February 16th, 2010 — About
5 Reasons why the unenlightened think we love romance novels:
10. We're bored and have nothing better to do. This explains why a good portion of us read in lines, just before the lights go off in a theater, between meetings, before class, and during our commute... because we have time to spare.
09. We don't have to think when we read romance! Great! Let's leave our brains at home because everybody knows romance novels are right up there with gossip, soap operas, and fashion and celebrity magazines.
08. Secretly, we love the trashy cover art. Clinches and clutches and heaving bosoms really appeal to us. Who doesn't love toting embarrassingly bulging mantitty in her purse?
07. We love romance because it's petticoat porn. (What and men don't like watching poorly filmed flicks off the internet? At least ours is intellectual- it's literature!)
06. Better yet, on top of loving it for porn we also love it because we have no sex life. This is our only way to experience sex... ie vicariously through fictional characters. Right... as if any woman couldn't go into any bar and ask any man if he wanted to go home with her and he wouldn't say yes.
Now for 5 real reasons to love romance novels:
05. Truly, we love romance because it's emotional porn. Two hanky reads anyone? Passes out tissues.
04. Happily Ever Afters. We love a great ending and knowing that no matter how many troubles and problems seem to mount up eventually they're solved and go away.
03. Variety. There's a romance out there for everyone. Many of us develop preferences and seek out stories that cater to them.
02. The heroine. She's everything we want to be or admire in others with the exception of the Too Stupid to Live Heroines.
And the number one reason women love romance novels is:
01. The hero... because we can fall a little bit in love with him every time we open a book to read.
Photo Credits: left-hand, jonrawlinson
Originally posted 2009-05-12 05:07:52. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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November 25th, 2009 — 3 Stars, Book Review, Bride Stealing, Doctor, Kidnapping, M-O, Rape/Abuse, Scandinavia, Survival, Viking, Warrior
His world was shattered two summers ago when on a trading voyage his farmstead was ransacked by Danes. His wife and unborn child were slaughtered. When the news reached him Wulf’s heart vowed to make the Danish rue the day they ever dared to set foot on his soil. His quest was a tidy package of vengeance, justice, and revenge. He did not separate the murderers that wronged him from the rest of the Danish people. He became known as Wulf the Ruthless far and wide. It was said he was a cold, cruel man without a heart and that compassion was a word he did know.
She was stolen from her farmland in the last of Wulf the Ruthless’ raiding campaigns. The heartless Viking destroyed her life and sold her to a slave trader. By some twisted hand of fate she winds up being purchased two years later by his brother and gifted to Wulf to be his thrall and bed slave. Reyna was horrified to learn that the man who raped her and forgot her would become her master. But there was one thing the Norseman did not take into account; that Reyna had spirit. She would never submit and he would rue the day he ever stepped onto her father’s land!
Sounds amazing right? It was okay. There were a lot of turgid and quivering members and heaving bosoms. Instead of plowing there was spearing. Reyna was too good to be true as a heroine who had been raped and then sold into slavery to a harem in the Byzantine. She could fight, heal, make passionate love as a near virgin, and talk back to the scary Norse warrior that she thought raped her.
Reyna saved Wulf three times from the same situation. The only difference between each time was the place and the names of those fighting. She saved him once fighting the Finnish as one crept up behind him and then again from the Danish on her home turf and lastly on his home turf again but I can’t remember the country… probably Swedes. Honestly how does Wulf survive in battle to earn the name Wulf the Ruthless, if a girl is always saving his hinny from cowardly warriors who come from behind? He’d be Wulf the Dead and Doesn’t Appear in This Book that’s who.
The book flowed pretty well and overall it wasn’t so bad, but it certainly wasn’t one of my all time favorites.
Rating: 3 Stars
Buy: Viking Warrior
Originally posted 2008-11-30 20:13:13. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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October 15th, 2009 — 5 Stars, ARC, About, Genre, S-U, V-Z
I won the Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches' Guide to Romance Novels in the SBTB ARC giveaway contest. When I got it in the mail I ripped the packaging and squeed! About two chapters into the guide my first thought beyond the squeeing was this...
English/Lit grad students working with romance novels: Smart Bitches just pwned your thesis. Scrap what you got and start over. Think I'm kidding? Ignore my advice and you will Not Pass Go and Collect $200 you'll just go straight to FAIL.
My second thought another two chapters down the road was...
SBTB has written the ultimate end all be all guide for romances. You won't be able to talk about romance again without using this book because they've covered it all: lead types, plot tropes, standard clichés, wtf moments, sex, and HEAs.
Sarah and Candy have written a terrific book. Their guide to romances will definitely bring tears of laughter to your eyes as well as enlighten readers to why women love to read romances... the shortcut answer is all about the hero and heroine... or maybe it's all in the Magic Hoo-Hoo? Hmm... tricky. I guess you'll have to read to find out for yourself.
The tone of the novel is set to read like your best friend breaking down the facts of romance for you to understand, potty language and crude jokes included. Pick this book up for no other reason than to read and learn about the different types of heroes and heroines. It's sure to bust your gut because you've probably come across at least one of each... like the too stupid to live heroine.
Overall, 5 Stars out of 5 Stars.
Fans and Scorners ignore Beyond Heaving Bosoms at your own peril... especially the scorners for we just might throw the 80s Rapist Hero at you.
Originally posted 2009-02-14 05:22:43. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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August 2nd, 2009 — A-C, Music and Video, News, V-Z
November 18th, 2008 — Covers, News
Publishers Weekly recently published an article on clinch covers. Since I've been running a segment on locating the next Fabio of romance novel models, I was immediately drawn to read the post. I was certain heaving bosoms, flowing hair, and orgasmic looks would be disclosed. I was pretty much right. Overall the article was pretty savvy I thought.
Two romance bloggers were quoted in it, Sarah from Smart Bitch and Kate of Romancing the Blog. Both bring up some very valid points on clinch covers. While never officially polled by readers in general, Sarah is confident based on several posts on trashing silly looking covers that readers hate clinch covers. They are "a complete and total embarrassment for the reader." Nothing screams trashy romance novel in my opinion more than a couple embracing on the cover!
This is why paperback book covers were created - its not to protect the book, it's to protect your ahem... virtue from the immaturity of those around you. Who here has had someone take the book they were reading and start searching for the sex sections and read them out loud? I certainly have been a victim of this. The worst instance was with purple headed warriors and womb-brooms... no joke. I was mortified even as I made fun of the passages too along side the other mockers. Who couldn't make fun of purple headed warriors? Still, when this happens you pretty much want to curl up and hide because stuff like that just gives the genre a bad name.
However, it's not just romance novels that are defined by a clinch style cover. Kate from Romancing the Blog says, "A clinch identifies the genre in a way that leaves no question about what you're getting between the covers." Can you name some clinch cliches belonging to other genres? I can - unicorns and flowery fairies with wings or sorceresses with long flowing robes make up fantasy novels. Though I am sure nobody's picked up a fantasy and mocked the reader for it... maybe a paranormal like a later Anita Blake.
Where do you fall on clinch covers? Love? Hate? Both?
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I can name four!
