Tag Archives: Romance Novel
In praise of oddness
Cutting to the chase: MacLean’s One Good Earl Deserves a Lover is the first romance in a long, long, far-too-long time that had me floored; it’s the best historical romance I’ve read in recent memory (or, judging by my Goodreads, in a year or so)—it’s one of the most affecting books, no matter the genre, that I’ve ever spent a handful of hours with. It had me muttering, over and over, “Oh man, you’re a good book”—and almost despairingly; I would look up to P., who I’d shooed away early on and complain, “This is such a good book!” [Continue reading.]
Of doe-eyed women
This is a great volume to have in a romance-reader’s shelf, in an art-lover’s stack of coffee table books. But I wanted it to be an invaluable book—and a little more effort, a lot more digging through the stacks, a lot more reading of the actual books featured, would have made it thus. [Continue reading.]
Alpha heroine, anyone?
Last year, I started reading Mary Balogh reissues, which promptly hooked me. It was a welcome change of pace, romance novels where prose, for one, mattered more than the hijinks the hero and the heroine commit themselves to on the trail to True Love. [I keep saying it, and I’ll do so again: Balogh’s prose is graceful.] It’s almost quaint, these renderings of the love story; and though they were rarely intense reading for me, they could aspire for the quietly romantic at their best moments. The archetypes—nearly institutions, really—are as vivid as they’ll ever be, and the Baloghs of the 80s and 90s are perfect examples of how the formulae of the genres work: Here’s the virtuous daughter, the brooding peer, the naïve but refreshing country lass, the flamboyant lord. And on and on we go, with tropes galore. [Continue reading.]
01142013: A book pile to cleanse the palate
I picked up The Drawing of the Three, the second book in Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series, because I wanted something hefty that would take me away from the bad juju flying around today. And so when Ronald wakes up at the beach (where The Gunslinger, first book, ended) and starts being eaten by the scariest, most ridiculous demon lobster in literary history—the man gets two fingers and a toe eaten, for fuck’s sake—I was thankful for someone to sympathize with, someone who made me think, “Well, he’s more fucked than you are, girl.” See, after being all, “I see serious problems ahead,” at page twenty, Ronald goes, “I jerk off left-handed, at least that’s something.” Yeah, let the Gunslinger remind you look for the bright side, Sasha. [Continue reading.]
01112013: With Salter, but mostly Ford
I’m about seventy pages in at the moment; already Light Years feels like a bitter reminder of the literary preoccupations I had in college: When I was much younger and, thus, had more promise—when I could write what I wanted to write, and I did it well, I believed so hard that I did it well. James Salter feels now like something I idolized then. [Continue reading.]
Because I can’t mind my own business
So I’ve finished reading Maya Banks’ foray into historical romance: the McCabe Trilogy, featuring the three brothers McCabe, warrior highland men who, of course, have swoon-y heart bits—and the women they love. Or, in most cases, the women who convince them that, hell, love is awesome, and can they put aside their broad-axes for a […]
