Posts Tagged ‘ romance fiction ’

I am late to the Pride and Prejudice party or A long love letter to The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

I’ve never understood the squeeeeing or heart-fluttering fangirling over Pride and Prejudice. This is not to say that I didn’t like the novel. I really enjoyed it. I love Jane Austen. I have sat at her grave at Winchester Cathedral. I have visited the Jane Austen Centre in Bath. I have read her books. I haz done the Jane Austen pilgrimage as a bookish nerd is wont to do. However, I have never understood the obsessive collectors and viewers of all things Pride and Prejudice.

In fact, I didn’t considered Pride and Prejudice to be a romance. To me it was a snarky novel about social classes, relationships, women’s status, their lack of autonomy and the requirement to make a good marital match. Oh, I know that it is romantic but its subtle romance was lost on me as a 17 year old who had already spent the previous 5 years reading intense and focused romance in the form of category series romances. As an adult, I have read the many epistles and scholarly criticisms and journals dedicated to Pride and Prejudice and all that other cerebral stuff but deep down inside – there was nuthin.

I tried to understand the hero status that Mr Darcy inspires. Colin Firth, in the BBC series, looked like he had swallowed a bad oyster throughout every episode until that last scene when he deems it worthy a moment to crack a smile. He’s all muttering and mumbling. Jennifer Ehle’s portrayal of Lizzie Bennet is good but I never feel the connection between her and Mr Darcy – even in the wet shirt scene (and really?! What is the whole kerfuffle about that wet shirt? It isn’t that impressive. All I could think of was the squelching of wet socks in boots and the chafing of wet trousers when walking).

I tried again to watch Bridget Jones’ Diary but once again I was left cold. A ridiculous heroine misjudges Mark Darcy. Once again, Colin Firth has had a plate full of bad oysters until, once again, the last scene where, I will concede, he is a tad sexy with his “Nice boys don’t kiss that way” retort of “Oh yes they fucking do”. I came around a bit with the Knightley/McFadyen version of Pride and Prejudice which seems to be anathema to most fans and I’ve also watched the Laurence Olivier/Greer Garson version which was also ho hum. So you get it. Not a fan.

It took until the 200th anniversary to finally get it, to finally see how wonderfully romantic the book actually is. And not only do I get it but I also am surprised at my score long obtuseness.

How did I not see that Mr Darcy is one of my all time favourite romance hero types – the suited up, billionaire CEO sitting on his high horse, lording it over his minions just to be brought to his knees by an unassuming, often much poorer and plainer but ever so sharp heroine that he initially barely deigns worthy of his time. Elizabeth Bennet, too, is my favourite romance heroine. She is not glitzy, glamorous, ditzy or quirky. She is smart, observant, quick to take offense at perceived slights and really funny. These two are fabulous together and I have finally seen the beauty and the romance of Pride and Prejudice due to The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.

To many of you who also follow me on Twitter this is not a surprise revelation. I have already blogged about The LBD elsewhere. I decided to wait until the last episode before posting my total adoration for this series but I couldn’t bear to post straight away – it has taken me a whole month to deal with my loss. Yes dammit. I have turned into one of those viewers who is grieving the loss of a favourite show. Go ahead. Judge me. Then judge me some more when I tell you that I have struggled writing this post for this month as it is difficult to pull together the many different ways this show has left an impression on me which is why the rest of this post will be a list of why I think this series is teh awesomesauce:

    Secondary Characters

Where in every other adaptation the secondary characters remained unexplained, their motivations left unknown or unrealised this adaptation fleshed out previously disliked characters giving them depth and humanity. From compliant Bing Lee, beautiful calm Jane, practical and insightful Charlotte, conniving Caroline, sweet Gigi, Fitz (my sons’ favourite character “Fitzie”) to the shallow, selfish party girl with hidden depths Lydia! Just a few quick words on Lydia – I honestly don’t think that there can be any subsequent production of Pride and Prejudice that doesn’t take into consideration this brilliant interpretation of a previously two-dimensional grating character. She very nearly stole the whole show. She finally made us understand the appeal of the fun, thoughtless sister. I’m possibly the only person who would have liked to see Lydia end up with George Wickham. I get that the moral to the story is that you don’t need to settle and in this day and age you certainly don’t need to stay in a dysfunctional relationship but – well, call me warped but Lydia became too subdued for my liking and the moralising of the consequences of sleeping around seemed stronger than Austen’s own writing expressed 200 years earlier.

    Lizzie Bennet/Ashley Clements

I have a girl crush on Ashley Clements. I don’t know where to start in praising her interpretation of Lizzie Bennet. She is the Lizzie Bennet that I wish all the other adaptations delivered. Her Lizzie just hands down trumps every other wimpy, soft-spoken, pursed lipped, ditzy dumbass version that I have seen. Clements slams you with snark and lampoons from Episode 1. She delivers a character that is observant and funny and sharp and someone you want as your friend. Her face is beautifully expressive whether she is recounting an event, taking the piss, yearning, crying or happy.

Lizzie’s depictions of family, friends and acquaintances are as caricatures. For the sake of a great story she overdraws the people she comes across in her life. She knows that she is not being truthful to her viewers about the people she is depicting. She admits to being 80% truthful…no make that 50% truthful. As a viewer you know that Lizzie is not an accurate narrator but as a narrator even she knows that she is not an accurate narrator. Hyperbole is her ruler but, just like her sister Lydia, she has a vulnerable side that you get a glimpse of in Episode 7 when she is retelling “The Most Awkward Dance Ever”. It takes 3 episodes for Lizzie to even bring up this event – a whole 10 days after the Gibson wedding. As a viewer you see that Lizzie Bennet was embarrassed and slighted publicly by William Darcy. A public that is a tangible one. One in the physical world of family, friends, neighbours and the whole community watching her being rejected. Lizzie Bennet then goes on to publicly embarrass and slight William Darcy in a virtual space – a space which she doesn’t perceive has the impact that reality does until Episode 61 where we see her hesitance to even meet William Darcy’s eyes.

For a while I have been exploring this idea of the spaces we consider our reality. My interpretation of Lizzie Bennet at the beginning of the series is that Lizzie is detached from this virtual space. Particularly as a communications student her understanding of this medium as a virtual space unlike real life seems to make it OK to speak freely about family and friends once you have altered them, fictionalised them and you the viewer need to work out what aspects of the other characters are truthful. It is after Darcy’s first love declaration and subsequent argument about real events that Lizzie realises that Darcy is a man she has wronged. (And I love the strained look on her face when his objections to her mother and Lydia are also her objections to them). Thankfully for Lizzie, (and perhaps because he is a media communication CEO) he seems to have a similar understanding to her of the reality of the web as an unreal virtual space with somewhat unreal depictions and is able to dismiss her online comments about him. From Episode 60 Ashley Clements slowly turns Lizzie Bennet around from a seemingly oversharing, laughing storyteller to a more reserved person selective in her choice of words for the screen.

    William Darcy/Daniel Vincent Gordh

As you have read above, I have never been a fan of grumble bum Darcy. But for the first time ever, here was a Darcy that appealed. He is a snob. He is realistic that there are class differences in our world. Just as Lizzie portrays her worse self in Episode 60, Darcy too shows us his absolute worse. The beauty is that neither of them are reticent in their exchange. These two are equals who leave their exchange rethinking their approach to each other. From that episode onwards we get to see a softer, more considerate Darcy. One that starts thinking through his attitudes to people outside his usual sphere until the penultimate episode where he is a relaxed, happy man (well – he had spent a week getting it on). For what it is worth, I am not a subscriber to the Darcy has Aspergers theory. I do not like the need to medicinalise behaviour that society has decided is not the norm. Darcy starts the story as a total snob but he is also shy and this combination is the fab reason why it takes nearly a year and 3 minutes to get the girl. And can I say, Daniel V Gordh has the most beautiful sprinkling of silver in his hair. Be still my beating heart! Just what all distinguished, billionaire CEOs should have. And 16 year old me would be pulling apart my Tiger Beat mag and putting up posters of DVG.

To add to this, I loved all the Darcy and Lizzie episodes. There are minor niggling lines that I wish could have been refined. Lizzie is fine calling Darcy a “prick” but shies away from saying that she doesn’t want to be the girl that is sleeping with the boss (c’mon already – who says “dating”?) and Lizzie not acknowledging Darcy in the last episode (a phrase would have sufficed). This doesn’t detract from the fact that these two sparked off each other. They had tension, those deep gazes gave me flutters and it was wonderful to watch the online squeeeeeing from all the other fans and viewers.

    The Writers

How could I even think of writing such a love letter to this wonderful show without acknowledging the wonderful writers who adapted this 200 year old story. These writers went well beyond any movie or any TV series has previously managed. They wrote flawed, real characters. They understood Austen’s characters and that people change due to the people they know and meet in their life. The writers show us all the necessity for forgiveness and that it is possible to overcome our prejudices and change our perception of others. The transmedia fiction, the use of Twitter and Tumblr and Pinterest gave us a deeper understanding of the main characters and allowed us to view them off-screen but still online partaking in a life that is the norm for all of us in this internet connected world. Understandably, production quality – great for a low budget series – did have its own challenges. There are sound quality fluctuations, Mr Microphone peaks at us in a later episode, beltless Bing, Darcy is not that crash hot a dresser for someone who is supposed to be in the 1% (seriously – a buttoned down shirt that isn’t buttoned down). These points though are inconsequential because the storytelling ruled.

The last episode was subdued and though at first I was disappointed with it, I now see it as the quiet farewell it needed to be. This was a journey for Lizzie and Charlotte. Two women finding their professional way in this modern world, each of them with different values and needs yet dedicated to their friendship. Thankfully, the writers were not constrained to only the videos and the transmedia fiction element delivered a wonderful epilogue on Twitter, at once funny, romantic and hopeful for the future. I truly hope we get to see the tweets in the DVD edition as I really feel they were key to the whole story. The writing, and the writers, are the absolute champions of this wonderful web series.

In the end, I invested countless hours in these wonderful characters. Gee they were fabulous! I have invested in the Kickstarter and I am so happy they have brought me to a new love and appreciation for Jane Austen’s wonderful Pride and Prejudice.

What!? You want more! Should my overly long letter not be enough here are a couple of links to read:

Goodby Lizzie Bennet, it has been… so good to see you

http://astillandquietconscience.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/goodbye-lizzie-bennet-it-has-been-so.html

Asian Americans in Jane Austen’s White Sanctum

http://rudegirlmag.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/asian-americans-in-jane-austens-white-sanctum/

2013
04/26
CATEGORY
Reviews
VaVeros
8 comments

Look Ma! I’m on a podcast! or This is what you get when you don’t vet your children’s reading

On Valentine’s Day, Kat Mayo and I spent a good part of our day travelling to 2SER studios for an interview on Love and Passion. Anyone that knows both Kat and me would know that we can talk about romance fiction for hours. Put us in front of a microphone and we will amp it up just that tad bit more. I recommend you get yourself a cup of tea, coffee, icecream, cakey and sit back and enjoy.

Love and Passion Show 116 on 2SER

Love and Passion Show 116 on 2SER

The show was aired on a Saturday and unbeknownst to me, one of my sisters went to my mum’s place and translated the interview to mum as it was being aired. During the break in the interview, I received a phone call from my mum.

Mum: When did you start reading romances?

Me: 32 years ago.

Mum: Really? So you just went on the radio to tell everyone?

Me: Yes mum.

Mum: Thank you for letting them know that I don’t read them. But you didn’t tell them I read religious books and biographies of saints.

Me: Sorry mum. I did consider it.

Mum: So what do you know about romance?

Me: Ummm…you know how I went back to uni last year?

Mum: Yes.

Me: That is what I am studying. I told you about it. And you know I read romances. You would always ask me to help you cook and clean and to put down “those romances”.

Mum: I didn’t think you were actually reading romances. I was being ironic.

There you have it. My mum, the original hipster.

Unlike a lot of romance readers I have met, I did not discover romances by finding my mum or grandmum’s stash. If anything, reading is not a shared activity for my mum and I as our interests are quite different. Not now and not when I was a younger either.

For many people, the thought of a parent not knowing what their children are reading seems to be anathema. It is equated as “not caring” or “how can you trust what they have chosen”.

I can tell you that both my parents cared that I was reading. Their main aim was to provide my sisters and I with ample opportunities to read and do homework. That is, ensuring that we didn’t have too many distractions – 1 doll, no video player, 1 TV, regular visits to the library and food at the ready. Both my parents were Greek migrants so Greek was the main conversational language in our home. My mum’s English reading skills were minimal (she worked a day job in a factory, a night shift as a cleaner, a weekend job as a cleaner, ran a boarding house AND raised 4 daughters) and though she was literate in Greek, due to her mindblowing superwoman working life, her rare chance to relax involved her knitting, tatting, gardening and reading the newspaper and the Bible. For mum, food and care was her bonding experience – as well as teaching me how to embroider which I still do on occasion. The only reading I remember sharing with my mum was when I would translate Paris Match from French to Greek for her when they had spreads on the Greek ex-royal family or an article on Cristina and/or Athena Onassis.

As my dad was highly literate in English, mum was quite happy to let him take charge of the homework and reading tasks. Though she did not know the content of the books I was reading, my dad did. Luckily, he was of the mindset that censorship of reading was wrong and never objected to the books I was reading that other friends’ parents were voicing concerns over. Thankfully, he trusted my choices.

My reading path was mine to choose. Influenced by my sisters, my teachers, friends, the books available at the library and my local newsagency, there was a joy in discovering my interests unfettered by close examination of the content of my books by my parents. This is something I try hard to emulate with my sons though it is difficult when you are a librarian to not be involved in their reading lives. Making opportunities for them to read is a much harder task. Gaming and computing distractions abound in our home and are much more addictive than the written word. To be fair, they have both hooked me onto Football Manager and I am crap at it. Its complex rules and processes make me weep for the simplicity of a linear narrative text. I no longer choose books for them. I stopped doing so when they were 8. Unless they ask I won’t read their choices. It is their private party, their little secret. Funnily, both of them at 11 years old have sneakily challenged me with “Mum, there’s lots of snogging and drug taking in the book I’m reading”. My reply has been “That’s good. Would you like something to eat?”.

I never thought of my romance reading as ever being secret. I never felt that they were my private party. I honestly thought I read romances openly for most of my life. That is until last week when I realised that it only took 32 years for my mum to come to the realisation that when she was shouting at me to put away those romances, her daughter was really, truly reading romances.

2013
02/24
CATEGORY
VaVeros
11 comments

My books are worth their weight in silver

Like most homes, we have a small stash of 5 cent, 10 cent and 20 cent coins that pile up in a coin jar. This coin jar is used regularly so there is rarely any more money than five dollars in it. My youngest son can only take canteen money from that jar to pay for his garlic bread or frozen oranges  and I get to use my handful of silver when I head down to my local opshop/charity shop.

Books at my opshop cost anywhere from $1 to $5. I will often throw some coins in my bag and head down to buy myself a book. When I did this today, I was overjoyed to find some Charlotte Lamb, Carole Mortimer, Anne Mather and Penny Jordan reprints on sale. These were reprints from their later books but even these reprints are nearly 10 years old and out of print. I counted my silver and found I had enough money to buy 3 books, all with 2 novels in each binding. I chose the ones I would buy, went to the front of the shop and waited to be served. The woman ahead of me was buying some interior decorating magazines. These were being sold for $1, too. There was a woman hovering to my side and when it came to my turn to be served she said to the woman at the checkout “Give her the Mills & Boon 3 for a dollar. I just want to get rid of them”. It turns out hover woman was the manager.

Now her comment took me aback somewhat. This is an opshop. Is there a place for snobbery in an opshop? I expect a certain egalitarianism from my opshop. I have often seen Target shirts hanging beside Ben Sherman shirts here. I have seen Sportsgirl skirts next to Jigsaw skirts. Frankly, my Mills & Boons, clutched closely to my bosom, had, just moments ago, been sitting on a shelf alongside John Banville’s the Sea and V. S. Naipaul’s Half a Life (ah! the sweet irony that they still sit on those shelves unpurchased). Isn’t shopping at an opshop an opportunity to give to a charity while benefitting from finding an item that is no longer easily purchased from mainstream retailers? For others it is a way to dress and clothe themselves while on a tight budget and for others it is a thumbing it to the big corporates in an attempt to be alternative.

Now this opshop only had 20 M&B titles which is quite a low amount in comparison with the opshop in the neighbouring suburb which has hundreds. And this was a good day! It often has none. Though on the one hand I was quite excited at the lower price so I hurried over to the shelves and chose another 6 books and bought 9 books for $3 (which being doubles means that I scored 18 new books today!) I was also angered. I wanted to shake my fist at the sky and shout “How could you denigrate these wonderfully written books. How could you value them less than a three year old tattered House and Garden”. But I didn’t. I did make a comment about literature snobs after I gave her my pennies.

I am offended on behalf of my reading love. My offense won’t last long as you develop a thick skin as an out-of-the-closet romance reader. But I choose to be affronted when my reading choices meet disdain, scorn and ridicule. I am going to love my books. And they are worth their weight in silver.

Postscript: Like most people, I buy my books from a broad range of places. Retailers, online, markets, opshops and second-hand bookshops. In anticipation of anyone reading this accusing me that if I felt that strongly about Mills & Boon why don’t I buy them new I would like to say that I only buy my in print Mills & Boon at full retail prices. And they are the books that are worth their weight in gold.

2012
11/29
CATEGORY
VaVeros
10 comments

When a romance has you reflecting on past events….

Occasionally, when I read a romance, its storyline sends me on a remembrance of times that have past me. Liz Fielding‘s A Suitable Groom did that for me today.

A Suitable Groom is a sweet romance about a woman who orchestrates a meeting with a man that she feels will be a great deflector from her single status at a family wedding. I do enjoy a “Fake relationship becomes Real” plot line even though I know of only one real life relationship that had this as a start. (A green card marriage which eventuated in love, a child and now 25 years together). But there was something in the retelling of this tale that had me remembering the awkwardness of receiving invites for “Vassiliki and friend” for formal dinners, birthdays and weddings. When these events were held close to my home, I was more than happy to turn up on my own, but when venues were over an hour away by car I preferred to take a friend along. This was in the days of no mobile phones and I found driving through National Parks in my old, unreliable car at midnight on my own to be particularly distasteful.

I had a trusty partner in an old school friend who was always happy to come along to snooty parties, eat great food, dance the night away and then laugh while I drove the two of us home. This was a dear friend whom I had known since I was in primary school but I had no romantic inclinations towards him, and I believed that he had none towards me.

One night, as I was dropping him off from one of my many parties, he asked me to park the car. This startled me. He was my friend. I did not want him confusing our platonic relationship but I parked in his dark, quiet street.

He turned to me and told me “I know why I am on this earth”.

I internally cringed and thought “Why can’t guys just stay friends. Why do they have to misread romance into every friendship”.

He took my hand in his, gazed into my eyes and said “I have been put on this earth to kill the anti-Christ”.

As he said these words, my thoughts turned to “Why can’t guys just crack onto me”.

My next thought was “Fuck! What if he thinks I am the anti-Christ and he wants to kill me and I’m on his dark, quiet street”.

Suffice to say, I wasn’t who he was searching for but he did give me a long description of how this revelation came to him. I gently pulled my hand away from his, made my excuses that I was running late and had to head home and left him with his ramblings. Sadly, this did hamper our friendship as I never asked him to partner me again. To my knowledge, he never killed an anti-Christ but he did become a heroin addict from which he has been recovering with methodone for many years.

Which brings me back to Liz Fielding’s A Suitable Groom. Such a lovely read. Filled with funny family dynamics and a spark between the hero and heroine from the first moment that they spoke. I especially liked the accidental marriage plans as this is how my own husband and I accidentally married (I kid you not). If only there were more “fake relationship, stand in escort to a wedding turns into romantic love” stories in real life. *sigh*

2012
07/19
CATEGORY
Reviews
VaVeros
6 comments

R*BY Award Finalists and the availability of the shortlist in Australian Libraries


The Romance Writers of Australia Awards were announced today. These awards are voted on by readers and I was pleased to see so many of my favourite Australian Women Writers listed. As I am saving all my pennies to get my bookshelves built, I thought I’d borrow some of the titles through interlibrary loan so I searched through Trove (the National Australian Library’s database for the uninitiated) and I thought I would share the results with readers of this blog.

Short Sweet
Molly Cooper’s Dream Date – Barbara Hannay (18 public libraries/4 State or National)
How To Save a Marriage In a Million – Leonie Knight (1 public library/2 State/National)
Abby and The Bachelor Cop – Marion Lennox (19 public libraries)
Single Dad’s Triple Trouble – Fiona Lowe (16 public libraries/1 State/National/1 University)

Short Sexy
The Fearless Maverick – Robyn Grady (1 State/National/1 University)
The Man She Loves to Hate – Kelly Hunter (12 public libraries/1 State/National)
The Wedding Charade – Melanie Milburne (19 public libraries/1 State/National/1 University)
Her Not-So-Secret-Diary – Anne Oliver (7 public libraries/1 State/National/1 University)

Long Romance
Midnight’s Wild Passion – Anna Campbell (39 public libraries/2 Universities/3 State/National)
Boomerang Bride – Fiona Lowe (0 holdings – this seems very odd to me)
The Best Laid Plans – Sarah Mayberry (11 public libraries/1 university/National)
The Voyagers – Mardi McConnochie (53 public libraries/4 Sate/5 universities/National)

Romantic Elements
The Trader’s Wife – Anna Jacobs (52 public libraries/2 State/National/2 University)
The Shelly Beach Writers’ Group – June Loves (63 public libraries/3 State/3 Universities/National)
Busted In Bollywood – Nicola Marsh (0 – this seems very odd to me)
Shattered Sky – Helene Young (54 public libraries/4 universities/3 States/National)

I’m not sure how anyone else feels about this list but, with the exception of 5 of the titles, it doesn’t feel as though there are many loan choices. At first glance 15 might seem a lot but break that down by State and it doesn’t represent many holdings. I’m not sure how the authors themselves would feel about this. Is it a case of “Good – they’ll go out and buy my book instead” or “For heaven’s sake! Will librarians start buying up in romance! I want my books to be read by library borrowers who ultimately become buyers”.  Hopefully, now that libraries have a shortlist to select from, this list will look quite different by August when the awards are announced.

NOTE: I know that, in terms of ILL’s libraries do have other avenues to search for titles, but as a reader searching from home, I rarely explore these other options. If it isn’t listed by Trove I either don’t read it or I buy it. I also understand that Australian Librarians can’t all buy every single title that comes out – and perhaps this is where I sometimes get all nostalgic and bemoan that libraries no longer have schemes such as the wonderful Sydney Subject Specialisation Scheme – Fiction Reserve program in place. This scheme gave each library in the Sydney region a Dewey span and a Fiction letter span to specialise in – for example, one library I worked at had the span of authors with surnames Koc – Let (cheeky librarians). The loss of this program has resulted in everyone catering to the middle ground and some less well known, less read but still interesting books are not being purchased.

2012
05/07
CATEGORY
Libraries
VaVeros
9 comments

Eye candy, chest hair and the category romance cover

I love my category romance fiction books and, along with my love for the stories, I also love the schmaltzy cover art. For what can be more soothing at the end of a tiring day, than an easy-on-the-eyes image of a handsome man on the cover of your current read.

Mills and Boon Covers

Mills and Boon Covers

But for many years, I would get annoyed at the waxed, glistening pecs on a torso on so many covers.  Now, unless the book is about a male model/exotic dancer/personal trainer, I prefer the cover to reflect the character. You know, white coats for the medics, suits for the business man, kanduras for the sheiks, western shirts for the cowboys and a black T-shirt for the firies. And though I know that some readers like to see the muscle bound man on the cover, I find it very hard to reconcile myself to the hardened Montana cowboy or Australian outback station owner driving/flying to Helena or Barcaldine for their monthly manscaping appointment as it is contradictory to the character I am reading about. And the reality is, most men have chest hair. And it is lovely and it is normal.

I often wonder about historians in 3011. The apocalypse had been and gone with a second dark age where everything had been burnt and annihilated. However, there is a rare discovery of boxes of discarded category romances found during an archaeological dig. These boxes are the only insight into the early second millenium. After a long investigation, these learned historians come to the summation that thousands of years ago melodrama was the stance of the normal couple, women only wore flowing, backless dresses and men had no chest hair yet had really well-developed pecs and abs.

When I suggested on Twitter that cover artists were briefed to not make men hirsute, fellow romance reader and tweeter, McVane, reasoned:

@McVane: @VaVeros Instructed? I'm surprised. I had always assumed it was cos hairy chests are bloody too difficult to paint/illustrate.

This makes a lot of sense to me and I have to agree though, if you can be bothered searching, there are some fab cover illustrations from the 70s and 80s that are exceptions such as Anne Weale’s Passage to Paxos.

So, after a long hiatus from browsing the eharlequin website, I thought I’d have a quick look at the upcoming releases. And what a pleasant surprise it was to see a hairy chested man on the occasional cover. No longer did the men have prepubescent hairless physiques  but they represented a (kinda) norm. The buffed, oiled (squick me out) hero can still be seen in all his flexed (eww) glory over at the Blaze line. But the other lines are that tad bit more realistic (bwahahaha), and in my opinion, sexier. Though I wish HMB had used a  hot hot hot Westmoreland rather than a boring old stetson on a chair on this book. For the most part, cover heroes are all in suits (yum) and regular clothes (yay) with the occasional half-dressed-in-the-bedroom or sunset-on-the-beach-in-slightly-rolled-up-trousers scenes (hmmm).

I recall that sometime last year Harlequin/Mills and Boon ran a Twitter survey asking reader preferences for hair or no hair and I would like to think that the current changes are a reflection of the responses that they received.

And, for what it’s worth, I’d love to see more black haired, blue eyed heroes wearing a suit with their shirt opened only slightly at the neck.

2011
09/07
CATEGORY
VaVeros
3 comments

Ten authors and their tenth book

My bookgroup celebrated its 10th anniversary this week. The topic for this month was 10. So I decided to look at my favourite ten fiction authors and their first and tenth fiction books. Five of the authors were amongst my favourite authors in 2001 and the other 5 are amongst my favourites in 2011. My aim was to see if each author improved with every book, whether they were they consistently good and whether or not they managed to sustain my interest. I am listing the authors in alphabetical order not in order of preference.

Isabelle Allende

1st title: The House of Spirits (loved it)  10th title: City of Beasts (I have not read this title)

I remember falling in love with the intricate lives that Allende wrote about. Her books were like a perfume that I could sense when I would sit and read but by the time Paula (let alone City of Beasts) was released I was no longer interested in reading more of Allende’s books.

Suzanne Brockmann

1st title: Future Perfect 10th title: The Kissing Game (I haven’t read either of these titles)

The first Brockmann book I recall reading was Prince Joe (her 8th book) and she quickly became an autobuy author. I discovered her Tall, Dark & Dangerous series (Silhouette) and then became completely taken by her Troubleshooters series which are full of action, shooting, nefarious terrorist plots and lurve. It’s like watching/reading Team America sans the crass humour. However, as much as I enjoy her books I have not felt compelled to buy any books since Into the Fire and I am now happy to wait to borrow a library copy.

Douglas Coupland

1st title: Generation X (loved it) 10th title: Eleanor Rigby (I have not read this title)

I read Generation X within months of its release and it was like a revelation. It was modern, it was disinterested, it was wry and I was in love with Coupland. Life After God, for years, was a favourite book yet my interest waned rapidly after reading Polaroids from the Dead (non-fiction) and I have not been tempted to read Eleanor Rigby.

Jennifer Crusie

1st title: Manhunting (I have not read this book) 10th title: Crazy for You (A great read)

I enjoyed this book, stalker, Quinn, Nick and all. The first Crusie title I read was Charlie All Night which I reread every few years (and still enjoy). Crusie’s sharp, biting dialogue is fun and her characters’ relationships and friendships make me want to be friends with them. My personal favourites are Welcome to Temptation (11th title), Bet Me (14th title) and Agnes and the Hitman – co-written with Bob Mayer (15th title). I feel that these 3 titles set the contemporary romance literature benchmark.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

1st title: In Evil Hour (I have not read this book) 10th title: there is no 10th novel (I could cheat and count his novellas but I won’t)

I have a shameful secret. I know that in the early 90′s I read (and re-read) both 100 Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. I recall waxing lyrical about them to a guy I was interested in and I saw it as a “sign” that he then read them and we went out and, over dinner, spent a night discussing them both. Both my copies are dog-eared and marked. Now here is the shameful part. I cannot for the life of me recall anything whatsoever about the books (except that I loved them at the time). I could have chosen a different fave author to include, one whose works I did remember. But I chose to include Marquez because I don’t think his books resonated with me the way I initially thought they had.

Rachel Gibson

1st title: Simply Irresistible (enjoyed it) 10th title: I’m in No Mood for Love (loved it)

I read I’m in No Mood for Love before Simply Irresistible. Having read, and loved, several of Gibson’s titles I tracked down her backlist and read through them all. I thoroughly enjoyed them. I’m in No Mood for Love also stands out for me because it was a rare romance that I recommended for my husband to read and he too enjoyed it. Simply Irresistible was good and fun but I didn’t recommend it to my husband….(which is telling in itself).

John Irving

1st title: Setting Free the Bears 10th title: The Fourth Hand (I have not read either of these books)

I remember watching the movie of The World According to Garp and my sister and I pooling our money together to buy the book. And we both loved it. We continued to read as many of Irving’s books as we could find. And I particularly recall thinking that A Prayer for Owen Meany was a powerful tale. However, by the time A Son of the Circus was released, once again, my interest had waned.

Milan Kundera

1st novel: The Joke (a great read) 10th title: there is no 10th novel (though there are a number of short stories)

This is another author adoration that I had due to needing to read the book of a movie that I loved. And as wonderful as The Unbearable Lightness of Being was on film, the book far surpasses it. Yet, it is The Farewell Party remains my favourite of all Kundera’s books.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips

1st title: The Copeland Bride (I have not read this book) 10th title: Nobody’s Baby But Mine (An enjoyable read)

I love that Susan Elizabeth Phillips (SEP) creates unlikeable characters whose actions are awful and yet by the end of the book you want them to have a happy outcome. This is particularly true in Nobody’s Baby but Mine in which the heroine tricks the (sports) hero into impregnating her for she decides that she wants to have a child that is not bright. Her stereotypes and deception grate yet I love the complex relationships SEP builds and reconciles. I feel that she is another benchmark romance author. I look at her list of published titles and though her earlier books were good, her Chicago Bears series are outstanding and it is her 17th title, Match Me If You Can, that is my favourite of all her books.

Julia Quinn

1st title: Splendid (I have not read this book) 10th title: An Offer from a Gentleman (A lovely, sad Cinderella story)

Up until a year ago, I had no interest in reading historical romances. I didn’t mind historical fiction or fiction that was contemporary when it was published but now is historical (ie, Jane Austen) but, I’ll admit, books where women swooned over dukes, earls, or barons left me cold. I decided to overcome my biases and started with a very early Julia Quinn novel that did not grab me at all. I then read When He Was Wicked and fell in love. By the time I read An Offer from a Gentleman I was hooked and just as I was tiring of the 8 book Bridgerton series, the last book On the Way to the Wedding had me on the edge of my seat anticipating how the relationship issues were going to be resolved. And this book was 5 after her 10th title! Simply gold!

The thing that stands out more than anything else is that my reading tastes have changed markedly over the last 20 years. 20 years ago I was reading predominately literary fiction or non-fiction smattered with some category romances and the occasional romance. I devoured classic literature and loved to read conceptual modern fiction too. By the late 1990′s I felt exhausted by the constant search for the meaning of life and (for the most part) stopped reading literary fiction. Time has yet to test whether I’ll feel the same way about my current favourites (though to be fair Jennifer Crusie and Suzanne Brockmann have been faves for over a decade already). But what I do find interesting is that most literary authors’ strongest novels are at the beginning of their writing life whereas it seems that the inverse is true for the romance authors I have listed above. Where I may have enjoyed their first few books, it is their subsequent publications that have drawn me in and hooked me as an avid fangirl.

Obviously, I am biased. I love reading romance novels so it is impossible for me to be objective. However, I was a fan of literary fiction for a lot longer and much earlier in my youth. And why do I think my reading preferences changed? I think I might leave that question for another blog post.

2011
05/13
CATEGORY
VaVeros
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© Vassiliki Veros and ShallowReader, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Vassiliki Veros and ShallowReader with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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