In honor of today being Ms. Winsor’s birthday, a bunch of romance bloggers are posting their 16 favorite romance novels, so I’ve wracked my brain to come up with mine. By which I mean I logged into my Goodreads account and made a list of the romances I gave 4 or 5 stars to. I think it’s a pretty serviceable list.

In no particular order:

Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale (Because obviously.)

Agnes and the Hitman by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Meyer (which is not strictly a romance, but I saw some other bloggers list it)

St. Nacho’s by Z.A. Maxfield (One of the heroes is a violinist and the other is deaf. What’s not to like? This was my introduction to a writer whose books I’ve really enjoyed.)

Faking It by Jennifer Crusie (My favorite Crusie. I figured I should pick one.)

Northern Lights by Nora Roberts (My favorite Roberts. It was one of the first of her novels that I read, so I didn’t recognize The Formula yet, but what I think makes this book stand out was the setting. It helps to read a book about Alaska during the summer, but I thought this little town was so well drawn, and all of the members of town seemed like real people.)

Lord of the Scoundrels by Loretta Chase (Oh, I love a historical with a scoundrel hero, and this is probably the best of the bunch, and it’s light-hearted and funny in a way a clever Regency should be.)

Dreaming of You by Ethan Day (The premise is a little hokey and it gets wrapped up too fast, but Day can write a protagonist that pops right off the page.)

Body Guard by Suzanne Brockmann (This is my favorite of her non-Troubleshooters books.)

Breathing Room by Susan Elizabeth Phillips (SEP annoys me sometimes, but I keep going back, and I really liked this one, perhaps because it takes place mostly in Italy, and, again, the setting is really well done.)

Whistling in the Dark by Tamara Allen (A really interesting treatment of a gay couple in Jazz Age New York, and a really sweet romance to boot.)

Heartbreaker by Julie Garwood (I love romantic suspense above all other genres, and this is a great example of it.)

The Loner by Geralyn Dawson (This was the first in a whole lot of Westerns I read this past winter, and the hero and heroine are both great in this novel.)

The Lost Duke of Wyndham by Julia Quinn (I like Quinn because her prose is clear and straightforward and her dialogue is witty; this is, I think, among my favorites of her books, though I have so far only gotten through the Duke and I in the Bridgerton series, so that’s subject to change)

Ashes in the Wind by Kathleen Woodiwuss (More of a sentimental favorite; I do love a good epic, and this one is so hokey, but somehow it works and I enjoyed reading it.)

The Dream Hunter by Laura Kinsale (The h/h hardly spend any time together in this one, which makes their reunion at the end that much more delicious.)

Can I site a whole series? I love Suzanne Brockmann’s Troubleshooters series, among which Dark of Night is, to my mind, the best book (albeit the least romance-y). I could site a bunch of my favorites from the series here, too: Gone Too Far, Hot Target, Breaking Point, Forces of Nature, and All Through the Night.

Honorable mentions: the whole Quinn/Chesapeake Bay series by Nora Roberts; Josh Lanyon should be on this list, but my favorites of his books are really more mysteries than romances; I had some problems with False Colors by Alex Beecroft, but I feel it’s worth mentioning just because it seems so unique: a well-written gay romance that takes place during the Age of Sail; pretty much every other Crusie book would be on my list; and Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander by Ann Herendeen, which, again, I had some problems with, but it sure made me think.

I picked it up because I love baseball. The plot wasn’t even relevant when I first saw the title; I saw “baseball” and “romance” and clicked “buy.” It turned out to be a sweet little romance, on the fluffy side, but good for a long train ride, which is where I read it. The hero is Pace Martin, the superstar pitcher of the fictional Santa Barbara Heat. He’s, like, the Johan Santana or Joba Chamberlin of this season, with less injuries or more starts, depending on who you follow. Basically, he’s got the winningest record in the league, but he’s also got a shoulder injury that could end his career. The heroine, Holly, is a reporter sent to follow the Heat around and suss out secrets. She stumbles onto a steroids plot, which I had some mixed feelings about, but I’ll talk about that more below.

The problem here is that the book wasn’t really reflective of baseball as I think of it. Baseball fans are always quoting statistics at each other, for instance. And there wasn’t a whole lot of baseball lingo here, either. Not to mention that this team is basically all white, which struck me as not realistic.

But as I yearned for the writer to talk more about Pace’s ERA, it occurred to me that I am not the target audience for this book, that, in fact, a lot of the women who read this book probably have a limited (if any) knowledge of baseball. So all the stuff the fans get excited about—the stats, the numbers, the batting order, the game minutiae—would probably only render the narrative confusing for the non-baseball-fan reader.

And then there’s this steroids plot. It’s a predictable way to go in a baseball story, although (spoiler) our hero is, of course, not doping, but he tests positive because he takes a stimulant by accident. Ugh.

Maybe the lesson here is not to read romances about topics I know a lot about; I’ll inevitably be disappointed. Does this mean I should go read some of those NASCAR romances? I know nothing about NASCAR.

The most hotly-anticipated recap of the summer has finally arrived–this time, with sexxins!

Part Two!

Chapter twenty opens in a hideous mauve hospital room, where Anita has just kept Monica company during the birth of her half-pire baby. She has Band-aids on her hand from where Monica dug her nails into Anita’s palm, but now the new mommy is asleep. As she contemplates the security guard outside, the phone rings – Eddie! He brings the news that the hit on her life, and the deadline, has been extended another day. Oh noes! He suggests that Anita hide at Circus of the Damned, ha. She protests, but it’s pretty half-hearted. It sounds like Eddie will plan to pick her up at the police station after she asks for a spare bulletproof vest.

Then she calls Richie, who gets pissy about Eddie’s plan but is mollified when they agree that he can come stay with her. They exchange “love yous” but not a goodbye, which Anita thinks was a Freudian slip. Wait, how’s that? She contemplates everybody at Circus beating each other up, which sounds like good times to me! Eddie whisks her away to the Circus after she finishes giving her statement and narrowly avoids being charged with murder. Jason, clad in a see-through plastic outfit (ugh), welcomes them, but Eddie is in no mood for jocularity. He drops her off with a warning to stay out of sight.

Jason comments that, for someone who doesn’t like flirting, Anita sure has a lot of guys after her! Come on, I just started this recap, spare me Jason! JC’s living room is monochromatic, of course, except for a painting of old-timey people – which includes JC himself! Um, gasp? But who cares, because JC’s shirt covers his nipples! Drink! It also flashes his midriff, which seems very odd for a shirt with long, old-timey sleeves and beading and shit. Instead of flirting, though, he asks about Robert straight off, and he actually seems sad about it. Another three ma petites as they discuss the painting. Five more on the next two pages, still on the subject of the painting and JC’s age.

JC used to hang around the folks in the painting, another vampire and his human servant, but events beyond JC’s control conspired so the servant died. Now the other vampire wants Anita dead, but the vampire council rejected his petition. Six more ma petites (nobody on the face of the planet calls anyone a pet name THIS MUCH) as Jason insults the lady in the painting, JC does something threatening, they talk about Richie, and JC says this in his sexy voice. Five more to round out the chapter with JC showing Anita to her (their?) sleeping quarters. As they walk, she ogles his butt and blames him for it.

Another monochromatic room, and only one remarkably restrained ma petite as we get dumped with description of JC’s awesome new bathroom. Yes, monochromatic. She thinks about how, if Richie were next door, she would totally jump his bones (despite being horribly exhausted), but JC’s another story altogether. And she contemplates freshening up her make-up because God forbid she look a little peaky after an assassination attempt, but she changes her mind to spite JC. Eight ma petites while Anita enters the bedroom again, JC tells her how beautiful she is, and she angsts over her stepmother’s Aryan features. Four more as this conversation continues – only woman to have refused JC, her strength of will is soooo amazing, she’s a challenge, he loves her, she can marry Richie if she wants now, she truly wubs Richie.

Nine more – good lord! – as he advises her on her love life with Richie. Then he gets into that weird Anita Blake-verse logic I hate – if you love him, you should be able to kiss me – and as she oh-so-reluctantly agrees, Richie walks in. The full moon is soon, and he’s on the verge of were-ing out. Oooh, fisticuffs! Anita throws herself at him and is shocked when he tosses her aside. She gets out a knife and is holding it to his throat when he comes back to himself. Aw, shucks. Two more ma petites while tempers cool a bit, and Anita kicks JC out of the room. Hooray! With one more ma petite, he asks that they not fuck on his bed, and Anita angsts some more about Richie’s were-power.

They hug, and a sadly beat-up Jason crawls into the room, and Anita is skeeved out as Richie licks up the blood on his face, from the wounds he inflicted when Jason tried to keep Richie out. Then Richie gives Jason some of his blood in return – turnabout’s fair play – and then Jason skedaddles. More pack politics before they make out and Anita demands he change for her so they can start planning the wedding. Woah there! But he refuses; apparently she has to see the whole pack change. All these rules, Richie! So difficult! He leaves the room, and Anita falls asleep, only to wake up to WereCass hovering over her.

They boys have a plan! When she emerges, she sees Richie dressed in, I shit you not, royal purple shorts slide high up the thigh, and JC is wearing a fur-lined black robe. Where do these people shop?? Poor Anita is so hard up for some action that she can’t even look at Richie in his clinging purple shorts. JC starts nattering, and their plan is to whip up some magic together, the three of them, that depends on lust but, Richie assures her, doesn’t require sex. Suuuure. Three ma petites on these two pages and three on the next, despite JC leaving the room about halfway through to let Richie and Anita get started. Ahem.

I’m sorry, I can’t get over this. Purple pajama shorts slit up the thigh? For men?? Well anyway, Richie and Anita definitely do get started, and soon enough they’re on the floor. Then JC returns, wearing black pajamas, and things get awkward for a moment. JC is remarkably restrained—only one ma petite on this page and three on the next two. I almost laugh aloud when Anita describes herself as “being eaten from both ends like a piece of wood going up in flames.” No, not like that. Yet. There’s some serious homoerotica when JC bites Richie, after Anita says that their power orgy needs blood.

Some magic whoosh happens. Three more ma petites as they discuss what exactly Anita did with that magic whoosh. And then Richie announces that the wolves are coming! Also, there are zombies, thanks to Anita, though they seem to be getting in the way. Anita calls the wolves off “her” zombies, and all but Jason comply. There’s a moment of Random Anita Hostility as they debate this. Then there’s this bizarre moment where Richie’s all “I won’t let no girl lead the pack!” and Anita’s all, “Well, okay, sure.”

But that’s not all that Anita did! Apparently she can call vampires too, and they’re lingering outside the Wolf Fight-y Room, just hanging out. Six more ma petites as JC explains all this. He’s a little freaked out! She reveals that she had raised ElliePire awhile back, leaving Magnus to burn when he dragged her into the sunlight. Richie’s horrified, but geez, it was Anita’s life or theirs. There are about seven ma petites during this discussion, as Anita angsts and Richie looks at her in horror. JC adds to the fun by forbidding them to tell anyone about this, lest the Vampire Council come and try to whack Anita.

So then the scheme is to de-raise the vampires, and somehow WereCass invited herself along. Richie and Anita randomly burst into Makings-Out. Three more ma petites as… something involving blood and JC happens, sorta like Makings-Out but with blood. Anyway, we proceed to the coffin room, where Anita ogles everyone’s private things. Richie and Anita angst about where the blood will come from for the de-raising. At one point Anita actually asks Richie “what are you bitching about?” which makes my day. There’s a minor magic whoosh, but Anita has A Plan which involves calling Dominic, who I barely remember. Was he UglyFace’s human servant? Ah yes, the necromancer.

JC laughs at something Dominic says, and it touches Anita “deep inside where no hand belonged.” Woah there. They keep chatting as Anita sets up the Great De-Raising and JC lets loose with half a dozen ma petites. For reasons that are beyond me, Dominic wants Anita to heal first one of the zombies, then one of the vamps. Success, of course! This means that maybe Anita could heal UglyFace. More magicking ensues, some business about auras and blood, which gets everyone in the room riled up. By the way, I keep losing track of who’s in this scene. It’s Dominic, Anita, her boys, raised vampires, and random Weres who tagged along with Richie. I thought JC didn’t want anyone knowing about Anita’s pire-raising trick.

Okay, zombies are back in the ground! Now to the vampires. Two of them are succesfully de-raised, but Damian (of the mind-rape episode at the club) proves difficult. She comes to with her boys hovering around her. Damian’s de-raised, and Anita’s fine, hooray. Five more ma petites as people argue despite these facts. Something important does emerge; namely, Richie and JC have agreed that JC is going to mark Richie so’s Richie can access his power during his upcoming fight with Marcus. JC doesn’t want to mark her again, even to save her, ostensibly because he doesn’t want to force himself upon her and incur her wrath, but it comes out that with her ever-increasing powers, he’s unsure of who would be the master and who the servant in that relationship.

And then… Edward is back! Woohoo! He introduces them to Harley, a ginger with more soulless empty eyes. I’m starting to think Eddie and Harley get special Empty Soulless Eyez © contact lenses for effect. Anyway, Eddie’s discovered that Marcus is the one hiring assassins to off Anita. Um, gasp? But what’s really bugging Anita is that Harley keeps staring after her, so after a little confab with Eddie, she asks him about it.

Because she’s the scariest motherfucker in the room. Of course. As the conversation progresses, Anita insists to us that Harley’s really crazy, which I’m not picking up on at all, except that he looks at the ground and says that it would be really bad if both Eddie and she died. Apparently he needs someone to give him orders, or else..?!?! Back to plotting, which naturally requires dressing in more of JC’s ludicrous costumes. Anita squeezes into a leather bra with matching shorts, various knife sheaths, and boots, ugh. WereCass does her make-up, and I completely fail to see how this is necessary to a fight to the death. Eddie makes a joke (!) and insinuates that he’s gone undercover as a stripper for a past job. Or at least that’s how I choose to interpret it.

Is there any way Hamilton could write a spin-off series about The Adventures of Eddie and Harley? Because I would so be there. Anyway, Richie emerges in black leather pants and a blue silk shirt, and when Anita sways toward him, he looks all nervous. Dude, it’s just your girlfriend draped in dead cow. They trot outside and chit-chat before another magic whoosh occurs. They run through the woods to find the Weres gathered ’round, dressed in various ridiculous outfits—or in Raina’s case, gold body glitter. She and Anita stalk sexily around each other, and then Raina slinks off and Anita makes out with Richie. Because this is the appropriate time and place for that.

Richie transforms partway with Anita holding his hand, and they say something meaningful about what Anita will do if Richie goes down. And then the fight begins! Marcus’s cohort tries to cheat, but Anita’s ready with the gun Eddie provided. And then, way too soon, Richie rips out Marcus’s heart, and that’s that. That’s all?! Richie tells her to put down the gun, but she wants to kill Raina for trying to interfere. They tussle, and then there’s a serious magic whoosh. Anita freaks out, Richie transforms a little more, and Anita takes off running as the pack set to eating the remains of Marcus, covered in the goo Weres leak when they transform.

Four more ma petites as Anita returns to the club, just in case an assassin is still lurking, and JC finds her there, all upset and freaking out. Five more as JC holds her while she cries, and despite her freaked-outedness, Anita is suspicious of how nice he’s being. Good on her. He runs her a bath, and while she’s modestly covered in bubbles, returns to the bathroom for a chat. He tries to be seductive but ends up falling into the bathtub, which I must admit is a pretty funny mental image.

And then… bathtub lovin’! There’s a good deal of licking and kissing and caressing going on, but suddenly JC stops and climbs out of the bathtub, a little discombulated at his loss of control. Or starts to, before Anita nabs him again. And then he’s nakee! And uncircumcised! Now, I’m amused that “no sex before marriage” Anita knows what cut and uncut penises look like. I guess she’s been doing her research.

I cannot follow what positions these people are rotating through during this scene. They’re standing up now, I think, as now they get very serious. Fingers are going places. A shuddering sigh later, he finds a condom out of thin air, and yep! We have intercourse, people! Repeat, we have intercourse! Then he’s pressing her against the side of the tub (ow) and biting her, and she’s watching them in the mirrors. Good heavens. A wave of pleasure bursts over her, but he’s not done! I really hope JC has no-slip bathtub sticker things.

They switch positions again, this time with JC on the bottom of the tub (ow!) and Anita on top. Half a dozen more ma petites, which… really? That’s the sexiest thing you can think to call her, JC? Then they have some kind of mind meld and simulatenous orgasms. Four more ma petites during the afterglow, and Anita can’t help angsting a little, though I should think that a naked, wet vampire beneath her would lead her mind in other directions.

She wakes up to some random dude asking her if she wants breakfast. Of course she pulls a gun on him, and then Richie walks in. Awkwardsauce! There’s a lot of yelling and tearing up of the bed, and then Richie walks out. I guess it’s too much to hope that he’s taken his orange ties and left for good? WereCass comes in a moment later to help Anita re-make the bed, which ends with a surprise punch in the face that knocks Anita out cold.

This time when she awakes, she’s tied up to a bed, and WereGabriel is stalking around in leather and piercings. Raina’s there too, as is WereCass. She’s UglyFace’s wolf, which led to her betraying Anita to Raina… how? WereCass decides to make out with Anita, which the latter doesn’t really approve of. Then Gabriel licks her, ew. Raina and Cass bitch about something, and Anita tries to persuade Cass not to sacrifice the beloved trio to save UglyFace.

Cass leaves to take care of other things, something about luring Richie and JC here to kill them, and Raina and Gabriel gear up to make another of their snuff porn films. Gabriel starts making out with her amid sexy chit-chat about how he became a Were. And Anita has A Scheme! They stop the film because Anita’s too short to get on tape, and she persuades Gabriel to let her try to kill him while he’s raping her. Um, hot? He agrees, pain freak that he is.

They tie her back up, and Gabriel slips her her knives. As things get rolling again, he slashes her whilst partway transformed, which means that Anita might wake up furry next month! Oh noes! She manages to stab him, but he just likes it. While she’s strugging with Gabriel, Richie and JC are doing something in her head. She shoves her thumbs into Gabriel’s eyes, ew, and then stabs him again before Raina storms in and breaks it up. Anita grabs her gun and shoots Raina, hooray!

Eddie and Harley show up just as Anita’s got everything taken care of. Gee, thanks guys. Harley is adorably crazy. The three of them dash off—Anita in her panties—to save Richie and JC. The Evil Trio have Richie and JC tied up, JC hung with crosses. Anita can’t cross the Evil Magic Circle, but Eddie and Harley can. Much shooting follows, blasting Dominic and Cass and finally UglyFace to bloody shreds. Harley freaks out because he’s crazy, and Anita kills him. Eddie’s a little pissed, but Anita has other things to worry about. Before he died, Dominic stabbed Richie through the heart and now not only is he dying, but because of their connection, JC is going to die too. Uh oh!

Six ma petites as JC is being heroic and Anita argumentative. He finally gives in, and more magic angsty whoosh happens. And then… we awaken with Anita again, this time in the hospital. Eddie’s watching over her, and he reveals that JC and Richie are still alive. Well, duh! They nearly kill each other, but instead Anita agrees that, since she killed Harley, she’ll help Eddie next time he needs back-up.

So Anita recovers and doesn’t turn Were at the next full moon. She’s with JC now because Richie is still being difficult, but they’re still In Wub. Monica’s baby is okay, and when Anita’s dad saw her on TV with JC, he called left her a very worried, Catholic voicemail. Ha.

And that’s the end! Well, looks like Richie and JC and Anita will never have another power orgy again. OR WILL THEY???

There’s something about a required book that gets students up in arms. The classics are like lima beans: you know they’re good for you, but you just don’t want to consume them, or you don’t like them because you’re a kid and you’re not supposed to.

I’m, of course, a freak, because I went on to study English literature in college, so clearly required reading didn’t get me down. I was also on the AP track, and I had some teachers in high school who were basically like, “Yeah, you guys are smart, let’s futz with the curriculum,” so I wound up not reading some of the books that every other kid in my school read (No Homer or Of Mice and Men or Gatsby for me. Instead, my freshman English teacher let me read Rebecca.) I had the same teacher for 2 years of AP English who assigned independent reading off a pretty lengthy list, so there were books from the canon, but you got to choose. Some of what are still my favorite books of all time came from that list: Jane Eyre, The Sound and the Fury. I thought The Scarlet Letter was interesting (which I know is a wildly unpopular opinion) but couldn’t really get into The Catcher in the Rye (same), so I was at least thinking about the books as I read them.

And it’s not like I have anything against teenagers reading trashy books, either. I was reading Danielle Steel and pulpy mysteries when I was in high school, too. So I can see the value in letting kids read what they want so that, at least, they’re reading.

But I had to read a lot of assigned books, too, and somehow Lord of the Flies (which I read as a sophomore and hated) did not kill my love of reading. Maybe by then I’d gained enough perspective to say, “Well, I don’t like this book but I might like the next one the class reads.”

On the other hand, reading a book in high school just kills it for the most literate among us. I finally read The Great Gatsby my senior year in college and loved it. There was a clear divide in my class, though; those that had read the book in high school hated it, those that were reading it for the first time loved it. I was talking about this with a coworker who is reading it now, and she said, “I read this in high school, but I didn’t understand it. I like it much better now.” Which makes me think that maybe we’re teaching the wrong books in school. (Example: I read Great Expectations in high school and then again in college. I actually understood the book the second time. Although, come to think of it, I didn’t really like it better.) I mean, these books weren’t really written for high school kids.

And there’s a larger debate here about what should be in The Canon, which is largely full of dead white guys. I think there’s some expansion on that front: Chinua Achebe and Toni Morrison are popping up on required reading lists, for example. And I’d bet contemporary readers would get a lot more out of The Bluest Eye than they would from My Antonia.

But, anyway, my point is that, although some of these books are a slog, they are still classics for a reason, and I think students should read and discuss them while also having some discretion over what else they read for class. Sometimes you need a palate cleanser.

So. Meg Cabot posted a rant about how much she hated all assigned books in school. I think she had bad teachers, or was predisposed to not like all things assigned because they were homework. She says:

I don’t think there should be mandatory reading lists in school. I cannot think of a single book I enjoyed that I was required to read in school….

…with the exceptions of books I had read before they were assigned to me in school, like To Kill A Mockingbird, and Catcher in the Rye, which were then ruined by someone going on and on about all the “symbolism” in them, and what the authors really meant, which, as an author myself, I can tell you–THE PEOPLE WRITING ABOUT THESE BOOKS DO NOT KNOW. Seriously. THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE AUTHOR REALLY MEANT AT ALL, AND ARE MORE THAN LIKELY WRONG. THIS IS WHY THESE AUTHORS ARE IN HIDING.

O… kay. I’ll admit that I had some doubts about the symbolism in Lord of the Flies when we read it in school. My teacher at the time was teaching out of the Cliff’s Notes (not kidding) which went a long way towards convincing me that she was full of nonsense and that this was about nothing more than some boys on an island. I get the Hobbesian premise of it much better now as an adult. Sure, you can’t really know what the authors intended. Faulkner thought The Sound and the Fury was a mess, one of his worst books, for example. (But, see, I’ve read essays about the book by Faulkner. I wrote a thesis on Toni Morrison and used as support for my arguments real actual quotes from interviews where Toni Morrison explains what she meant in her novels. So sometimes you can know! Crazy!) Sure, there are misinterpretations, but I think there’s value in talking about books, too, in looking at them with a critical eye and culling out larger meanings.

But I’m a nerd that way, I guess.

SB Candy’s response is right on, for the most part. She responds to the above Meg Cabot quote:

Man, what kind of miserable-ass, misguided English teachers did she have? Because I feel that any teacher worth her salt would’ve taught the readers that sometimes, what the author meant and what the author expressed aren’t necessarily the same thing, and that reading is both personal and interactive—it’s a highly solitary activity, in that the reader generally reads alone, but the reader is engaged in a dialogue with the text itself. Reader insights may not have anything to do with what the author meant, and may have everything to do with the reader’s own experiences, and you know what? That’s OK. In fact, that’s great. Language is slippery, and meaning is even slipperier, and we all have something to contribute to the dialogue surrounding books and the reading experience.

Which yeah.

I mean, maybe I’m an exception, because I grew up in a house full of books and I’ve always loved reading. And my shelves at home are about 60/40 Literature/Trash, with the romance novels shelved next to the classics sometimes, and that, to me, is as it should be. I think both have value. Thus it seems wrong to say, “Oh, hey, kid, here’s a Gossip Girl, now you don’t have to read Wuthering Heights.”

These tales of women overcoming obstacles to live independently of men and their bank accounts certainly sound inspiring — except that the obstacles aren’t really that big. In fact, it seems that divorce and financial devastation usually cause the heroines to do something fun and hip that they really wanted to do anyway. When her parents take away her credit cards, Mercury in Retrograde’s Lena “Lipstick” Lippencrass “discovers a talent for fashion design” — that noted path to financial security. The heroine of The Summer Kitchen is “forced to open a bakery,” also usually a capital-intensive and uncertain enterprise, at least in the real world. And Jill Kargman’s The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund, has its heroine, post-divorce, “picking up the threads of a career built on her first love, rock ‘n’ roll.” These women don’t have to scrimp and save in menial jobs — instead, they embark on glamorous careers, with the implication that their lives are now more fulfilling than they were in the days of easy marital money.

It makes me think of that episode of Sex and the City in which Carrie goes apartment hunting only to find that things in her price range are tiny. The first time I saw it, I thought that it was maybe the first episode of the whole darn series that showed my New York. Carrie looks in a tiny closet and wonders where she’ll keep her shoes. Yeah, welcome to life for the rest of us. You may recall that the episode ends when Charlotte gives Carrie the money she needs to buy her old apartment, thus solving the problem handily in a half hour.

In other words, it’s hard to look at the plots of these books and not think, “Oh, you have slightly less disposable income so you pursue your dream job. Such problems!” This is appealing how?

Jezebel concludes:

The chick lit genre doesn’t deserve across-the-board opprobrium — at their best, these novels can be witty and wise, and their popularity supports many a female writer. But chick lit writers may be unconsciously buying into women’s magazine culture, with its idea that reading should inspire desire — for more stuff, or, in the new, recession-era formulation, for a life that is glamorous even in fallback mode. It’s neither realistic nor necessary to ask that writers produce only what Benfer calls “Great and Difficult works of art,” or that all chick lit novels be about unmitigated pain and suffering. But, as author Gigi Levangie Grazer says, “the idea that having the right bag buys you happiness-now that’s dark.” And there’s something dark, too, about the notion that even in a recession, heroines need to be better off than their readers. Do chick lit consumers want to read about working-class families dealing with layoffs, or women who find fulfillment in jobs that aren’t traditionally “cool”? We don’t know, because those books aren’t being written — yet.

+ Check out All About Romance’s list of lists. If you’re a romance reader who likes specific themes (curvy heroines, for example, or the dread virginal heroines), it’s worth taking a gander.

Romance novels also rather famously ignore things like historical hygiene. Because, as you know, before the 20th century, people didn’t bathe to often. EvilAuntiePeril further points out

The thing is, I’m perpetually intrigued by what is justified in historical romance novels on the grounds of historical “authenticity” (eg. rape, abuse, swordsticks, Fabio in a Viking helmet) and what is extracted on grounds that it would put off the sensitive reader (eg. slavery, blatant racism, poor oral health, body hair). It’s not the removal of all ick. It’s selective historical sanitisation – and it’s not only in ye olde Romancelande that this takes place.

She goes on to say that historical novels are often more reflective of the period in which they are written, and certainly out contemporary obsession with cleanliness and hygiene comes across in novels written today. There are justifications for not describing the dank, dirty conditions of the time periods being written in, too: lack of hygiene would have been normal for all of the characters, so there’s no need to draw attention to it, or romance is fantasy and talking about body odor ruins the illusion.

Candy at Smart Bitches takes it further, point out that cleanliness = good, and lack of hygiene is often shorthand in romance novels for villainy. “If somebody in a romance novel has rotting teeth or smells weird, they’re not just going to bad, they’re going to be naaaaaaasty, and the hero and heroine are going to be distinguished from this nastiness, whatever the actual state of physical hygiene happened to be in Ye Olden Dayes of Yore for gently-bred people.” Candy brings up other examples: weird food as an explanation for Otherness in foreign characters; fat as shorthand for emasculation or even villainy (male obesity especially, since romance writers treat overweight heroines with a softer touch; Candy cites several fat male characters who are either emasculated—one is impotent—or else clearly the Bad Guy).

In the latter case, this is fishy because I can think of several historical figures known as well for their corpulence as their sexual prowess. Candy says this is beside the point, and also reflective more of 2009 than 1809.

What’s happening here has more to do with how contemporary culture desexualizes overweight people, and how overwhelmingly, we associate masculinity with muscularity. I particularly find the leap from emasculation to evil especially interesting, because it’s a theme you see quite a bit in literature in general and romance novels in particular. Oftentimes, I think the villainization is achieved via feminization, because emasculation often brings with it an identification/association with effeminacy, and that almost always leads to villainization of a character. You see it not only with men who are portrayed as fat and sexually impotent and are coded as womanish, but with men who are more explicitly coded as womanish, such as bisexuals, homosexuals or transvestites.

So there’s some food for thought. Um. Probably it’s improper to make a food pun when discussing obesity, eh?

Then there’s the entirely different matter of romance plots that would never have happened. Lynne Connolly at The Good, the Bad, and the Unread lists some things that could not or never happened in the real world:

* A known, famous courtesan marrying a peer of the realm and them being accepted into society with open arms.
* Peers of the realm becoming pirates.
* Regency gentlemen drinking whisky or whiskey from a decanter on the sideboard. [whiskey was illegal until 1823 and not a common drunk until the 1840s]
* A medieval Scottish warrior brandishing his claymore. ["No claymores until the late 16th century."]
* A medieval Scottish warrior wearing a skirted kilt in his clan’s tartan. [No kilts until the 19th century.]

I agree with Connolly that when you come across a detail that you know not to be true (this is why I don’t read a lot of American historicals, because I would find all of these errors) it takes you right out of the story. She says, “It’s an insult to say “it’s only a romance, so it’s okay, I can write what I like and get away with it” or something else I’ve overheard, “They’ll never notice.” So what? The other person a writer should respect is herself and her art.” Trust me, readers notice. (Actually, The Phoenix takes place in a time period I’ve been studying lately, and I think the portrayal of New York in the 1890s was mostly spot on, if vague in places. Except for the LES, Sims never really specifies neighborhoods. I kind of wanted more detail, actually, though I suspect that if she’d gotten things wrong, I would have gotten pulled out of the story.)

So. Does historical inaccuracy in fiction bother you? Does it matter? Should Regency heroines bathe less often?

I hate the label “chick lit” because I think it’s belittling. I went to an Erica Jong reading around the time her autobiography was published, and I chatted with her a little at the end about chick lit. She also hates the label because it necessarily segregates female authors in the book stores. Because, let’s face it, chick lit is looked down upon as being, well, fluffy nonsense.

But I like the idea of books about urban women with flaws. Maybe because I can see myself in a lot of these heroines, but I think there’s something really appealing in that. I’m also a sucker for a book that takes place somewhere I know well.

A new wave of chick lit is deemed more realistic. An example is Amy Sohn’s new novel about Park Slope (Brooklyn) moms. Themes in these novels include finding oneself after divorce and raising children in affluent communities.

I work in Park Slope and spend a fair amount of my play time there, too, so I know from Park Slope moms, trust me. The idea of a novel about 4 Park Slope couples is kind of appealing, and I’d read it jsut to find familiarity. But after reading the summaries of this novel, I came to realize that I do not know these women. Or if I do, but I don’t like them. What I like to call the Park Slope Mom Brigade is something of a joke around these parts because these moms are crazy and overprotective, and conjure images of helicopter parenting and food co-op memberships (see also Fucked in Park Slope). And I’m supposed to find them sympathetic? Novels featuring wealthy divorcees? Um, what? I have some respect for what these writers are doing, but I feel like it’s not that far removed from Candace Bushnell, and maybe it’s “realistic,” but it’s still kind of whiney and elitist.

Thoughts?

Warning: There are some spoilers in this review, mostly because the part of the book I liked the least was the last quarter of it, and I don’t think this would be an adequate review without explaining what I didn’t like. I’ll try not to spoil it too badly, though.

So I picked up this book after reading this review. I thought, okay, midwestern grandma writes a Victorian epic at the center of which is a gay romance? Sign me up!

The Phoenix is a little first-novel-y, in that there are some structural problems, a little bit of head-hopping, and A LOT of plot (although that’s more a genre convention than a flaw). It’s surprisingly well put together, though. I think it falls short of other Victorian epics I’ve read in the same vain (examples: The Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber, Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters) but it was still a fun read and full of every Victorian Novel Cliché you can think of.

Jack Rourke is our Oliver Twist, a boy born to poverty with a viciously abusive father and a weak twin brother named Michael. At fourteen, he befriends an actress named Lizbet who helps him get a job as a stagehand at a theater. Lizbet also teaches him to read and speak properly. Jack comes home one night to find that his father has killed Michael, so Jack in turn kills his father, then runs to Lizbet for help. She smuggles him out of London to St. Denys Hill, her family’s home. Jack is taken in by Xavier St. Denys, Lizbet’s brother, who is happy to take in the boy because he knows he will never marry or have a son of his own. You can guess why. Although the house parties he hosts that are attended only by well-dressed men might be a clue. In an effort to disguise his identity, Xavier renames Jack Christopher, then he later adopts him, so he becomes Christopher St. Denys, called Kit. Kit soon becomes the most famous and well-respected actor in London.

Meanwhile, Nicholas Stuart is born to a religious country doctor. Nick’s father grooms him to be a doctor from infancy, so he’s never given a choice about his occupation. Nick doesn’t really have much angst about that, nor does he chafe against his religious upbringing. No, what estranges him from his family is his desire to go to college, after which he gets a job in London as a doctor for the poor.

So he goes to the theater one night on a whim and catches Kit St. Denys’s performance as Hamlet, then he kind of becomes obsessed with the actor, then there’s a prop mishap wherein Kit gets hit on the head and bleeds all over the stage and the rest is history.

Nick resists because he’s deeply religious, but caves eventually and he and Kit fall into a passionate affair that goes on for a year. Nick justifies his actions by telling himself that the cat is already out of the bag, but then he catches Kit in flagrante with another man, and he’s so pissed he leaves. And that’s when the real action of the novel begins.

Nick goes to America, meets a spunky girl named Bronwyn, and marries her. He figures out on his wedding night that he’s capable of making love to his wife, so he figures he doesn’t need Kit anymore. Kit, meanwhile, spends more than a year trying to find Nick, and when he does, he takes his theater on a wild tour of America, settling eventually in New York.

Sims does an admirable job pulling in in references to real historical events and occasionally real people. When Kit arrives in New York he has to fight with the Theater Syndicate run by Frohmann and Erlanger, for example. I liked this portrayal of New York and of Nick’s almost rustic outpost in Brooklyn. These men are contemporaries of Oscar Wilde as well (he’s a friend of Kit’s) so this takes place 1890-ish, though it’s never specified.

But somewhere in here it started to go horribly wrong. Firstly, all of Kit’s friends have this irrational hatred for Nick that is never adequately explained. It made me wonder if there was something seriously wrong with Nick that I didn’t see. I guess it was supposed to make their love seem more ill-fated.

In New York, Kit, still desperately in love with Nick, seeks him out and goes so far as to drop by his home. By this time, Nick’s wife is pregnant, and having a difficult pregnancy at that, but Nick goes to Kit and they resume their affair as if no time has passed. And the thing is, Bronwyn is actually a really likable character at first, which I thought could set up an interesting conflict. She’s smart and gregarious, and she’s a great nurse and a good friend to Nick. Nick betrays her and feels awful about it, but not enough to stay faithful to her. I was curious to see how Sims would work this out, because it was clear that Nick and Kit would wind up together. I thought, would Sims kill her off? Would she have her own affair with the handsome doctor who works with Nick? [SPOILERS AHEAD] Nope. Instead she grows increasingly resentful of all the time Nick spends away from home, and then all of the time Nick spends nursing Kit back to health after a traumatic event. She becomes a humorless shrew, and she’s hysterical and completely unpleasant. She sees Kit and Nick kiss one night when they think they’re alone, then she snoops and finds out about the affair, and then she completely flies off the handle. So, okay, we resolve this interesting conflict by turning a likable character into a shrieking harridan.

Then, weirdly, after a plot contrivance, Nick thinks Kit is dead, at which time one would think he would get over himself and go back to his marriage, but instead that’s when he asks for a divorce. Actually, he asks Bronwyn to file for divorce, because he can’t do it himself. Bronwyn is so horrified, she leaves, takes their child, and marries the other handsome doctor.

So, huzzah! Nick is single. Kit’s not dead. Happily ever after, yeah?

I think my main beef is the desecration of Bronwyn’s character so that Nick can have a happy ending, although Nick cheating on her was a little squicky just to begin with. But then A LOT happens in the last half of the book. Among other things, Kit stars in a play to rave reviews, winds up in an asylum, and then winds up with amnesia and joins the circus. I know. It’s absurd and kind of awesome, ridiculous in a way a Victorian epic should be. Kit’s a great character, but I had no idea what to do with Nick at the end of the novel.

So that’s The Phoenix. And I need a nap.