Review: Exit to Eden

Title: Exit to Eden
Author: Anne Rampling (a.k.a. Anne Rice)
Publisher: Dell
Copyright date: 1985
Part of a series? No

I tried to read this book years ago, and stopped halfway through, but I remained interested enough to pick it up again. I'm glad I did. Perhaps my life situation has changed, and that's why I loved it so much this time around -- I'm much more comfortable with erotica now (looking at it as literature, and not just a 'cheap thrill'), and I'm filled with a lot of those falling-in-love passions that consume the main characters of Exit to Eden. The book is full of the sensuality that Rice is known for, mostly through the Vampire Chronicles, and I don't just mean in relation to sex -- smells of flowers, tastes of food, the way things look and feel and sound -- her novels are saturated with sensory description, and it makes reading a lucious experience. Labelling the story as "erotica" seems way too one-dimensional. The combination of the sensory hedonism and the real depth to the philosophies of religion and life that her characters show make this a really layered and meaty love story. I'm not sure I buy these philosophies, and I have some issues with how conventionally the love story is concluded, but I still think Exit to Eden is a very worthwhile read.

Notable quotes:

"'People say S&M is all about childhood experiences, the battles with dominance and submission we fought when we were little that we are doomed to reenact. I don't think it's that simple. I never have. One of the things that has always fascinated me about sado-masochistic fantasies, long before I ever dreamed of acting them out, was that they are full of paraphernalia that none of us ever saw in childhood [...] racks and whips, and harnesses and chains. Gloves, corsets. Were you ever threatened with a rack when you were a kid? Did anybody ever make you wear a pair of handcuffs? I was never even slapped. These things don't come from childhood; they come from our historic past. They come from our racial past. The whole bloody lineage that embraces violence since time immemorial. They are the seductive and terrifying symbols of cruelties that were routine right up through the eighteenth century [...] all the paraphrenalia is the flotsam of the past. And where is it routine today? In our dreams. In our erotic novels. In our brothels. No, in S&M we're always working with something a hell of a lot more volatile than childhood struggles; we're working with our most primitive desires to achieve intimacy through violence, our deepest attractions to suffering and inflicting pain, to possessing others [...] And if we can keep the racks and the whips and the harnesses forever relegated to the S&M scenario -- if we could relgate in all its forms to the S&M scenario -- then maybe we could save the world'" (223-4).
[N.B. - I find the ideas that we are innately violent, particularly sexually, and that there is some kind of collective unconscious memory of past violence very problematic. The idea that relegating violence symbolically to the bedroom as a solution to the world's problems is also extremely reductionist. However, I still find this passage thought-provoking.]

-----

"But I was thinking the strangest thing: what if, what if it really was something that could happen? What if Martin was right and Elliott and I could have each other like that? What if it was half that good for only a year, a fourth that good for a decade? Christ, that was worth the death of everything I'd ever been before, wasn't it?" (287)

Review: The Wild Hunt

Title: The Wild Hunt
Author: Jill Tattersall
Publisher: William Morrow & Company, Inc.
Original Date of Copyright: 1974
Genre/Sub-genre: Gothic Romance
Part of a Series? No

I thought this book would, as my fourth gothic romance in a row, blend with the others into obscurity, but I was pleased to find that it stands out among those of its genre. The characters were clever and amusing, the heroine especially, and the hero was as dark, satanic, and attractive as I could hope. The witchcraft makes the plot a little different and intriguing, and the Wild Hunt is very cool. The romance is great, not explicit but there are some small but satisfying hints of sex at the end and some great UST moments scattered throughout. This book is one of the best gothics I've read so far.

(I couldn't find a picture of the cover and the book is in a library up north, so you'll have to use your imagination on this one).

Review: Darkwater

Title: Darkwater
Author: Dorothy Eden
Publisher: Coward-McCann, Inc.
Original Date of Copyright: 1963
Genre/Sub-genre: Gothic Romance
Part of a Series? No

This book was a well-written, complex web of intriguing characters. Unfortunately, the most interesting characters were the peripheral ones: Lady Arabella, the alternatingly vindictive and helpful great-aunt; and Amelia, the 17-year-old cousin who has an obsession with escaped prisoners (one in particular as the novel progresses). Fanny, the heroine, was somewhat bland. Adam Marsh as a hero was okay, but not sexy or sinister enough to suit me. It is a gothic novel, after all, so I give myself carte blanche to expect a Romantic, threatening hero.

One different thing about the novel was the issue of race raised through the narrative's connection to China. There is some cynical display on behalf of the author of the racism of the flightier people in the novel -- the refusal to accept a Chinese "nurse," worry about whether or not two orphaned children would turn out to be "yellow," etc. The perfection of racism in the Victorian period is something that is more taken for granted than critiqued in most romance novels, so it was refreshing to see it called to attention.

Overall, Darkwater was better than I expected. I only made a concentrated effort to read it because I wanted to finish just one more novel before New Year's Day and I had to finish my "Books Read, 2007" list, so I wasn't expecting much. However, it did turn out to be tolerable, even enjoyable, though I would have been much more interested in a book about Amelia and her passion for criminals. I should force myself to finish books more often.

Review: Falconridge

Title: Falconridge
Author: Edwina Marlow
Publisher: Ace Publishing Corporation
Original Date of Copyright: 1969
Genre/Sub-genre: Gothic Romance
Part of a Series? No

Like The Chaperone, this book was better-written than a contemporary novel of the same quality would be. It was also similar in its lack of sensuality, though the hero, Norman Wade, was quite a bit more attractive and sinister. Here's the excerpt, on the first page after the cover:

Several minutes passed and I was suddenly aware of my own fear. Something was wrong. It was silent, and the silence was terrifying. I whirled around. He was leaning in the doorway, his thumb hooked in his belt. He looked menacing as he stood there, casually blocking the door. I stepped back, and the boards creaked. The water behind me slapped loudly against the wood.

"Two more steps back," he said quietly, "and you would be in the water. It would carry you out to sea. No one would ever know what had happened to you."

I stood on the edge of the platform, my knees weak. He put his hands on my shoulders. His fingers gripped my flesh.

"Or someone could push you," he said. "Just one little shove and you would be gone. You could never swim in those skirts, not in this water. It would be so easy." His voice was beautifully modulated; it seemed to caress the air. "So very easy..."

It was a little like Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre, shorter, less complex, and completely derivative, of course, but interesting and readable.

Review: The Chaperone

Title: The Chaperone
Author: Ethel Gordon
Publisher: Dell Publishing Co., Inc.
Original Date of Copyright: 1973
Genre/Sub-genre: Gothic Romance
Part of a Series? No

I was impressed by the quality of the writing in this book, and by the fact that the author made the heroine self-possessed and not entirely wholesome. For an example of both the writing and the heroine's character, here is the first paragraph of the novel:

I received Miss Millicent Waldron's letter on the last day of school. It was the day of the annual farewell party for the faculty of the Burns Junior College for Women, and the Burns sisters who owned and headed the school had acceded to the times at last and allowed gin to be served. I'd had two martinis, but by the time I reached my apartment the elation of the alcohol was evaporating, my head was pounding, and my spirits were unaccountably low. (5)

However, in the end I was disappointed by the romance, which was flat, passionless and not described in a satisfying way. The hero, while dark and brooding, was not as attractive a figure as I had hoped, being too realistically flawed, as the hapless owner of a crumbling hotel, having gambled away his and his brother's money. The expression of sensuality was also entirely lacking.

Review: The Vampire Shrink

Title: The Vampire Shrink
Author: Lynda Hilburn
Publisher: Medallion Press
Original Date of Copyright: 2007
Genre/Sub-genre: Paranormal/Horror Romance
Part of a Series? I think so...there is a second book coming out which also features Kismet Knight as the heroine

This novel was okay, and I really like the premise of a psychologist who encounters vampires, but overall I thought the horror possibilities of this book were not sufficiently developed, and that both the psychology and the vampirism in this book were used as mere plot devices instead of becoming the meaningful explorations they could have been.

The heroine is way too narrow-minded to effectively practice psychology (two examples: she bashes psychics and thinks it's impossible to be sexually attracted to more than one man at a time), and she uses cliched psychological terms like "inner child" more than once in the novel. The hero is well-adjusted and nice instead of brooding and dangerous like I was hoping. The romance was developed too quickly so there was little of that satisfying tension I so love. Beyond all this, however, there was a light-hearted tone to the book that I found disappointing and at times almost offensive.

Certainly The Vampire Shrink discusses dark topics, but the first-person narrative of the heroine is plucky and discordantly chipper considering the things she goes through -- being attacked, harassed in gruesome ways, torn between two men, etc. I just didn't get the dark torture vibe I hoped for, and sometimes the lightness gets almost offensive. For example:

"Playtime's over. Let's go back upstairs."
The woman on the floor had stopped screaming and was clearly dead.
The crowd actually applauded.
Vampires suck. In more ways that one. (365-66)

A woman just died. I know it's fantasy, but is that really an appropriate or plausible response? I know people laugh at funerals and things like that, but this degree of flippancy just seemed stupid to me.

Think of the psychological complexity and darkness of the Thomas Harris novels (e.g. Silence of the Lambs) combined with the best of the paranormal romances (those by J.R. Ward perhaps) or even Anne Rice's novels -- that's what this book could have been, with an idea this exciting. I don't understand why someone would want to write a totally conventional romance novel that just happens to have vampires in it and completely ignore all the amazing emotional/psychological dimensions that the vampire myth can add to a romance. One thing that Anne Rice does brilliantly is bring religious and psychological issues such as guilt, damnation, loneliness, etc. to vampirism, and these really make the myth rich and meaningful. I feel vampires are misused in this book, especially since it uses the field/practice of psychology to distinguish itself. Vampires have so much more to offer than is available in The Vampire Shrink.

Review: Lover Unbound

Title: Lover Unbound
Author: J.R. Ward
Publisher: Signet
Original Date of Publication: 2007 (released yesterday)
Genre/Sub-genre: Paranormal Romance
Part of a Series? Yes, it is A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood

It is an unfortunate fact that I can't ever seem to put J.R. Ward's novels down until they are entirely finished, so I missed all four of my classes today polishing this one off. Next time, I'm going to have to try to save it for the weekend.

Lover Unbound isn't as good as the other novels in the series. It resolves the homoerotic elements in the last novel that I loved so much in a way I find kind of offensive (V just hadn't met the right woman), and the language style has become more valley girl than badass gangsta (e.g., "so" is used constantly, as in "I am so all over that"). It also just seemed...generic in relation to the others. They're beginning to all be very similar, and even with the few new characters that were introduced in this novel, the circle seems uniform and a little ho-hum. I hope in the next novel she spices it up by adding something different to the plot.

However, despite these disappointing features, I loved Lover Unbound. I like how she's complicated the sexual history of the Brothers, so that they have issues to work through -- somehow it makes them seem sexier than if they were totally confident studs. I also really loved the ending of this novel -- it was a twist that I wasn't expecting but that fit perfectly. And as with the other novels in the series, I finished this one anticipating the next few -- I'm especially eager for John's novel, now.

Review: Arrow to the Heart

Title: Arrow to the Heart
Author: Jennifer Blake
Publisher: Fawcett Columbine/Ballantine
Original Date of Publication: 1993
Genre/Sub-genre: Historical Romance
Part of a Series? No

I didn't enjoy Arrow to the Heart as much as the other historical romances I've read by Jennifer Blake. I've though hard about why that might be, and I've come to the conclusion that the power structure customary in Blake's novels is out of balance in this novel. Usually, the heroine is initially dominated by the man (i.e. kidnapped, held captive, forced into marriage) and a major joy of reading is taking in the situation, in which superficially the hero holds all the cards, all the while knowing the heroine, unbeknownst to herself, has completely mentally and emotionally dominated the hero. It's important that she not know, since (I believe) her power is greater than the hero's because it gives her the ability to control the hero's power, and the balance is equal only if she wields it unconsciously. Also, there wouldn't really be a plot otherwise.

However, in Arrow to the Heart, the hero and heroine are thrust into a situation by an external force and are equal in situational power, which immediately diminishes the hero's power. Also, the hero and heroine are more open and communicative than normal in Blake's historicals, which further upsets the power balance and makes the plot a bit more far-fetched, since the closer the heroine is to realizing the hero loves her, the more desperate the events keeping them apart appear. Basically, the delicious balance of the male dominating the physical while the female dominates the mental/emotional is off.

It's still a good book, and the ending is as satisfying as any other Blake historical. I wonder-- Blake returned to historical romances with Arrow to the Heart after writing a string of contemporaries-- can the difference in her typical power structure be attributed to the influence of more contemporary, "modern" expectations?

Review: Hunter's Moon

Title: Hunter's Moon
Authors: C.T. Adams and Cathy Clamp
Publisher: Tor
Original Date of Publication: 2004
Genre/Sub-genre: Paranormal Romance
Part of a Series? Yes, the A Tale of the Sazi series

This book has a great hero and possibly the weakest, most irritating heroine I've ever encountered. He's a hitman and she hires him to kill her at the beginning of the novel -- she can't even do that herself. The rest of the novel is a chronicle of her complete dependency on him. He helps her become more detached from her cruel and manipulative family, he gets her a psychiatrist, he fixes her security system, he finds her friends, rescues her from kidnappers and actually lives for her, actually breathes and makes her heart function for her, near the end of the novel. And then he marries her, thereby ensuring that she'll continue to cling to him for the rest of her life. At the beginning of the novel she is a multi-millionaire, but she did not earn this money -- she won the lottery. At the end of the novel everyone thinks she's dead and she loses the money, so when she becomes married to Tony (the hero) her financial independence (the only form she had) is gone as well. She says herself that the only reason she can think of living is for him. At no point does she think for herself or act for herself in the whole fucking 328 pages. All she does is whine and cling to Tony.

If you can stomach all that, Tony is a good character, and it's interesting to read a romance novel written entirely from the male perspective. However, as the only selling point for the novel, it's a bit weak -- as good as he is, it's hard to respect him, because he loves a complete moron.

Review: The Rest Falls Away and Rises the Night

Title: The Rest Falls Away and Rises the Night
Author: Colleen Gleason
Publisher/Series: Signet Eclipse
Original Date of Publication: January and June 2007
Genre/Subgenre: Paranormal-Historical Romance
Part of a Series? Yes - The Gardella Vampire Chronicles

I read these two one after the other, so I'll review them together rather than separate them. I tend to view this type of series as one continuous book rather than several complete books anyway, which is one reason I've been so resistant to them. I prefer books that can stand alone. However, The Rest Falls Away has a very positive review by J.R. Ward on the cover, and J.R. Ward is currently my favourite romance author, so I thought I'd give Gleason's series a try.

I wasn't disappointed. The heroine is basically Buffy the Vampire Slayer of the Nineteenth-Century (from the television series, not the movie). She is strong and capable in ways that are not off-putting in the least. I'm normally annoyed by more than one man in the heroine's life, but it does not bother me in this series. Like Bitten, I think it's pretty clear who she's going to end up with in the end. Because this character doesn't show up in Rises the Night until page 180, there's something a little flat in her relationship with the other guy. Still, I don't feel much irritation over drawing out the romance of one heroine and heroine over several books because I like the hero and heroine and I'm interested in how things will play out. I'm bitter about having to wait, though.

Review: Scottish Ecstasy

Title: Scottish Ecstasy
Author: Rebecca Sinclair
Publisher/Series: Kensington Books
Original Date of Publication: 1993
Genre/Subgenre: Historical Romance
Part of a Series? No

I have several weak spots when it comes to romance. One is that I am a sucker for heroes with names like "beast" and "devil", so Alasdair "the Devil" Gray reeled me in. There's also just something about the portrayal of Scottish men in romance novels that's just so cute and sexy at the same time.

This is a good book. The author tends to drag her scenes on endlessly, which becomes a good thing about 200 pages in when the sex starts, but it was a bit irritating before that. It seemed more like self-indulgence on the part of the author than genuine good writing. Of course, it's all subjective.

The heroine's accent got annoying, and all the "yers" and "mauns" seemed to make me even more conscious of the cornier bits of dialogue (though there weren't that many, really). Still, overall it was enjoyable.

Review: Devotion

Title: Devotion
Author: Katherine Sutcliffe
Publisher/Series: Jove
Original Date of Publication: 1996
Genre/Subgenre: Historical Romance
Part of a Series? Sort of...Miracle is about this hero's twin brother

Devotion is a lot like Flowers from the Storm, though in my opinion it's better because the heroine is smarter, more articulate, and more real. It's a refreshing change: the heroine is outspoken and sexually aware (though still a virgin), and the hero is a near-catatonic lump for a good portion of the novel. The ending is a bit different than most formula romances, but I liked it. I really enjoyed this novel and it also has the virtue of being a very quick read -- I polished it off in five hours or less, and I'm no speed-reader.

Review: Too Close to Home

Title: Too Close to Home
Author: Maureen Tan
Publisher/Series: Silhouette Bombshell
Original Date of Publication: 2006
Genre/Subgenre: Contemporary Romance
Part of a Series? No

This is surprisingly gritty for a Silhouette -- I guess "Bombshell" is supposed to be a darker series. Too Close to Home features child abuse, murder, and a morally problematic ending, even for me, who likes heroes based on literary representations of Satan, and who openly has a crush on Hannibal Lecter. In a way, the very last line of the novel makes it seem as if conservative family values are offered to cancel out the problematic part -- hey, we're having a baby, so it's okay that _____ (I won't give it away).

At least the book has me thinking, instead of shrugging and moving on to the next one. Silhouettes and Harlequins (which are now apparently one and the same, and it seems I was the last to know) generally don't satisfy me-- they're not dark enough, not meaty enough. Too regulated. This one had that feel in a way, but also surprised me by being darker than I knew was possible under this publisher.

Review: Thief of Hearts

Title: Thief of Hearts
Author: Katherine Stone
Publisher/Series: Warner Books (A Time Warner company!)
Genre/Subgenre: Contemporary/Medical Romance
Part of a Series? No

If I had to sum up this novel in one sentence, this is how I would do it:

There are too many italicized words and too few sex scenes.

Here's the long version -- I love what this book tried to do, but I feel like in a lot of ways, it fell short of its goal. The good twin is dying and the "evil" twin is living in seclusion, writing erotic novels (that's his profession). The heroine, who is close to the good twin in a little sister kind of way, must visit the evil twin and ask for his help, since he's the only matching donor. Doesn't it sound hot? It is in some ways and it is not at all hot in others. It's too gentle and family-oriented. The characters, despite their family-angst-ridden pasts, are surprisingly flat. Perhaps the only thing I liked was Jesse, the evil twin-- I thought the explanation for his hostility and seclusion was well done, anyway, though I don't need to watch ER to know that going through a bone marrow harvest without anesthesia and then getting up and walking away is frankly ridiculous.

Note: In a twist of fate, this novel, which I criticized for its lack of sex, shares its title with at least one porn film, which I discovered while Googling for a cover image.

Review: Wicked

Title: Wicked
Author: Shannon Drake a.k.a. Heather Graham
Publisher/Series: Harlequin
Genre/Subgenre: Historical Romance
Part of a Series? No

Wicked was entertaining, but not nearly as angsty as I would have preferred. The intelligent, analytic hero and heroine, so like the characters in Amanda Quick novels, give the book a lightheartedness it might not have otherwise had, since the subject matter is pretty dark. The novel centers on a man whose parents had been murdered and who, when hearing of their deaths, went berserk on the battlefield and apparently disfigured himself so much that he's worn a mask ever since. It was the mask that sold me on the book in the first place. Something about a man in a mask...mmm. After all, all romance heroes are wearing masks, aren't they? There are a lot of Beauty and the Beast moments in this novel, which I enjoyed, and the Ancient Egypt angle is always fun. If it had only been a bit more dark, a bit more tortured, this could definitely have become one of my favourites.

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!

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.