The weekly links and opinion post

1. I am sure I am the last to know, but there is a company offering “Romances By You”, for $39.95, personalized romance novels with your own names, locations, and other “personalizing” details, including a cover. I’ll probably get a takedown notice for this, but below is the pirate romance preview I generated using “Uppity” for the heroine’s name and “Jelly Bones Bud” for the hero’s. Uppity’s BFF I dubbed “Downity”. I picked the hair and eye colors, too.

. . . Uppity slapped the coin from his outstretched hand, sending it flying into the shrubbery. “We don’t want your blood money!”


Jelly Bones Bud sighed, his eyes narrowing, then he suddenly reached out and grabbed Uppity by her bodice string that, unbeknownst to her, had become untied and hung loosely from her dress. The lace tightened immediately as he pulled her towards him like a dog on a tether. Uppity winced with surprise and embarrassment, her blue eyes ablaze.


He leaned close to her, breathing softly in her ear, making Uppity almost lose her balance and certainly some sense. He paused just long enough to catch her off guard in anticipation, when he said, “You might want to keep the girls tied up,” and he tightened the lace and tied a knot.

Her face flushed and she slapped him hard on the cheek. Jelly Bones Bud grabbed her by her dark brown hair and planted a kiss on her lips, long and sensual. When he released his grip, she was reeling, wild eyed as a scurvy dog.

“Take them away!” he ordered with a wave of his hand.

The buccaneer escorts grabbed the women’s wrists and roughly pulled them towards the path. Uppity turned her head and caught the captain’s eye.

“Now I know why they call you Sea Wolf. I think you are despicable!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. She quickly looked to Downity, a look of terror in her eyes as they were dragged down the pathway.

Jelly Bones Bud smiled, as he heard his crew laughing from afar; this was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. If circumstances were different, he would have asked her to join him. But he hadn’t even found out her name…

I did a few of these, and since every one had the words  “unbeknownst to her”, “shrubbery”, and “almost lost her balance”, I am pretty sure they are written either by Monty Python or a computer program. Which raises two key questions: (1) are these “novels” at all? (2) What woman wants a Valentine’s gift that compares her to a “scurvy dog”?

We read Leo Tolstoy’s “What is Art?” in my ethics and lit class last week, and on his view, whether written by a computer program or a grad student in dire need of money, no such product is “art”, because, as he puts it:

“I have mentioned three conditions of contagiousness in art, but they may be all summed up into one, the last, sincerity, i.e., that the artist should be impelled by an inner need to express his feeling. That condition includes the first; for if the artist is sincere he will express the feeling as he experienced it. And as each man is different from everyone else, his feeling will be individual for everyone else; and the more individual it is – the more the artist has drawn it from the depths of his nature – the more sympathetic and sincere will it be. And this same sincerity will impel the artist to find a clear expression of the feeling which he wishes to transmit.”

2. Grading. I should be doing it. At this very minute.

3. Laura Vivanco has an interesting post up at Teach Me Tonight about whether the “happiness” depicted in romance novels is realistic, partly realistic, helpful, or harmful. Check it out.

4. I am listening to an audiobook right now, a Harlequin Blaze by Tawny Weber called Feels Like the First Time. Zoe, the heroine is going to her 10th high school reunion. She tells us she was an outsider who had one dear, dear friend, fellow geek Dexter, with whom she spent hours and hours. As she travels to the reunion, Zoe thinks about seeing the football QB who dumped her. She thinks about seeing the catty girls who made fun of her. She even thinks about the teachers who hated her. But inexplicably — especially since the reunion itself is at the very hotel Dexter’s family has owned for generations — she never once thinks, “Gee, I wonder if I will see Dexter.” Upon arrival at the hotel, Zoe looks Dexter in the eye from 10 feet away, he smiles at her, and she fails to recognize him.

I do like this book, but as a reader, I feel my intelligence is being insulted to set up a costume party groping and big misunderstanding.

5. Speaking of which, I have a theory on how the Big Misunderstanding has changed over time. Tell me if you think I am wrong. BMs have been a staple of modern romance for decades. They are often maligned, but I think they can be done well. But having recently read Dark Dominion and skimmed Sweet Savage Love, I think the BM of old was different in that the hero did not believe the heroine, even when they did communicate. She just could not get him to believe her. Today, it’s more likely the lack of communication that’s the issue: for whatever reason, they never have “the talk”. What say you?

6. This week I will write reviews of Black Silk and Dark Dominion if it kills me, which, looking at my schedule, it likely will. I also promised certain folks a post on moral repair.

Happy Week!


Related posts:

  1. Monday Morning Stepback: Yom Kippur edition! Actually, there is nothing Yom Kippurish about this post, except that it’s going up just after Yom Kippur ends. 1....
  2. Monday Morning Stepback: Evening Edition My weekly links, opinion, and randomness post. 1. I don’t know how I missed this, but I like Sybil’s 9/3...
  3. The Monday Morning Stepback I had so much fun writing my “this n that” post last week, that I’ve decided to make it a...
  4. Monday Morning Stepback The weekly opinion, links and inanity post. Opinions: 1. Quartet Press, the press that almost was. From my point of...
  5. Monday Morning Stepback: Romanceland Kerfuffle Advisory System The weekly opinion and news post. 1. It was an eventful week in Romanceland last week, and with the Book...
  6. Review: Living Dead in Dallas, Charlaine Harris My Take in Brief: A terrific second installment. For background on this series, and introductions to the main characters, see...