Review: Genuine Lies

Title: Genuine Lies
Author: Nora Roberts
Publisher: Bantam Books
Genre/Subgenre: Bildungsroman/Contemporary Romance
Part of a Series? No

My first Nora Roberts novel...truly a milestone.

In "Who's Afraid of Happy Endings?" there's a clip of Nora Roberts describing an encounter with a woman who, upon learning Roberts' identity, said "Oh, you write that smut." Nora's response? "No, I do not write smut. What the hell is wrong with you?"

My instant response was to think Lady, lighten up -- how can you write romance and still be that easily offended? My response now, after reading one of her novels, is...yeah, she's still too easily offended, but she really doesn't write smut. After reading Genuine Lies I'm not convinced she even writes romance, at least not in the sense that I attribute to the term. Sure, there is a love story in the novel, but it seemed peripheral to the description of the life of an arrogant, beautiful, ambitious, high-profile woman in a glitzy, high-profile world. In this way, it reminded me of books I've read by Judith Krantz. In my opinion, Genuine Lies is really more of a bildungroman than an actual romance, since it focuses more on the development of the woman than on the relationship itself. Maybe it could be considered a kind of feminist, empowered romance, in that it is truly all about the woman.

That being said, it was a good book. It was very well-written. The plot was tight and intricate. The characters were okay. Well, they might have been a little flat. In fact, the weird thing about Genuine Lies is that it is so good, and yet so flat. Something about it seems ready-made, mass produced, and this is a criticism of Roberts' books that I've heard before. I just finished it, and the major emotion I'm feeling is indifference.

Review: A Cottage by the Sea

Title: A Cottage by the Sea
Author: Ciji Ware
Publisher/Category: Fawcett Gold Medal
Genre/Subgenre: Contemporary Romance
Part of a Series? No
This book isn't really my type, but it was well-written, the characters were interesting and believable, and though it wasn't dark, there was a lot of angst to it. It's also got multiple narratives (one thread in the past, one in the present). I normally don't like that because there's inevitably one narrative thread I like more than the other, and I spend half the novel impatiently skimming. However, the two threads intersect enough in A Cottage by the Sea so that my interest didn't wane too much. It's also very family/baby-oriented, but again, that didn't cause the distaste it usually does for me. The descriptions were wonderful -- I always love reading things set in rural England. Overall, it was a very enjoyable read.

Review: Tempt the Devil

Title: Tempt the Devil
Author: Connie Mason
Publisher/category: Leisure Books
Genre/Subgenre: Historical Romance
Part of a Series? No

When it comes to Tempt the Devil, what I'm really tempted to do is blame the editor -- grammatical errors are my biggest problem with this novel. Comma splices abound, as do periods where there should be question marks. There are also way too many adverbs, and they make the dialogue feel wooden and amateur. Over and above these glaring problems, the whole book is just a little cheesy, as well.

These easily fixable problems are particularly disappointing because there are a lot of aspects of the book that are really cool -- Mason, cheesiness aside, does a good job creating angel/devil, heaven/hell binaries that I really enjoyed. The hero's called Diablo, but he has a hideaway on an island called Paradise. The heroine is, of course, angelic. There are lots of wonderful lines like "Take me to heaven" (I'm sure you can figure out what kind of scene that came from). I think those good/evil, light/dark-type binaries are in a lot of romance novels, but not so obviously as in Tempt the Devil. There is also a great scene near the beginning of the book where Diablo is about to be hanged and he throws his head back and laughs -- it is very, well, diabolical, and also very sexy. The heroine thought so too!

Let's Talk Romance: Female vs. Male Perspective in Love Songs

A couple of weeks ago I got an idea for a series of short stories based on angsty song lyrics, and I just finished my first story and sent it off to my editor (a.k.a. Relena). The project has made me realize something that I find interesting -- most of the tortured, angsty love songs that I love so much and was so excited about using for my project are written and sung from the male perspective.

Why am I drawn to love songs from the male perspective? I have a couple of theories, and I'll use some quotes from one of my favourite articles, Modleski's "The Disappearing Act: A Study of Harlequin Romances" to add some oomph to my explanation.

The first theory is that love songs written from a male perspective give the same specific sense of dramatic irony that I find in romance novels. As the reader/listener/audience, I know something the heroine and often the hero do not. One of the most exciting and intriguing things about reading a romance novel is being privy to the knowledge that the hero, no matter how cold and unfeeling he may seem, is desperately in love with the heroine: "A great deal of our satisfaction in reading these novels comes...from our conviction that the woman is bringing the man to his knees and that all the while he is being so hateful, he is internally groveling, groveling, groveling" (441). Angsty songs written and sung from the male perspective often have the same effect of making me feel that I know something that the woman and sometimes even the man does not realize.

My other theory is ripped directly out of that article as well, and it is that women are conditioned to seek pleasure through the appraisal and approval of men: "'Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at'" [Modleski quoting Berger](445). I'm uncomfortable with this theory, because it would mean that I enjoy romantic songs from the male perspective because I've been conditioned to see myself from the male perspective, and this is how I receive my romantic (and presumably sexual) pleasure.

I tend not to agree with the second theory, at least not entirely, because I don't think I necessarily place myself in the role of the female in the song/book. Either way, I'm somewhat uncomfortable writing romance from the man's perspective, which I feel I pretty much have to do if I'm basing my stories on songs written from male perspective. I realize it is possible for a woman to do this realistically, but I'm not yet comfortable enough as a writer to feel confident about performing this task adequately. However, I'll see what the feedback is on my first story, which is Slow Dancing in a Burning Room.

Review: The Flame and the Flower

Title: The Flame and the Flower
Author: Kathleen E. Woodiwiss
Genre/Subgenre: Historical Romance
Part of a Series? No

Though The Flame and the Flower was published in the 1970s, which is when the Second Wave of feminism hit (or so I understand), the attitude of the author regarding the role of women in this novel more closely matches the stereotypical attitude of the 1950s. I feel that this is the type of romance novel that leads people to believe that all romance novels are anti-feminist -- it is a story with a patriarchal hero and a drooping "flower" of a heroine, who is in the end so grateful for safety and a child that she forgets that her husband repeatedly raped her and subjected her to months of verbal abuse and humiliation. The "manly" condescension of Brandon does not go away because in the end his love and respect for the heroine is only for her "womanly" attributes, not for her as a person. He's not a good man wearing a bastard's mask whose admirable qualities are slowly revealed -- he's a bastard and we are just expected to be won by his swarthy good looks and ability to keep from bedding his wife for the nine months she is pregnant in a bizarre attempt to punish her. Sorry, Woodiwiss -- I'm not biting. Despite what I have said about wanting an unrepentant bad hero, I find this leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

At first I thought The Flame and the Flower was very similar to a Jennifer Blake novel, and I was excited because I once read a novel with a wonderful pirate altercation scene, and I suspected that this was the one. However, while I admit that Blake's novels have a lot of the traits that are characteristic of the more stereotypical formula romances, I have never felt as shocked and incredulous at the blatant gender stereotypes of any romance novel as I was while reading The Flame and the Flower. I guess I should have been tipped off by the title -- flames are active, powerful, and potentially dangerous, and flowers are beautiful but delicate, ornamental, and passive. This describes the gender gap in this novel very well.

N.B. - This is not the cover of the version of the book I read -- I read a 1972 hardcover version I found at the library. However, even Ebay didn't have the exact version I read, and I thought this 1995 cover was much more accurate, considering the tone of the novel itself. Look at the way he's grabbing her, and the rather diabolical cast to his features. It seems the publishers wanted to emphasize the very things I found repulsive about this novel. Fascinating. Of course, in most contexts I do enjoy devilish, forceful heroes, and perhaps this cover just caters to that common preference.

Review: Romancing the Stone

Title: Romancing the Stone
Author: Joan Wilder a.k.a Catherine Lanigan
Genre/Subgenre: Romance/Adventure
Part of a Series? No

When I checked this book out of the library, I was delighted with its possibilities -- imagine, a romance novel that parodies romance novels! I had dreams of it becoming a key text in my future career as a professor specializing in romance fiction.

I was somewhat disappointed with Romancing the Stone, but only, I think, because my expectations were so high. The novel does parody romance novel conventions, to the point where I laughed out loud more than once, especially in the first few pages, which are an "excerpt" from Joan Wilder's newest novel (the heroine is a romance novelist). Overall, however, Romancing the Stone took itself more seriously than I expected, despite the "this is no romance novel"-type refrains from the heroine. The specific "jungle adventure" romance stereotype is not one I have had much experience with myself.

Taken as a straightforward romance novel, Romancing the Stone is amusing, saved from corny conventionality by funny dialogue and the self-serving attitudes of the hero and heroine. Viewed as a parody of romance, it is interesting and worthy of further study, as well as a way to notice and laugh at the conventions of romance while enjoying them at the same time. I haven't seen the film version, but I imagine it's something like the Indiana Jones movies in style and humour, and I'm hoping to rent it if I can find it.

Review: Spanish Serenade

Title: Spanish Serenade
Author: Jennifer Blake
Genre/Subgenre: Historical Romance
Part of a Series? No

The first romance novel I ever read was written by Jennifer Blake. It was, I believe, Midnight Waltz, and I was fourteen years old. I still remember pulling it off the library bookshelf and examining the book jacket with furtive intensity and the first bloom of gleeful delight that would characterize my feelings towards all good romance novels from then on.

Spanish Serenade is almost exactly the same as Midnight Waltz, Royal Seduction, Fierce Eden, and, one can assume, all of Jennifer Blake's historical novels. In fact, though I have Blake's website before me, with a list of all her books, complete with synopses, I'll be damned if I can remember which ones I've read and which I haven't. I have a vague suspicion that this is my second time around with Spanish Serenade, but I can't be totally sure.

Each novel features a woman of superlative beauty and a man of superlative everything, and a few men who vie with the main man for possession of the woman. The woman is usually abducted by the main male character, and her virtue is often in question until he sleeps with her and discovers physical evidence of her innocence. The man is self-derisive and desperately in love with the heroine, which in conjunction with a series of events leads him to be cold, aloof, and intensely passionate in turns, making cryptic statements of feeling and intent that confuse the heroine and delight the reader. At the end of the novel, main male character (whose name usually starts with R), makes a flowery, soul-driven statement of love; this is often rejected by the heroine, who questions his motive. Then she is usually driven to admit her love and/or marry him by some forceful scheme on the part of the hero, usually with the help of a few faithful companions, sometimes even with the help of the one who fought him for her hand, since he can see that they are truly in love and accepts it manfully. The novels are usually set in New Orleans or somewhere else in Louisiana, though Spain, France, and islands such as Cuba and the Caribbean islands often play a role. There is always some high-class Eighteenth-Century living. There is usually at least one ship scene and pirate altercation. There is always at least one intense fight scene brought on by the jealousy and possessiveness of the virile hero. There is always sex, sometimes nearly immediately, often initially by force.

Now, this constant repeat of the same formula is only a problem if you don't like the formula -- I happen to love it. It has exactly what I want: it features a dark, brooding hero, whose coldness intensifies to conceal his one weakness (love for the heroine); drawn out angst; pirates; New Orleans; abductions. What's not to like, over and over again?

N.B. - It was very difficult to find a picture of the book with this cover, but since I read this version and always make a point of finding the cover I'm familiar with, I spent some time tracking it down. I eventually had the bright idea to check e-bay, and lifted the picture from there. Blake's older covers seem to be disappearing, which is a shame, since I think that the discrete flowers that are replacing the original racy embraces are insincere cop-outs. Women shouldn't be ashamed to be seen reading a novel with lovers gyrating on the front.
/rant