Musings of the Obsessive Kind

When I was younger, I was volubly dismissive of anyone who read romance novels for anything but sex scenes. Now I am older and mellower and will willingly admit that I enjoy the frothy heavy-breathing world of those books sometimes. Still, there are certain things that are ridiculous - if a romance novel has them, I will likely laugh at them and never ever pick up the book again.

Here they are.

Pets are great and so are lovers but I fail to see the need to combine them both

I am referring to the new popularity for were-anythings. I believe that if heroine wants someone who drools, rolls around in mud, and has a potential for biting, she should get a dog. I really do not get the recent obsession with romance novel heroes which bark at the moon a few times a month. Leaving anything else aside, the shedding has got to be horrendous. I fail to see anything sexy in a man who is a leopard, a tiger, or a swan (indeed!) part of the time. If I want to see a wild animal, I will go to the zoo. I suppose this would be heaven for a furry, however.

The word 'mate' should never be used outside of a nature documentary

Self-evident. Usually used in novels where the heroine or hero is a were-something. Who can imagine anything sexier than your significant other referring to what you do in bed together in terms usually used on Discovery Channel? Also, anyone who can refer to their significant other as a 'mate' without laughing is probably someone I do not want to be around.

Devil is not an acceptable boy's name

Ahhhh, who doesn't want to name their delightful bundle of joy Devil or Satan or Sin or Prizefighter? OK, I kid about that last one (I hope) but I have certainly seen all the other ones in various romance novels as names of the macho macho heroes. JR Ward's entire series is a horrifying lesson in what atrocities one can perpetrate with a naming scheme if one has a crazed imagination and utter disregard for spelling (Rhevenge? Really?) Let's face it, unless part of hero's secret sorrow is that he is a child of devil worshippers or hippies with a sense of irony, he is NOT going to be named Lucifer. Just take it on faith. Especially in a period novel unless the parents want him in the neighborhood ducking pond while they get burned for being satan-worshippers. Which leads me directly to my next point.

Jessica is NOT a medieval name

When you think of names Jessica or Jason a lot of things come to mind. Medieval individuals are not one of those. Yet all these and more are names I have seen in novels set in 12th century or 15th century or what not. I don't care how fierce and manly your Saxon warrior lord hero is, he is not going to be named Dirk. Hrothgar or Abeordan, possibly, Dirk - no. If you hate the period-appropriate names so much, perhaps you should write in an era where names you like can at least plausibly be used. No, Eleanor of Acquitaine isn't going to have a court lady named Marissa. Your Victorian heroine will not be named Jennifer. Muriel and Ida may not roll off your tongue the same way, but trust me, at least they will not leave any reader of yours with any familiarity with any time period before 1960 rolling her eyes and laughing.

The Case of the Improbable Virgin

You all know the scenario - the heroine may be a widow, kidnapped by pirates, even a courtesan or a harem girl, but she has never been with anyone but a hero regardless. Good Lord must have intervened himself, otherwise I am not sure how that could ever occur. And even if she is not *gasp* a virgin, she must have been a victim of rape (for hero to heal her with his penis) or, at the most, never enjoyed it before with her previous boyfriend/husband. Just once I want a courtesan heroine who knows what she is doing in the sack.

Who doesn't want to die of influenza or smallpox?

I have a special loathing for time-travel novels in which modern heroine goes back in time and decides to stay there, abandoning all her modern family and friends, not to mention healthcare and lack of endemic violence, in order to live with a studly hunk. I want to take the silly twit and shake her, asking: "you do realize there are no antibiotics, you have few rights, you can die in childbirth, you can never travel much due to logistics, you new husband will be off on regular murdering and raping expeditions, and you and your new loved ones are subject to a high chance of violent death" whenever some modern day PhD ditches it all to shack up with a Viking.

Pirates, God's gentlest creatures

There are some professions where the author has to bend over backwards to be able to convince me that the hero should shack up with the heroine instead of being hanged - pirates, highwaymen. But usually she believes that having the man in question be sexy and have an open shirt is enough. Heroine, I hate to tell you, but unless you found the world's sole Quaker Pirate, he probably has enough STDs to fill up a hospital ward and is a repeat violent criminal and rapist. Enjoy.

Everything is better with a little rape

I don't particularly care if people have rape fantasies but it's a little hard to sell a rapist as a viable romantic prospect. Many an author seems to believe that if the guy is hot, it's not rape. Hate to break it to you, lady, but if she stuggles away and says no, it's rape even if the guy is an Adonis and she has the best orgasm of her life (that's another point - if one is being raped, I fail to see why the mere fact of the guy being hot would matter enough to make one aroused. It's one thing if it's a weird form of kinky play or the woman has some odd rape fetish tastes, but in novels it is never presented this way).

Medieval Russian Vegetarians FTW

Ah yes. Please make sure whichever characteristics you give your protagonists, they are at least vaguely consistent with the time period. Vegentarianism is, no doubt, a praiseworthy lifestyle, and there are a number of time-periods and cultures where you can have a vegetarian heroine. The court of Ivan the Terrible is not one of them. I remember laughing myself sick reading some romance novel where court lady at Ivan's court was a tender, fluffy-bunny vegetarian. Indeed. There was also a novel where a medieval heroine happily cooked potatoes and tomatoes for her kin. She also had a dowry of 50,000 pounds which was probably the entire annual budget of the Crown at the time. Just a teeny bit of research won't kill you, I promise.

There are other people living in England beside Earls

If the romance novels are any indication, 18th-19th century England was filled shoulder-to-shoulder with hot young noblemen, so much so that if you added even one more, England would get so crowded some of them would start falling off into the sea for lack of space. There can't be that many of them! What's wrong about having an untitled hero? Or even *gasp* a merchant or a lawyer? Or, and I know this is shocking, a working-class one? The horrors, the horrors, I know. But it might be fun.

What are your pet peeves?

When I was younger, I was volubly dismissive of anyone who read romance novels for anything but sex scenes. Now I am older and mellower and will willingly admit that I enjoy the frothy heavy-breathing world of those books sometimes. Still, there are certain things that are ridiculous - if a romance novel has them, I will likely laugh at them and never ever pick up the book again.

Here they are.

Pets are great and so are lovers but I fail to see the need to combine them both

I am referring to the new popularity for were-anythings. I believe that if heroine wants someone who drools, rolls around in mud, and has a potential for biting, she should get a dog. I really do not get the recent obsession with romance novel heroes which bark at the moon a few times a month. Leaving anything else aside, the shedding has got to be horrendous. I fail to see anything sexy in a man who is a leopard, a tiger, or a swan (indeed!) part of the time. If I want to see a wild animal, I will go to the zoo. I suppose this would be heaven for a furry, however.

The word 'mate' should never be used outside of a nature documentary

Self-evident. Usually used in novels where the heroine or hero is a were-something. Who can imagine anything sexier than your significant other referring to what you do in bed together in terms usually used on Discovery Channel? Also, anyone who can refer to their significant other as a 'mate' without laughing is probably someone I do not want to be around.

Devil is not an acceptable boy's name

Ahhhh, who doesn't want to name their delightful bundle of joy Devil or Satan or Sin or Prizefighter? OK, I kid about that last one (I hope) but I have certainly seen all the other ones in various romance novels as names of the macho macho heroes. JR Ward's entire series is a horrifying lesson in what atrocities one can perpetrate with a naming scheme if one has a crazed imagination and utter disregard for spelling (Rhevenge? Really?) Let's face it, unless part of hero's secret sorrow is that he is a child of devil worshippers or hippies with a sense of irony, he is NOT going to be named Lucifer. Just take it on faith. Especially in a period novel unless the parents want him in the neighborhood ducking pond while they get burned for being satan-worshippers. Which leads me directly to my next point.

Jessica is NOT a medieval name

When you think of names Jessica or Jason a lot of things come to mind. Medieval individuals are not one of those. Yet all these and more are names I have seen in novels set in 12th century or 15th century or what not. I don't care how fierce and manly your Saxon warrior lord hero is, he is not going to be named Dirk. Hrothgar or Abeordan, possibly, Dirk - no. If you hate the period-appropriate names so much, perhaps you should write in an era where names you like can at least plausibly be used. No, Eleanor of Acquitaine isn't going to have a court lady named Marissa. Your Victorian heroine will not be named Jennifer. Muriel and Ida may not roll off your tongue the same way, but trust me, at least they will not leave any reader of yours with any familiarity with any time period before 1960 rolling her eyes and laughing.

The Case of the Improbable Virgin

You all know the scenario - the heroine may be a widow, kidnapped by pirates, even a courtesan or a harem girl, but she has never been with anyone but a hero regardless. Good Lord must have intervened himself, otherwise I am not sure how that could ever occur. And even if she is not *gasp* a virgin, she must have been a victim of rape (for hero to heal her with his penis) or, at the most, never enjoyed it before with her previous boyfriend/husband. Just once I want a courtesan heroine who knows what she is doing in the sack.

Who doesn't want to die of influenza or smallpox?

I have a special loathing for time-travel novels in which modern heroine goes back in time and decides to stay there, abandoning all her modern family and friends, not to mention healthcare and lack of endemic violence, in order to live with a studly hunk. I want to take the silly twit and shake her, asking: "you do realize there are no antibiotics, you have few rights, you can die in childbirth, you can never travel much due to logistics, you new husband will be off on regular murdering and raping expeditions, and you and your new loved ones are subject to a high chance of violent death" whenever some modern day PhD ditches it all to shack up with a Viking.

Pirates, God's gentlest creatures

There are some professions where the author has to bend over backwards to be able to convince me that the hero should shack up with the heroine instead of being hanged - pirates, highwaymen. But usually she believes that having the man in question be sexy and have an open shirt is enough. Heroine, I hate to tell you, but unless you found the world's sole Quaker Pirate, he probably has enough STDs to fill up a hospital ward and is a repeat violent criminal and rapist. Enjoy.

Everything is better with a little rape

I don't particularly care if people have rape fantasies but it's a little hard to sell a rapist as a viable romantic prospect. Many an author seems to believe that if the guy is hot, it's not rape. Hate to break it to you, lady, but if she stuggles away and says no, it's rape even if the guy is an Adonis and she has the best orgasm of her life (that's another point - if one is being raped, I fail to see why the mere fact of the guy being hot would matter enough to make one aroused. It's one thing if it's a weird form of kinky play or the woman has some odd rape fetish tastes, but in novels it is never presented this way).

Medieval Russian Vegetarians FTW

Ah yes. Please make sure whichever characteristics you give your protagonists, they are at least vaguely consistent with the time period. Vegentarianism is, no doubt, a praiseworthy lifestyle, and there are a number of time-periods and cultures where you can have a vegetarian heroine. The court of Ivan the Terrible is not one of them. I remember laughing myself sick reading some romance novel where court lady at Ivan's court was a tender, fluffy-bunny vegetarian. Indeed. There was also a novel where a medieval heroine happily cooked potatoes and tomatoes for her kin. She also had a dowry of 50,000 pounds which was probably the entire annual budget of the Crown at the time. Just a teeny bit of research won't kill you, I promise.

There are other people living in England beside Earls

If the romance novels are any indication, 18th-19th century England was filled shoulder-to-shoulder with hot young noblemen, so much so that if you added even one more, England would get so crowded some of them would start falling off into the sea for lack of space. There can't be that many of them! What's wrong about having an untitled hero? Or even *gasp* a merchant or a lawyer? Or, and I know this is shocking, a working-class one? The horrors, the horrors, I know. But it might be fun.

What are your pet peeves?

So, finished Foley's Lord of Fire because I almost always finish any book I start (look, I got through The Klansman, the novel on which Birth of a Nation is based, this is nothing in comparison).

If you think the author managed to successfully make me like the hero by the end, you would be sorely mistaken. Surely, romance novel fails when bare few pages away from the end, when the hero's non-evil-lunatic bother offers heroine protection of his name because he feels responsible for what hero put her through, I keep chanting "go for it go for it go for it!" I am willing to believe hero loves her - he's a needy mess, and I am sure hero and heroine will have a happy marriage - she is a Stockholm Syndrome doormat, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Anyway, after this charming experience, I would have been happy to never read Gaelen Foley again, but unfortunately, I bought two books of hers - Lord of Ice in addition to the above-mentioned atrocity that was LoF (hey, they were $5 each and I liked the first novel of hers I read before them so I was willing to take the chance).

So, I gingerly started LoI and, shock of shocks I really like it! I don't think it's the best novel ever written or anything but the heroine is spunky, full of independence and initiative, and the hero actually behaves like a decent human being! Not to mention the meet-cute of 'walking away after taking no for an answer, then seeing her attacked by four murderers and killing the guys' is a lot more up my alley than 'dragging her off for molestation during an orgy and then kidnapping her.'

Hero suffers from awful PTSD after the Napoleonic Wars but still somehow manages not to rape/kidnap/molest anyone. Shocking! I was especially amused when he considered visiting a hooker and then was all "I have bad episodes, what if I hurt her? Oh...right. I'll give her a gun so she can shoot me if I go out of my mind." See, that I can get behind.

Ah, and now I remember why I gave up on romance novels - blistering hero hate!

I got lulled into security by reading four romances in a row where the heroes were likeable, treating heroine and others around them with respect, and not in need of reform.

But that's all right.

Things are back to normal with Gaelen Foley's Lord of Fire. What an apt name for the novel because that is precisely what I want to do to the hero - stick him into the fire and have some barbeque while he roasts.

OK, let's get down to this hypothetical. You are a young woman and this is your experience with a guy - you first see him presiding over a disgusting dusgusting orgy during which he drags you off against your will (and you fully believes for raping), sticks a pistol between your eyes, and feels you up everywhere against your will. Even when he finds out you are actually the sister-in-law of his mistress, come to fetch her to her sick child, and have never done anything improper or sexual in your life, he still offers you some sex.

Next morning, he tells you that only one of the two, you or your sister-in-law, can go to the sick kid, because he knows you treasure the child and wants to use your weakness for the kid to get you in his clutches.

OK, in this hypothetical, if you are in any way sane, are you going to (a) assume this is a horrible monster who deserves to be castrated and soon the hero of the piece will appear to help you heat the knives or (b) decide that all of this is OK because he's hot and angsty.

If you picked (a), congrats, you are a normal human being. If you picked (b), my condolences, you are Galen Foley.

I am supposed to believe the heroine feels physically drawn to him after that? In what Universe, unless she is a closet BDSM afficionado with a rape fetish?

How on earth the author expects me to root for them as a couple is beyond me. As it is, there is some evil French spy who supposedly wants to off our "hero" and I keep hoping he will succeed. I mean, when "hero" was relieving his hideous torture at French dude's hands, my reaction was not "poor woobie" but a "serves you right, you bastard!" and a fierce desire that the French Dude do it again.

This is all the more disappointing because the reason I got this sick-making book was because I finished Foley's The Duke and really enjoyed it - the hero *gasp* had morals, was in no need of reform, and actually listened when heroine told him "no".

Now excuse me, I need to go barf.

Ah, and now I remember why I gave up on romance novels - blistering hero hate!

I got lulled into security by reading four romances in a row where the heroes were likeable, treating heroine and others around them with respect, and not in need of reform.

But that's all right.

Things are back to normal with Gaelen Foley's Lord of Fire. What an apt name for the novel because that is precisely what I want to do to the hero - stick him into the fire and have some barbeque while he roasts.

OK, let's get down to this hypothetical. You are a young woman and this is your experience with a guy - you first see him presiding over a disgusting dusgusting orgy during which he drags you off against your will (and you fully believes for raping), sticks a pistol between your eyes, and feels you up everywhere against your will. Even when he finds out you are actually the sister-in-law of his mistress, come to fetch her to her sick child, and have never done anything improper or sexual in your life, he still offers you some sex.

Next morning, he tells you that only one of the two, you or your sister-in-law, can go to the sick kid, because he knows you treasure the child and wants to use your weakness for the kid to get you in his clutches.

OK, in this hypothetical, if you are in any way sane, are you going to (a) assume this is a horrible monster who deserves to be castrated and soon the hero of the piece will appear to help you heat the knives or (b) decide that all of this is OK because he's hot and angsty.

If you picked (a), congrats, you are a normal human being. If you picked (b), my condolences, you are Galen Foley.

I am supposed to believe the heroine feels physically drawn to him after that? In what Universe, unless she is a closet BDSM afficionado with a rape fetish?

How on earth the author expects me to root for them as a couple is beyond me. As it is, there is some evil French spy who supposedly wants to off our "hero" and I keep hoping he will succeed. I mean, when "hero" was relieving his hideous torture at French dude's hands, my reaction was not "poor woobie" but a "serves you right, you bastard!" and a fierce desire that the French Dude do it again.

This is all the more disappointing because the reason I got this sick-making book was because I finished Foley's The Duke and really enjoyed it - the hero *gasp* had morals, was in no need of reform, and actually listened when heroine told him "no".

Now excuse me, I need to go barf.

I am reading the latest in my romance binge, The Duke by Gaelen Foley (short verdict: so-so), and I kept wondering why the main premise doesn't bother me as much as it should - i.e. an 18th/19th century Duke marrying a courtesan, no matter how much he loves her? Yeah, right.

And then I realized the reason I am not completely falling out of my chair in disbelief is because of this, i.e. the marriage of Charles James Fox and Elizabeth Armistead. He was a very blue-blooded opposition leader in late 18th-century and she was a very famous courtesan (George IV was one of her clients). Even though she was Fox's mistress for years, she refused Fox's offer of marriage because she did not want to ruin his career, but she finally gave in and they were married in secret, and later revealed their marriage which was a huge huge scandal. Apparently they were quite happy together until his death. I remember coming across a book on her in the caverns of our University library and being fascinated.

So I suppose I can tolerate Ms Foley's plot because of them :)

Of course, Charles James Fox was also known for being an insane gambler who lost (in modern money equivalent) millions of pounds gambling and would play and drink all night only to go to Parliament straight from the tables and make some amazing speeches and get involved in debates. LOL.

Maybe someone should do a romance novel about them :P Only of course they wouldn't, because Fox wasn't good-looking by the wildest stretch of anyone's imagination and Elizabeth Armistead wasn't a blushing wilting lady waiting to be rescued but really successful at her job. Oh well.

As you can tell, I've been on a bit of a romance novel binge lately (I find them a great way to de-stress) and the latest I am positively obsessed with is the hilarious From This Moment On by Lynn Kurtland. I've literally been laughing on every page.

Set at some unspecified time in the Middle Ages (though if you are looking for historical purity, look elsewhere), the book has everything I like, cross-dressing included :) Alienore hasn't had the greatest life with her new nasty stepmother, but it reaches new lows when the woman agrees to betrothe her to the infamous Butcher of Berhamshire, a man with the reputation so fierce that it scared away a large number of prospective brides. His father is now willing to forego a dowry if any noble family will but send their daughter to wed the Butcher.

Alienore has no desire to become the Butcher's unfortunate wife-victim just to save evil stepmom some money, so she binds her breasts, steals her brothers' armor, spurs, sword, and horse, and escapes. The story proper starts two years later, when Alienore is now known as 'Sir Henri' and has the pretty cushy job of being a knight-in-waiting to a nobleman's daughter. Only her lucky streak is about to end - the nobleman's daughter is being wedded, and Sir Henri is to accompany her to her betrothed whom Sir Henri will now be expected to serve. The name and destination is being kept secret until the party gets there when Alienore discovers, to her horror, that her misteress' betrothed is none other than the infamous Butcher! What's a woman to do with nowhere to escape to?

This is where the book goes from entertaining to pure hilarious awesome. The Butcher (otherwise known as Colin) is neither a sexy antihero cured by the love of a good woman nor a misunderstood angstmuffin with a tragic backstory. No, what he is is a straightforward, uncomplicated, thick-as-a-plank warrior who loves the following things and the following things only: (1) fighting (2) hunting (3) horses (4) talking about 1, 2 and 3. He cannot comprehend why the dimwitted potential brides all beg off - can't they appreciate a real warrior? Not that he isn't better off without a wife - not like he could find one who'd prefer practicing swordfights over gowns and manners.

Finding himself stuck in the keep with nothing to do (having no interest to interact with his bride, who has no interest in interacting with him), the Butcher decides to occupy himself with a little charity - that poor weak knight, Sir Henri - he doesn't even know how to hold a sword properly! So the Butcher decides to take the poor girly young man under his wing and make a man out of him - teach him how to fight, ride, and curse. Little did Alienore think when she escaped becoming the Butcher's bride that she would become his protege man-at-arms instead.

Anyway, this book is hilarious and perfect and awesome. Alienore is tough, Colin is hilarious, and the whole book is a delight from beginning to end.

My favorite bit was after she accepted his proposal of marriage but asked to be wooed first. So he wooed her the only way he knows how - by polishing and sharpening all of her weapons. LOLOLOLOL.

So good.

As you can tell, I've been on a bit of a romance novel binge lately (I find them a great way to de-stress) and the latest I am positively obsessed with is the hilarious From This Moment On by Lynn Kurtland. I've literally been laughing on every page.

Set at some unspecified time in the Middle Ages (though if you are looking for historical purity, look elsewhere), the book has everything I like, cross-dressing included :) Alienore hasn't had the greatest life with her new nasty stepmother, but it reaches new lows when the woman agrees to betrothe her to the infamous Butcher of Berhamshire, a man with the reputation so fierce that it scared away a large number of prospective brides. His father is now willing to forego a dowry if any noble family will but send their daughter to wed the Butcher.

Alienore has no desire to become the Butcher's unfortunate wife-victim just to save evil stepmom some money, so she binds her breasts, steals her brothers' armor, spurs, sword, and horse, and escapes. The story proper starts two years later, when Alienore is now known as 'Sir Henri' and has the pretty cushy job of being a knight-in-waiting to a nobleman's daughter. Only her lucky streak is about to end - the nobleman's daughter is being wedded, and Sir Henri is to accompany her to her betrothed whom Sir Henri will now be expected to serve. The name and destination is being kept secret until the party gets there when Alienore discovers, to her horror, that her misteress' betrothed is none other than the infamous Butcher! What's a woman to do with nowhere to escape to?

This is where the book goes from entertaining to pure hilarious awesome. The Butcher (otherwise known as Colin) is neither a sexy antihero cured by the love of a good woman nor a misunderstood angstmuffin with a tragic backstory. No, what he is is a straightforward, uncomplicated, thick-as-a-plank warrior who loves the following things and the following things only: (1) fighting (2) hunting (3) horses (4) talking about 1, 2 and 3. He cannot comprehend why the dimwitted potential brides all beg off - can't they appreciate a real warrior? Not that he isn't better off without a wife - not like he could find one who'd prefer practicing swordfights over gowns and manners.

Finding himself stuck in the keep with nothing to do (having no interest to interact with his bride, who has no interest in interacting with him), the Butcher decides to occupy himself with a little charity - that poor weak knight, Sir Henri - he doesn't even know how to hold a sword properly! So the Butcher decides to take the poor girly young man under his wing and make a man out of him - teach him how to fight, ride, and curse. Little did Alienore think when she escaped becoming the Butcher's bride that she would become his protege man-at-arms instead.

Anyway, this book is hilarious and perfect and awesome. Alienore is tough, Colin is hilarious, and the whole book is a delight from beginning to end.

My favorite bit was after she accepted his proposal of marriage but asked to be wooed first. So he wooed her the only way he knows how - by polishing and sharpening all of her weapons. LOLOLOLOL.

So good.

It's pretty rare for me to come across romance novels I loved wholeheartedly and unironically but I've been lucky enough to come across two in the last month and so this post is to recommend them.

The first of these is The Golden Season by Connie Brockway. I came across this by purest coincidence in an airport bookstore while waiting during a 5-hour layover. I was intrigued enough by what I saw flipping through it to buy it for my Kindle. I spent the next couple of hours giggling, sighing, and thoroughly in love. The set-up for TGS is pretty cliche - the Regency heroine named Lydia discovers she is close to broke due to questionable investments by her brokers and realizes she needs a well-off husband ASAP (she does not plan to deceive the man about her finances and plans to tell him the truth after he proposes and make him an offer to withdraw his proposal). Enter Ned the hero, a former naval officer, who just sparks with her and, to make it all perfect, he comes from a very rich family. Only there is a catch - it turns out he is looking for a rich wife as well, due to his family relying on him to get them out of unforeseen financial straits.

So, why is a book with such a cliche set-up so good? The hero and the heroine are both smart, good people - I don't remember the last time the heroine fell for hero because he had a mellow sense of humor, and was a kind and a very very good person. Or a book which had a smart, wry, charming heroine who was appreciated for being such. The writing is fun and light and no character (except a fairly minor one) is in any way evil (in fact, the subplot about rival pretender to Lydia's hand is resolved in a totally delightful and unexpected way). It also has a certain degree of realism - for one, money issues aren't magically resolved, it's just both hero and heroine realize that having a partner you can love and respect is more important than society.

The second of these is The Madness of Lord Ian McKenzie by Jennifer Ashley. I checked out the book by greycoupon posted about it because she mentioned the hero is a high-functioning autistic. In a romance novel? Or in any romantic context novel? This I had to see. After reading it, hero does seem to be a textbook Asperger's case, though of course, since the novel is set in Victorian England, it's hard to tell 100% as they do not have the terms for that sort of illness.

Anyway, I downloaded the book last night and stayed up till 3am finishing it even though I had to get up early to take care of Baby Mousie. I could not put it down. It is such a lovely book - I sort of want to cuddle it which is not really a workable proposition. The book has some sort of a plot (there is a murder mystery in there too) but basically it is all about interactions of Beth, a former lady's companion and widow who has inherited a large fortune and entered society, and Ian, an upperclass "eccentric" who is the aforementioned Asperger's hero. I loved basically everything about the book, but things I loved the best were: (1) The author took such an unusual topic/set-up and it worked even when she got into the hero's head - it was believable and lovely and very tender but hero did not get magically fixed by love of a good woman at the end; (2) heroine of this one is about the most awesome romance novel heroine ever - pragmatic and common-sense and funny and great. She is just so matter-of-fact about everything - there is one scene in particular where I was dreading a Big Misunderstanding was bound to occur (a police inspector shows up and tells Beth her new friend is involved in two murders) but instead heroine did the normal thing - i.e. poked holes in his theory, kicked him out, and believed her boyfriend didn't off anyone because she knew him well. Shocking!

For anyone who needs to know this sort of stuff, this is rather darker than Choice N. 1 (but it's not some sort of miseryfest at all - both protagonists have nasty nasty stuff in their backgrounds but it stays in the background and isn't wallowed in) and has a lot more sex scenes. MMV for whether that's a bad or good thing for your purposes.

To sum up: I really recommend both. It's all the more unusual because I checked other stuff by these authors and none of it was my thing.

Am rereading one of my guilty pleasures, Susan Carroll's The Courtesan. Even though it's found in in general fiction section, it is basically a dressed-up romance novel about the middle of three sisters in 16th-century France (unsurprisingly, this is a middle part of a loosely-connected trilogy about them. I read all three but seeing as I remember little-to-nothing about the other two, they didn't impress me).

The heroine is sleeping her way to power and riches and is fixated on her next target being Henri of Navarre (otherwise known to posterity as Henri IV - eventually). But she reconnects with her long-ago crush/admirer Huguenot captain she believed was dead and gets sort of derailed.

I was rather surprised to discover a non-virgin heroine, but of course she's never enjoyed sex ever before her OTP. In fact, she embarked on her power quest as a result of being traumatized by a horrid rape. Hmmmm. I can see how this may be all sorts of problematic, but tbh, I don't care because it gives me that deliciously trashy 'healing sex' trope. In RL it would likely not work but in fiction I slurp it up with a spoon. And at least I can buy that sex with someone you actually care for may wipe out the notion sex is unpleasant and boring, as opposed to the kind of comfort sex which makes me scream 'noooo way, no how,' perfect example of the latter being the bit when Ramses and Nefret finally get together at the end of He Shall Thunder in the Sky when instead of swooning for the two of them* all I can do is scream "b...b...but how can it work - there is no way - are you insane, he's almost been whipped to death and his back is cut to ribbons, there is NO WAY!"**

* In case you have no idea what I am talking about, Ramses and Nefret are two of the main characters of Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody series (a series of mystery/adventure novels set in Victorian and Edwardian England/Egypt). I love them enough to even overlook my hearing in person Peters' slag of Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom by saying it was unreadable when Ramses is basically a straight, non-masochism-obsessed Lawrence. Anyway, I liked the earlier books in the series which were all about Victorian feminist and adventure-seeker Amelia and her irascible husband, famous archeologist Emerson (who is rather based on Prof. Challenger of Arthur Conan Doyle's, IMO) but when I really got obsessed was when their son Ramses grew up and became archeologist/spy/sexy angst-muffin and the whole angst-fest and repression with Nefret (his adopted sister with whom he's been in love ever since he first saw her when he was 13) started. I should have known I would be a mad kdrama fan from how hard I shipped the two because it has fakecest and horrid misunderstandings and repression and evil marriages and everything. Mmmm. Anyway, I was sort of insane for them in college which was not made better through having to wait for books come out one by one. I still remember getting my Falcon at the Portal and getting to that scene (you know which one if you read Peters and if you haven't, it's too major to spoil - verrrry kdrama) and literally throwing my book across the room and cursing like a mad person for quite a while. I don't think I ever got my Nefret love back 100% after that, which is a pity. Before that I loved her but after it was basically "I like you and I sort of understand why you did what you did but you are insane for it and now I mainly ship the two of you because Ramses can't live without you." Anyway, I stopped following the series after Thunder (OK, OK, I fess up, I read the honeymoon book - judge me!) because I thought they wrapped up all the plots and loose ends and after that it all felt sort of unnecessary.

** My favorite part is actually not comfort sexing but the fact that Amelia is all concerned for Nefret because Nefret killed someone (she shot Percy as the man was in the process of torturing Ramses to death) and Nefret is all puzzled by the concern and is "huh? It doesn't bother me a bit, he had what was coming to him." LOLOLOLOL I fell in love with Nefret all over again for her attitude. Lady was brought up as a priestess of a really warrior society :)

Anyway, how did this turn into a Peabody post?