certainly up for debate, and I’ve encountered romance novels that feature beautiful, literary prose. Laura Kinsale, for example, does quite well in that regard.

In the same way that sci-fi and mystery novels historically became more psychological and complicated, the same thing is happening to romance, which has been the infantile genre the longest. The women still love their romances-- like loving their Barbie Doll-- but they’re buying other things now too.

Yowwwch. Not only am I a mental masturbator, I’m now a child for reading romances. And apparently my reading tastes are not diverse. I guess reading everything from SF/F to veterinary textbooks to literary fiction to children’s books to old adventure stories to romance novels to scientific non-fiction (I need to spend more quality time with Fabric of the Cosmos, dammit) doesn’t qualify. Maybe I need to read more erotica?

Romance readers are not remaining “monogamous;” their reading interests are diversifying.

Heh. From what I’ve heard and read, romance readers are some of the most voracious, diverse readers there are in the market.

If they break formula, they’ll be a better writer.

Sweet. I want to become the first erotica author to write an erotic novel all about the salubrious effects of abstinence, with nary a sex scene in it. How’s THAT for breaking formula?

However, I’m of mixed feelings regarding the Garden trilogy. I’m a little tired of paranormal-Noras. I liked the witch family in the Donovan series (there were four books in that series, which was originally a Silhouette release) and I was ok with the Keys saga, though I got tired of the magic fireworks shazaam-pow-woosh effects without an explanation as to how the characters knew they had it or how to use that magic.

But the ghosts, spirits, and otherworldly characters, particularly the malevolent ones? They don’t thrill me. Particularly Roberts’, as she usually gives them such a backstory and character development.

I’m willing to bet that either Nora or her agent/editors sat down, examined the trends, and said, “We need to access the paranormal market! There have been witches in two series and we’ve been there, done that. We’ve had a few psychics here and there, but we need ghosts! Ghosts, I tell you!”

Enter the Garden trilogy, with a crazy, whackass antagonist ghost who is either marvelously benevolent or trying to kill the characters, and it really isn’t doing it for me. I like Roberts’ books for the depth and the emotional struggles of the protagonists, particularly the men, as I think she writes some fantastic heroes. But ghosts? I don’t give a crap about ghosts. I know the ghost isn’t going to be a permanent part of the entire story, and it’s not like one of the characters will fall head-over-feet for a phantom.  The paranormal-Noras are too obvious: ghost has unsettled business, therefore happily ever after for each pair and for the over-arcing storyline in the trilogy cannot be reached until ghost’s business has been dealt with, minutes respectfully submitted, and ghost-to-do list crossed off in the characters’ Day Planners.

Roberts used to write some clever conflicts between the protagonists, too, and inserting paranormal external conflicts puts a burden on her ability to create, knot together, and unwind those conflicts. I like Roberts for her internal struggles, an the heroes and heroines who have to overcome personal stuff as well as interpersonal mess, and while there is always some tracable change, including in the Garden trilogy, the external influence of said ghost takes up way too much time for my taste. Other writers have introduced paranormal elements as antagonists, or even protagonists in one young adult series I encountered, and it didn’t detract from the characters’ development. With Paranormal Noras, the main characters definitely get the shaft as the paranormal elements evolve. In the Garden trilogy specifically, the ghost is almost part of a menage a trios.  (Now that would be interesting).

This might be the first time a Roberts trilogy will stop for me after the first book. 

The book starts off promisingly enough, then degenerates into a morass of misunderstandings that includes every one of the not-inconsiderable secondary cast of characters. The ending is also one of the most odd, drawn-out resolutions I’ve ever read; it’s almost like watching clowns pouring out of a car: just when you think “OK, the last clown is out, show over” another one hops out, does a soft-shoe then drags out yet another compatriot hidden in the trunk, who in turn reaches into the car and presents to us a midget hidden under the back seat.

Gina, Duchess of Girton was married to her childhood friend Camden when she was only 11 and he was only 18. Why exactly they had to be married remains a mystery to me. It’s all incredibly silly: Gina is illegitimate, the product of her father’s liaison with a hot French countess (gotta love those wacky, slutty French countesses). She was unceremoniously dumped at his household when only a few weeks old because the countess didn’t want to be burdened with a child. Her father and her stepmother decided to raise her as their own, and the secret is quite neatly kept until she’s 11, when a blackmailing letter arrives out of the blue threatening to out Gina’s bastardry.

So what do these seemingly rational adults do? Well, Gina’s stepmother’s brother—then the Duke of Girton—calls his son, Cam, down from Oxford to marry the 11-year-old he’s known as his first cousin all his life. How or why this averts scandal or foils the blackmailer completely escapes me, but for whatever reason it worked. Maybe the tactic was so outrageously silly that poor blackmailer was confused and reckoned he’d better stop demanding money from a bunch of lunatics.

Unfortunately, Cam is so outraged by the whole business that he literally leaps out the window after the ceremony (yes, this is indeed a silly book, and the more I have to recount the plot the sillier it seems) and runs away to Greece, where he is free to follow his heart’s desire: sculpt naked women out of marble.

Eleven years down the road, Gina falls in love with Sebastian, Marquess Bonnington, and writes to Cam requesting an annulment. Cam decides to be a good sport. He’s quite fond of Gina, after all, and has kept up a correspondence with her all these years; he just doesn’t want to be married to her. So he returns to England to file the papers. It seems simple enough—that is, until he meets Gina at a house party.

Oh my, the little girl has filled out. He finds himself attracted to the lively, somewhat dashing young woman Gina has become. Then he meets her fiancé, Sebastian. He very accurately classifies him as a prig, and he rapidly realizes that the two of them will be miserable together. Gina is coming to the same realization as well. Sounds good, right? But there are so many obstacles in their way…

Oh, wait. There aren’t. But this doesn’t stop them from manufacturing a few from thin air, of course.

And then there are the secondary romances. First of all, there’s Gina’s friend, Carola Perwinkle. She has been estranged for years from her husband, Tuppy. Why? Because losing her virginity hurt. Oh, and because Tuppy likes to fish and talk about fishing. No, I shit you not. Boiled down to its essence, these are the two reasons for the estrangement. Carola abandons Tuppy in a fit of hysterics mere days after wedding, then in a series of increasingly silly misunderstandings, pushes off the possibility of reconciliation further and further.

Their eventual reunion is sweet enough that it made me go “awwww,” but it also left me feeling incredibly depressed because I just absolutely KNOW Carola is going to pitch a shit-fit over something inconsequential a couple of days down the line and poor Tuppy will be too thickheaded to figure out anything and she’ll just end up moving out in a huff again and really, when I think about Carola all quivering and teary-eyed YET AGAIN I want to bawl out of sheer exasperation myself.

And then there’s Esme Rawlings. You know how in a group of fictional girlfriends there’s always the smart one, the stupid one, the tomboy and the slut? Heh. Anyway, Esme and her husband, Miles, have been estranged for years and years, though for much better reason than Carola and Tuppy: Miles is much older than Esme, and he meets and falls in love with a woman he’s much better suited to after he’s married. Esme has quite the reputation for being a heartbreaker and harlot du jour, though of course it’s quite exaggerated. So guess which completely inappropriate hunka burnin’ love she longs for. Just guess. To give James due credit, she gave plenty of clues but I still didn’t see it until it was right in front of me.

But man, the showdown between her and her light o’ love (I understand their love story becomes a running theme in the three books that follow Duchess in Love) towards of the end of the book just about takes the cake for Dumb Misunderstanding. Ah well, at least the author puts a fresh new spin to it, instead of resorting to conniving parents, cross-dressing and/or long-lost brothers with criminal tendencies.

Oh, wait, scratch the last one, because believe or not, there IS one of those in this book, though he doesn’t belong to Esme, and he doesn’t really cause any misunderstandings. Why exactly he’s in the book at all is a mystery, but then why anything is in this book tends to be pretty enigmatic on the whole, so why mess with a system like that?

The only reason why this book doesn’t dip right into the D range is because of the extremely engaging characters. Gina, Cam, Esme, Sebastian, and yes, even Carola and Tuppy are adorable and fun to read about. Just when I think that, say, Gina and Carola have shot right into the stratospheric heights of stupidity, never to return, they redeem themselves and figure shit out. Or at least Gina figures shit out; Carola just whimpers about how chubby she is and quivers like warm jelly, which, come to think of it, pretty damn well represents what’s sloshing around in her brain box.

So in short: a very entertaining book on the whole, though the plot is… frantic? Yes, frantic and somewhat incoherent. Again, not unlike Carola. Hmmm. I do have to give it this: I did keep turning the pages very briskly just to see what the hell else was going to happen. I just wish I didn’t get the sense that while writing the book, James had a huge wheel in her office labeled with every plot contrivance known to literature (and a few new ones she made up on the spot) and that every 55 pages or so she gave it a vigorous spin, just to keep us on our toeses.