coComments related to readforpleasure

"When’s the last time you read

2009-11-18T15:03:21.658+01:00

"When’s the last time you read a hero, as opposed to some vain rival for the heroine’s affections, applying brow gel, concealer, or oil absorbing face powder?" You don't read enough historicals, do you ;)

in addition to the

2009-11-16T02:03:25.961+01:00

in addition to the HEA, there is something I can count on when I read romances: they take the experiences of women seriously.

This is a large part of my dispute with the idea that romance is hero-centric. I read lit fic, sf, fantasy, and mystery before I discovered romance. To me, the focus on the female experience is the single attribute that most reliably sets romance apart from the other genres. Perhaps comparing romance to other genres doesn't set the bar high enough. In absolute terms, romance still has quite a distance to go in its treatment of female characters. Many romances cast someone else as the "hero" of the woman's story (in the sense of who has agency and action scenes). Some romances also portray female characters as interesting primarily for their vulnerability or helplessnes (rather like the Holmes stories). Come to think of it, I did have a favorite female character in the Holmes stories: Irene Adler, who outsmarted him. However, I believe she only appeared in one story, whereas in romance I can generally expect the female characters to receive more consistent attention than that.

Maili: Sherlock Holmes as a lover? He’s asexual, through and through.

That's always been my take too, and the Mary Russell books don't convince me otherwise.

Amazon does indeed have blogs.

2009-11-13T02:48:18.453+01:00

Amazon does indeed have blogs. Omnivoracious is the books editors' blog. It's a lot more interesting than the Borders and B&N blogs, in part because it's not an in-your-face sales vehicle; I never say "Sell-out!" to my screen while reading it, as I did on one occasion with another blog :) Anyway, I think it's noteworthy that Amazon uses data-driven social marketing ("People who bought Crusie also bought SEP") and forum buzz (also very effective; I looked at some studies here), and doesn't rely on its blogs for sales.

@Jessi

2009-11-12T15:40:18.913+01:00

@Jessica: Now that you mention it, perhaps the group blog setting is part of what's turning me off. I don't read DA at all any more--or only every few months--and just skim the post titles at SBTB. Much of my waning interest dates to the increasing cross-talk between the two sites; they seemed to be echoing each other instead of providing the counterpoint I'd enjoyed. I also felt both were in different ways losing their original voices. RtB has always been a many-indistinct-voices blog for me, with occasional gems. I'm not sure how to categorize the Readers Gab blog that I participate in, because the frequency is lower than the other sites'. I do like the AAR blog; it's smart and doesn't feel diffuse. But overall, now that you've pointed it out, I'm moving away from group blogs, and not only in romance. E.g. Publishers Weekly Genreville added an interesting blogger but I'm not sure of its focus; it's still in my RSS feeds, but may be demoted to the "infrequent" folder. I don't read conversational reviews either. I'd rather engage with a complete thought from each reviewer than simply go along for the ride while the reviewers engage each other. So perhaps another tricky element in a group blog or tight-knit community is a sense of bloggers talking to each other rather than to me, the reader.

@AAR Lynn, Got it :) And I'm

2009-11-12T14:40:16.304+01:00

@AAR Lynn, Got it :) And I'm glad you wrote this piece.

I'm aware of them, but don't f

2009-11-12T14:27:11.314+01:00

I'm aware of them, but don't find them compelling. Perhaps if they had distinct voices I didn't hear elsewhere? Or perhaps their broad-audience nature just doesn't grab me.

Reading this took me back a fe

2009-11-12T04:41:40.031+01:00

Reading this took me back a few years. I'd forgotten how The Daughter of Time sparked my imagination. I actually appreciated Richard III much more after reading the Tey, but I hadn't pursued the train of thought to wonder about Richard's marriage. I do wonder, now that you've pointed out the dichotomies in Richard's character, whether he might make a fabulously complicated romance protagonist. The rescue, especially, is ridiculously swashbuckling. But that doesn't necessarily indicate a particularly admirable character; just a great deal of determination :)

Nice choices. I've always ref

2009-11-12T03:54:35.690+01:00

Nice choices. I've always referenced this passage from The Wall as "why someone chooses to express an ethical idea in fiction":

Le commandant mit ses lorgnons et regarda sa liste: -Steinbock... Steinbock... Voilà. Vous êtes condamné à mort. (Le mur, 15)

In the terms bandied about romancelandia, nonfiction would try to tell about it. Fiction can show it. Also: see the latest issue of Harper's. There's a nice selection of interviews under the title Huis claws, by Jean Paul Sartre and John Gerassi.

Riffing off D. above, Roses

2009-11-11T23:55:21.249+01:00
Riffing off D. above, Roses Are Dead, Lavender's Blue

"I wanted to show that in the

2009-11-11T23:53:56.237+01:00
"I wanted to show that in the beginning, Rosie Malone wasn’t too good at titles." All righty, then how about Lavender's Clue Though it's no better than Lavender's Dead, Killer Killer. Or should the criterion be that it's worse?

I'm not entirely comfortable w

2009-11-11T14:48:33.856+01:00
I'm not entirely comfortable with an industry group (and only ONE industry group, at that) defining an entire genre. Granted, the unequivocally happy ending is the dominant mode in genre romance--but surely that's a function of size. The American publishers of RWA-type romance put out an enormous volume of literature, so they look like the de facto standard-setter. My definition of romance is rather broader than RWA's. That's probably in part because I read a lot of literary fiction and non-romance genre fiction. But it's also because I don't think it does the genre any favors to snipe at its closely related cousins. Why claim Pride and Prejudice but disown Possession? Is including Gone With the Wind any more a violation of the romance definition than including a Nora Roberts In Death book in which the police procedural takes center stage and the romance is pretty much married life as usual?

Thanks for posting. I read a

2009-11-10T14:44:55.008+01:00
Thanks for posting. I read a variety of genres, and I've been curious about Bookmarks. It does sound like they have a limited and dated view of romance. Did you send this as a letter to the editor? That can be very effective in other areas, though perhaps less so in this case; literary publications sometimes cling to their romance snobbery.

2. In my view, reviewing is n

2009-11-09T15:35:32.282+01:00
2. In my view, reviewing is not in service to bookselling, so it doesn't matter whether or not the book is available as a new edition in a chain bookstore. Beyond that, I value reviews that introduce me to books I wouldn't have easily found otherwise. 4. Optimizing participation in your blog is not the same as using your readership to create your content or other forms of watering down a blog's viewpoint or narrowing its inputs.

"I was amazed to see how many

2009-11-07T02:54:22.863+01:00
"I was amazed to see how many romance novel titles have been recycled." A Harlequin editor discussed that in the NY Times a few years ago:
Romance, mystery and other genre books are particularly likely to have recycled titles, because of the vast numbers that are published and their brief lives in the public's memory
You might enjoy some of the awful titles I dug up for a post last year, The book title's secret meaning. I particularly like The Manatee: Strange Loves of a Seaman. No, it's not a paranormal, but it's not exactly normal either ;)

... Though it occurs to me tha

2009-11-05T14:37:35.238+01:00
... Though it occurs to me that I should have said, Jenny, that's a fabulous combination. And Laura, that's a fabulous description of it.

"Rebecca meets Welco

2009-11-05T14:35:43.719+01:00
"Rebecca meets Welcome to Temptation" Laura, that's a fabulous combination.

Aha, so you also have trouble

2009-11-01T15:18:11.408+01:00
Aha, so you also have trouble reviewing your very favorite books. I'd love to think my way through that.

@melj

2009-10-30T04:46:05.223+01:00
@meljean: I feel the same way: steampunk has both a concept and an aesthetic that I enjoy, while retrofuturism is a cool idea but often the '50s-'70s aesthetic doesn't appeal. I like earlier retrofuturism much better; e.g. I think the early Buck Rogers cinema shorts are a scream--so wrong they're good. Perhaps because earlier retrofuturism is more quaint (and wrong) and less earnest? Or simply because I'm not a mid-century modern gal. Speaking of steampunk aesthetics, did you see the NY Times steampunk fashion article and slideshow last year? I loved them; bunch o' links here.

It's the inverse of retrofutur

2009-10-29T06:34:25.824+01:00
It's the inverse of retrofuturism :) Now, isn't it nice to have that cleared up?

I'm super picky myself,

2009-10-27T04:08:08.193+01:00
I'm super picky myself, but I imagine if it's a new state of readerhood to you it could be discomfiting :) I'm irredeemably bored with several subgenres, but in the last year I've found a few new fave romances, including some recommended by people here. I really enjoyed a couple of Georgette Heyers, one Pam Rosenthal, one Dorothy Dunnett, and your Lisa Cach find, and had a good time despising a few Harlequin Presents. I also found a couple of Harlequins that I liked, and re-read some romance-themed non-genre authors like Marquez. That kind of mix may have to get me through until the current subgenres do something new and different. In other words, you're not alone. But never fear: you can wax and wane with the genre without losing that set of interests and shared experiences that makes us romance readers.

My comment about h

2009-10-10T03:03:01.437+02:00

My comment about heroines was offhand. I did not realize, RfP, that there is a contingent of which I am now a member.
I took it as offhand, and was not picturing you as one of The Contingent. (Nor The Contingent as anything so definite as A Contingent.) But I'm enjoying the image of A Contingent of Romance Readers--armed with firm spears of love, naturally.

@Jessi

2009-10-09T15:06:52.358+02:00
@Jessica:
In fact, lately I am starting to think heroines are completely dispensable in romance.
There's a contingent of readers who say this, or something close to it, loudly and frequently. I strongly disagree, and judging by the bestseller lists, I think many other readers do too. I'm a switch-hitter as a reader. Sometimes I identify; usually I don't. Sometimes I'm interested in the hero, sometimes the heroine, sometimes neither. What matters more to me is that I'm a fan of that specific hero and heroine together, whether or not I "approve" of them. But regardless of the pairing, I really enjoy romances in which a character (any character imbued with personhood, not necessarily always the one with/out a Y chromosome) undergoes a real journey; I like romance in part as a subgenre of character-driven fiction. On the level of approval, one important thing I like about the genre is that I see much of it (obviously not all, as it's an enormous genre, but enough that I consider it a signature of the genre) as being about a woman's journey. I most definitely approve that the genre portrays that, whether it's an entirely internal journey or whether it treats external reality to a larger extent. And then again, back in the literary (versus approval) perspective, if the genre portrays *two* characters with full personhood and evolution, plus a relationship's evolution or increasing immanence, that's character-driven heaven.

1. Dear dog, I did not need th

2009-10-09T07:00:40.761+02:00
1. Dear dog, I did not need that stuck in my head. 2. This sounds like a shorter, clunkier version of a single-title romance plot I read a few years ago. Can't come up with the title, but I remember a number of scenes set in the game.

BTW, my feed reader thinks the

2009-09-11T06:25:02.331+02:00
BTW, my feed reader thinks the title of this post is The Playbot Sheikh’s.... If that was a typo, you should have left it! A playbot is all that this story lacks.

I don't know!! You reminded m

2009-09-11T06:21:39.124+02:00
I don't know!! You reminded me how much I love that, and I've been trying to think of a great longing book to re-read, but I'm drawing a blank. I'll have to look through my collection this weekend.

I tend not to like

2009-09-11T05:57:46.271+02:00

I tend not to like any word containing any version of “retard” (i.e. F*tard has always hit me wrong), so how about something like F*in A*hole for F? I know it’s not all that creative, but it is classic, AND it’s got a literal component to it, as well. ;)
As pejoratives go, I'm not sure that "retard" is a substantively worse choice than a specific form of sex.

I do love that "longing", so i

2009-09-11T04:37:02.301+02:00
I do love that "longing", so it's funny that I don't click with Chase. I was impressed by a number of things in Your Scandalous Ways, though.

I've been hither and yon, but

2009-09-08T07:46:44.593+02:00
I've been hither and yon, but mainly yon, and thus off the internut. I did get a chance to read Tumperkin's rather terrifying book club selection; my cortex is still aquiver. Jessica wrote:
love does triumph in a very straightforward way in the end. I haven’t read the novella. I wonder if that means the film got the Hollywood treatment?
I'll have to re-read to see how much of this was in the text and how much was my being a youthful sourpuss. Even with the sunny ending, I recall reading it as a deeply cynical story in which love didn't conquer all but, by suckering Gaston most inconveniently, allowed the courtesans to conquer all. I didn't read that table-turning as changing the core values of the society as it was initially presented. In my reading the crux was money throughout, and it was Gigi's family--or the courtesans' viewpoint--that won the day; Gigi herself never gained any particular agency. (Of course, she was incredibly young, and not only in years.) Must re-read.

Might I, in a spirit of utmost

2009-09-08T07:24:22.441+02:00
Might I, in a spirit of utmost collegiality, suggest that Romancelandia may be somewhat larger and rather less defined than a few penetrating voices that tend toward the kerfufflesome? And toward a related end, I should like to propose an augmentation to your most excellent system. 'Tis the merest soupçon, but would that I had implemented it some years previous! I speak, as you may apprehend, of the UPROAR:DULL ROAR quotient. By this measure I hope to distinguish between those of our sistren blogs who are sucked, protesting, into the churn while striving tirelessly to contribute their daily mote of romance readership; and those who charge repeatedly into the fray for the love of Mike and drama. Though I grant it will make absolutely no difference. Once the kerfuffling is flung, the chicken cannot be put back into the egg, nor, alas, the egg into the chicken.

I was surprised to see Gigi

2009-09-05T04:47:00.527+02:00
I was surprised to see Gigi on your list. I see it as a cynical take on love, sex, society, and marriage, not a romantic story. Though I read the story when I was quite young and saw the film much later as an adult, so it's possible that my interpretation was fixed too young.

The sadist effects

2009-07-21T07:24:55.644+02:00

The sadist effects a transformation of the victim’s core values system (interestingly, McGinn says sexual seduction and rhetorical persuasion work the same way, so that, for example, a skillful seduction can cause someone toss out their virtue, their career, their marriage, etc.)
This is one of the twists that disturbs me in some of Shannon McKenna's books. The heroine acting like someone she doesn't recognize is one of those ideas that treads the line between pleasantly "bewitched, bothered and bewildered" and outright corrupted or unhealthfully thralled. This may wander far from your interest in S/M, but I think the corruption and cruelty motif in legend and in romance is also part of why violent urban fantasy has such strong crossover with genre romance. Fairies, elves, and vampires are often described as having a glamor, meaning not only physical attraction but a power of persuasion so strong that the victim leaves behind everything, including his/her old self and sometimes soul. Romance often employs much the same transformation myth, whether it's wrought by an impersonal power of love/wild magic or a specific lover/Faery Queen. It's often cruel too, whether a cruel billionaire with sharp teeth or a belle dame sans merci; either way, the victim rarely returns to his/her previous life.
the naturalistic fallacy, the idea that we can read values off of facts. We just can’t get from “it is natural” to “it is morally good” without a lot of extra premises, or, more commonly, subterfuge
Always happy to see this train of thought deprecated :)

Tumperkin, you and I seem to s

2009-07-13T14:33:59.469+02:00
Tumperkin, you and I seem to stand at the same end of the spectrum but facing opposite directions! I enjoyed the Slightly books, but this was the Slightly that I really didn't care for. Whereas I prefer Jo Beverley's (awfully similar) Malloren books and most especially loved Rothgar's and Diana's story (Wulfric's opposite number); didn't you say that one left you cold?

1. In the Pig 2. On the fridge

2009-07-13T04:41:10.571+02:00
1. In the Pig 2. On the fridge 3. Bob knows

"The Guernsey Literary and

2009-07-02T00:45:19.931+02:00
"The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society... Has anyone read it?" I have. I found it enjoyable, but a mite contrived--but that's the challenge of the form, isn't it. Also, to be fair, my favorite epistolary work is 84 Charing Cross Road, which is nonfiction and thus an unfair standard of authenticity :)

I dislike this book quite inte

2009-06-29T17:58:58.439+02:00
I dislike this book quite intensely. But this baffles me:
Tess says, “Life is more than great sex and a nice car”, and when her friend Gina replies “Not much more”, you can be sure we are supposed to agree with Gina.
Erm, I'd have said the opposite. Perhaps the interpretation depends on whether one projects Theromancegenre or Recentcrusie onto it.

I've been hanging around the J

2009-06-28T22:33:39.374+02:00
I've been hanging around the Jo Beverley review clearing my throat. Whining and rattling the screen commences now. Next up: throwing small objects. Comments are closed? On one of my favorite authors? This doesn't seem like you. There must be a trick.

You've probably seen this Joss

2009-06-27T17:05:37.480+02:00
You've probably seen this Joss Whedon speech from Equality Now (2006), but it's new to me and I'm charmed. His remarks begin at 2:00. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYaczoJMRhs

Ach, how did I miss this? Mer

2009-06-25T06:51:36.413+02:00
Ach, how did I miss this? Meriam is correct: I'm helpless, captive, rapt, before the inchoate, intangible, and highly fungible Laurens setting, that inimitable, that exquisite experience, that world, that realm of sensation, of sensibility, of seductively sensitive, yearningly stoic, painfully independent, that newly discovered yet forever in the making, that irresistible, undeniable force, that power most almighty, even if it never be named, never spoken--even among the many, many (really, many) words, gestures, sighs, touches that signify clearly what is not, nohow, nor contrariwise to be breathed aloud. But apart from that, I'm glad to hear you enjoyed some of the same qualities that I do/did in Laurens. As you say, part of the charm of Laurens is "all the regular things you expect from romance, done (mostly) right". However, I often find some irregular things in her work too, and that's part of why I still read her occasionally. I wasn't aware that Devil's Bride was considered one of Laurens' best. It's not my favorite because it's so conventional. E.g. this is a really unappealing part of Devil's Bride:
The highhanded “you were made for this, for me. So woman up & deal…it’ll only cost you your dreams. which are silly anyway.” attitude was irksome.
and in general, I don't think either protagonist's motivations are convincingly developed. OTOH Laurens does have interesting ways of giving a heroine agency even with an imperious duke in the mix. Those introspective scenes in which the heroine reflects on the balance of power and different types of intimacy in her marriage are characteristic of Laurens. I do have a couple of favorite Laurens novels (even though the lovemaking, the heated caresses, the sighs, the moans, the passing of warm afternoons in bowers and beds and broom closets, the giving, the taking, the sexx0ring, the intimacy, the compact between lovers, the question, the answer, the to, the fro, the rumpy and pumpy, is impossible for me to read any more). My favorite is A Secret Love, which starts and ends preposterously but in between develops a good ensemble cast and lovely sense of intimacy and "fit" in the central relationship. I also like much of The Ideal Bride for its interesting gender roles, though its purple is of the purpliest and its sex scenes of the unreadabliest. E.g. the "woman up & deal"/silly dreams factor is turned on its head. The heroine is the well-traveled, politically savvy one, and older women let her know that she's selling herself short and needs to develop some *genuine* ambitions of her own (unlike Honoria's wallpaper-thin travel fantasy). So in IB, when the heroine comes into her own, she explicitly decides to take the hero under her wing and teach him what he needs to develop his career, and he acknowledges her tutelage graciously. On a Wicked Dawn is not a favorite, but is another that really emphasizes the adjustment to marriage. The engagement and mystery are ridiculous contrivances, but the evolution of the relationship after marriage is the heart of the book. "One of the things I liked is that Devil wanted Honoria for her strength more than anything else." That's a common thread in the Cynster books. Including A Secret Love. BTW, there's another interesting feature to this series. In the time period of most of the Cynster books, Helena is a widow, and we know that she took in her husband's bastard child. So when Laurens later told the story of Helena and Sebastian's romance (a generation-earlier prequel to the series), many readers felt that that foreknowledge of his infidelity and death violated the HEA. I think that says something fascinating about the importance of the "ever after" in the ending; happy for now might suffice as long as the ending's not undercut by prior knowledge. The evopsycho bit... I sort of wish I hadn't read that. I think Laurens is smart and has some interesting things to say about gender roles and relationships, but ugh to biological determinism.

Perhaps the three peacocks wan

2009-06-24T05:20:45.037+02:00
Perhaps the three peacocks want you to write Gothic. Spooky mansion, peacocks in the grounds, twisty roads, uncommunicative hosts: all the usual. Even an alligator if you must. (That scenario--all but the gator--was planted by a Gothic I read in my teens. And now I must google it. It was a twofer in paperback. The other story in the volume involved an Etruscan scarab. Pale blue cover. Hmm.)

I'm astonished if no copy edit

2009-06-22T08:55:21.105+02:00
I'm astonished if no copy editor's ever sent you a rant along these lines: "Hey Crusie, the car needs washed. The dogs want fed. And most of all, the verb needs completed." Wait, this sounds familiar. Googling.... Yes indeed, we already discussed Ohio verbs.

Brian James' piece on Tor earlier today similarly critiqued a work by a revered author (Philip K. Dick). But where you found that EE Smith's ideas weren't all that "astounding", James concluded that in the Dick book interesting ideas made up for a lot of writerly deficiencies. It's completely anecdotal, of course, but that pairing of observations seems to fit the hypothesis that part of science fiction's legitimation into mainstream literature has been about a movement from action fiction to idea fiction. "the old pulp fiction is a bit like the dilemma we sometimes face when a journalist turns up at a convention. You can talk about various current writers of tremendous quality until you're blue in the face, but they're still going to take a picture of the fat bloke dressed up as Conan" Yes indeed, and romance has exactly the same problem, rooted in the same pulpy heritage. The conversation goes thusly: "There are some phenomenally well-written new -- er, yes, that man IS dressed as Fabio, but listen, the historical novel these days is researched -- no, those furries are part of a DIFFERENT convention. Honest."

Ah, you're just an old-fashion

2009-06-20T18:38:53.312+02:00
Ah, you're just an old-fashioned girl! Maybe it's like my on-again, off-again relationship with my MP3 player. My "off" times aren't because of any particular barriers to use. Sometimes I'd simply rather turn off and tune out. With books, my love of browsing is a factor too. I browse, I covet, I accumulate a stack... and then I realize I also have to carry groceries/dinner/spare shoes/umbrella.

Good point about the "we're we

2009-06-19T17:57:31.876+02:00
Good point about the "we're weird, but not like THOSE weirdos" tenor of it. That crystallizes my thoughts on a Maya Banks novel involving two men, one woman, and three-way sex that's GOT to be extremely intimate between the two men. There's absolutely no room in the narrative to note that intimacy; the two men are portrayed as blithely good buddies, each oblivious to the other except as a bonus sex toy for the woman. I had other issues with the book--awful heroine--but as in so much of romance, I thought the positive spin was that female-centric fantasies were being normalized. The flip side, of course, was that it did seem to be at the expense of challenging other social mores. "I firmly believe that ALL romance is about power dynamics." I'm reading Georgette Heyer's Frederica for the first time, and good lord--it's ALL about power!

"Is there such a thing as t

2009-06-19T17:28:15.639+02:00
"Is there such a thing as too much melodrama?" NEVER, BY MY TROTH! Ahem. Seriously, you know my answer. If I'm not in the mood, even the comparatively understated Victorian melodrama in a Jo Goodman can make me roll me eyes. "Despite the fact that both characters carry the sort of emotional baggage that makes a Thomas Hardy novel cheerful by comparison, there was something unrelenting about the dialogue, particularly between Thomas and Em who love to make grand and sweeping statements to each other." I like that comparison. If only Hardy had owned his melodrama, his books might have been much more tolerable. "iphone as reading device: FAIL." For me too. Frustrating, innit? The idea of reading on a compact, ever-present, all-in-one gizmo is so appealing, but... FAIL in real life.

"Gay Insta-Evil has almost alw

2009-06-19T17:05:22.736+02:00
"Gay Insta-Evil has almost always gone hand-in-hand with Insta-Evil Sadism" Do you think it's specifically a sadism connection, or is that a specific twist on a more general issue with power dynamics? I ask because I recently read Rebecca Pope's essay "Hayley, Roz, and Me", which discusses the demonization and punishment of lesbian teachers in fiction. Her examples include Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour, Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness, and Clemence Dane(Winifred Ashton)'s Regiment of Women--some of which were written in that strange post-Victorian period when lesbianism was still considered a pathology. But they certainly convey disturbing messages about gayness and power being a dark and dangerous combination, and it piqued my interest that the same combination crops up regularly in more recent romances.

The sweatiest, most orgasmic,

2009-06-16T14:53:57.253+02:00
The sweatiest, most orgasmic, and most fertile sex ever, yes? On the up side, anyone who sweats that much is probably a dab hand at changing sheets and doing laundry. And in titles such as The Trillionaire's Private Dancer, maid service may well be included.

No, no, no. What you're missi

2009-06-16T05:25:06.290+02:00
No, no, no. What you're missing is the Internal Struggle of the He Man Against the Essence of Love. ISHMAEL. When werewolves feel threatened, they get aggressive: they quiver and snarl and their follicles sprout hair. When alpha human males' inner wolves are trapped by domesticity, they're terrified: they quiver and snarl and their follicles drip sweat. ISHMAEL.

I also enjoyed the

2009-06-15T12:39:45.120+02:00

I also enjoyed the way the characters are connected in intricate and believable ways.
I liked that too; it's almost the opposite of a cabin romance-type artificially isolated scenario. I'm reading a Georgette Heyer that reminds me all over again how much a good ensemble (or community, a la Crusie) can add to romance.
This kind of reflexive self-consciousness is not our normal mode of being in the world — not even for writers and scholars.
Oh, I don't know about that :)
they are so intellectual and thoughtful, only feeling emotions, when they do, through the lens of reflective distance, that I found myself not generating much emotion for them.
There I totally agree. That type of relationship may suit the characters, and they may be having rich inner lives, but it's not apparent on the page.
As I read The Edge of Impropriety, I imagined that Rosenthal had just come off a Woolf binge when she wrote it.
If so, her binge was some years back, as I think she does it best in Slightest Provocation (2006). The past/present stream-of-consciousness in TSP is more seamless and well focused on supporting the development of the *relationship*, not only the individual characters' inner thoughts.
an eroticized Henry James
Oy. Without having really thought about that before, at first glance I'm not so sure. I do think some scenes in this book are in the vein of Anais Nin (in particular the sex scenes that are more an exploration of the woman's psyche than of a romance). But I suppose the Henry James themes of US/European intellectual culture are present in her other books, e.g. Bookseller's Daughter.
I think she requires a relatively patient reader and one who is willing to tolerate some unruly prose
I agree on the patience, but I don't find her prose unruly at all. I find it remarkably deliberate.
I don’t find any of them particularly erotic. I find them ATTEMPTING to be erotic.
I think what they attempt is to develop character through sex scenes. I don't find it at all erotic, but I do find it effective at showing the dynamics between the couple. I think the whole field of "erotic romance" is badly named, though; I would call it "explicit romance", as eros is so much in the eye of the beholder. (BTW I don't find Steve Almond's writing erotic either, and he similarly writes sex scenes as character and action.)
The Slightest Provocation... the prose and the story are both a little more straightforward.
It's so interesting how our opinions vary! I find Provocation the more sophisticated book for its use of shifting times and tenses to build Kit and Mary's then-and-now relationship for the reader. I think TSP is particularly striking for its use of those techniques combined with sex scenes that are told in an earthy experiential manner that takes the participants out of time, rather than as a more flowery style of out-of-body experience (e.g. "exploding stars" verbiage).

Severed finger cookies, if you

2009-06-14T20:21:34.784+02:00
Severed finger cookies, if you don' t mind Hallowe' en in June.

Kaetrin wrote:
2009-06-11T15:50:03.034+02:00
Kaetrin wrote:
One of Lucy Monroe’s category romances
I'd forgotten that. Lucy Monroe was one of the authors discussed in a 2007 Macleans article, which prompted some discussion on sexual health in romances and some assertions that such topics are more common in romance than other literature :)denominator is large.

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Severed finger cookies, if you