Archive for: September, 2008

Romance Novels in The Journal of Sex Research

Sep 30 2008 Published by under Genre musings

I reviewed Patricia Gaffney’s To Have and To Hold, which led me to consider the question of Rape in Romance. I did a little research, finding a recent (January 2008) meta-analysis in The Journal of Sex Research, which looked at some 20 studies over 30 years of women’s rape fantasies.

One of the questions asked by the study’s authors is why women have rape fantasies when they are repulsed by the thought of actual rape. They define rape fantasies as involving force, sex, and nonconsent. They do mention “aversive rape fantasies”, which are more like real rapes, featuring strange unattractive men and violence, but they say that most women’s rape fantasies are “erotic” — featuring most of the sex acts they would want to do anyway, with attractive men they would want to do them with.

An editor of Psychology Today summarizes the article, albeit with annoying interjections about the author’s own sexual history, here. Note the mock romance novel featured in the article:

[As an aside: One interesting statistic in the article is the claim that few (?no data) men fantasize about raping, but a "sizable minority" (10-20%) fantasize about being forced into sex. (For women, it's anywhere from 37-51%)]

So, what do the authors conclude? Well, they consider a number of explanations: masochism, sexual blame avoidance, openness to sexual experience, desirability, male rape culture (which they reject because rapes have declined and because gender roles have changed so much in 40 years while rates of women who fantasize about rape have remained unchanged), biological predisposition to surrender, sympathetic activation (the physiological reaction to fear jump starts sexual arousal), and, most relevant for this romance readers: adversary transformation.

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Inspiration for the Writer in All of Us

Sep 29 2008 Published by under Uncategorized

There’s a lot of negativity around right now, in romancelandia, in the economy, you name it. So I thought I’d attempt an uplifting post as I spend today preparing for our Rosh Hashanah dinner.

Here’s a challah that DH baked yesterday. He got a little carried away. I think it looks like a big brain, but it smells terrific.

The Jewish New Year is at nightfall for us. This is the time of year when observant – and even not so observant — Jews try to cast off old sins and worries and gear up for a better tomorrow.

I have plenty of sins and faults, but the one most relevant to his blog is the trouble I have with writing. When I’m blocked, or procrastinating, and beating myself up, I have a few quotations that I read to help me move on. I thought I’d post some of them here.

These are from my favorite book on this topic, Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird.

“Don’t be afraid of your material or your past. Be afraid of wasting any more time obsessing about how you look and how people see you. Be afraid of not getting your work done.”

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Review: Wanderlust, Ann Aguirre

Sep 29 2008 Published by under Reviews

Cover comment: I love these covers. I love that she’s hot, and tough, and armed, and actiony. And I love that Jax’s hair is the length it is in the book (or at least the last third of the book — for the rest it’s even shorter: think Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta).

Setting: Future, space, ships, planets.

Series: Yes, the first book was Grimspace, which I also read and reviewed here.  Doubleblind and Killbox to follow. You can read a prequel about March, the hero, here.

Main characters: The heroine, Sirantha Jax, genetically gifted with the coveted ability to travel through grimspace; Her boyfriend, March, hard bitten Psi pilot with a dark side and a hero complex. Other members of the Scooby Gang include: Dina, the “bark is worse than her bite” butch lesbian, Vel, the intelligent, unflappable, buglike former bounty hunter turned friend and ally, and Jael, the gorgeous blond mercenary turned Jax’s bodyguard.

Plot: Wanderlust picks up where Grimspace left off. The fall of the Farwan Corporation has left a power vacuum, and the once anemic but now potentially powerful Conglomerate is eager to use Jax, whose image has abruptly gone from murderess fugitive to hero, for their political ends. This entails making her an Ambassador and sending her off to Vel’s planet, Ithiss-Tor, to establish diplomatic ties. Her journey there is eventful, including a stop at a way station where things are not quite right, a stop at Lothian, where they abruptly get embroiled in messy situation, and a detour under duress to Venice Minor to answer to the mysterious Mr. Jewel, leader of the criminal Syndicate.

My take in brief: A lot less romance (which made it a bit less enjoyable for me — no reflection on the book, just my personal tastes), but engaging new characters and an exciting plot that never stops make this a lot of fun.

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Review: Cold Case, Hot Bodies, Jule McBride

Sep 25 2008 Published by under Reviews

Cover Comment: Pure Blaze — very good looking models though!

Setting: Present day New York city.

Series: No, unless you count the fact that this is number 44 in the “Wrong Bed” series.

Hero and Heroine: Dario Donato, NYPD, Italian stud, and Cassidy Case, red haired, emerald eyed Irishwoman from South Carolina.

Plot: What’s not going on in this book? Cassidy is contesting ownership of an apartment building Dario’s family has been managing for years in the Five Points section, mainly as a cover to search for jewels which her ancestor, Gem O’Shea, stashed there, Cassidy needs the jewels to save her small jewelry store back in South Carolina, which is indebted to its ears thanks to her philandering ex husband. There’s also a cold murder case involving said ancestor, ghosts, and the claims on the building of a slimy Donald Trump-type character, as well as the metrosexual curator of a Museum of Sex!

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A Rape by Any Other Name

Sep 24 2008 Published by under Feminist contentions, Genre musings, Soapbox Derby

Warning: This Post May Be Triggering for Some Readers

Reading Patricia Gaffney’s To Have and To Hold led me to consider the question of rape in romance. This is more a set of observations than a coherent essay, hence the numbers. Actually, this is a rant, and it’s probably a day late and a dollar short, but if a blogger can’t indulge in bully pulpit blogging from time to time, what’s the point?

0. This post isn’t about any and all rape in fiction. It’s about rape by the hero of the heroine in a romance novel, presented positively, or in such a way that the real harm of rape is minimized or ignored.

1. I spent some time reading online threads about Claiming the Courtesan, and about the Gaffney, and I noticed it’s hard to really have a good discussion about this because of all the red herrings.  So I want to say, in this first bit, that this is NOT about the following: censorship, labeling romance covers, or kicking people out of the genre.

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Review: To Have and to Hold, Patricia Gaffney

Sep 22 2008 Published by under Reviews

Cover comment: This one (from the 2003 rerelease) is pretty bland. You already know how I feel about the older cover.

Setting: Wyckerley, rural England, 19th century

Series?: Yes, this is book two in Gaffney’s 3 book Wyckerley series.

Hero and Heroine: Sebastian Verlaine, Viscount D’Aubrey, handsome aimless aristocrat, a rake bored of his usual entertainments and looking for something new. Think the John Malkovich character in the film Dangerous Liaisons, also, coincidentally(?), a Viscount Sebastian (or, for you youngsters, the Ryan Phillippe version of Sebastian in Cruel Intentions). Mrs. Rachel Wade, 28 years old, recently released from an unjust 10 year prison sentence for murdering her husband, a shell of a person when we meet her, thanks to 10 plus years of victimization on too many levels to count.

Plot: Sebastian hires Rachel as his housekeeper in order to have a sexual and psychological plaything, and for other subconscious reasons which only become clear to him later in the book. Rachel agrees in order to stay out of prison. The main focus of the novel is their unfolding relationship, with a subplot involving a conspiracy to send her back to prison, a fate Rachael considers worse than death.

Distinctive Features: You mean you don’t know? This is probably the most infamous romance of the modern era (it was published in 1995), because the hero rapes the heroine. This book will be triggering for some readers, and you can read all about why I loathe that expression in the this post.

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Who Invented Paranormal Romance?

Sep 18 2008 Published by under Genre musings

That’s a deliberately leading blog post title.  I’m sure it wasn’t one person, but rather a group of people responding to a lot of diverse cultural influences, many of those outside literature. But I was wondering all the same.

As romance readers, we have such a good grasp of the classics — even if we haven’t actually read them. But what are the first, classic paranormal romances?

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Review: Beyond the Highland Mist, Karen Marie Moning*

Sep 18 2008 Published by under Reviews

*Note: this post contains material not suitable for minors. Also, avoid if you are snark averse.

*Complete with super fun interactive quiz! See below.

Setting: Early 16th century Scotland, with some scenes in present day New Orleans

Series?: Yes, this is book 1, published in 1999, of Moning’s Highlander series, of which 8 books are in print.

Hero and Heroine: The Hawk Douglas, 16th century Laird of Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea, “legendary predator of the battlefield and the boudoir”, “sculpted of molten steel” (an early Terminator prototype? Maybe — this is a time travel story), and Adrienne de Simone, 20th century misandrist, late of a deceitful, abusive relationship with “catch of the decade” Eberhard Darrow Garret, who, unfortunately, was merely using her as a drug mule (don’t you hate it when that happens?).

Plot: Hero falls in love with heroine. Heroine resists hero. In an interesting twist (which does not, alas, make her motivation any less unbelievable), she’s the one who has sworn off everyone “beautiful” of the opposite sex. Various evil, but luckily quite inept, baddies attempt to keep them apart.

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