Books: Romance

This is kind of a review, kind of a favorite thing post. I'm going to admit that I like romance novels. I'm not talking Nicholas Sparks romance, I'm talking the books with the embarrassing covers of muscular men and beautiful damsels in distress. There is something so deliciously forbidden about them - obviously you can't cart that novel off to the gym. Yet at the same time I love slipping into that world - where ladies are elegant in fancy clothes, and men are a little rough and tumble.

I recently read pretty much every book by Deeanne Gist (a Christian romance writer for all those faint at heart) and Sabrina Jeffries.

I received the Jeffries book for free last year from a book festival and took it home laughing that I might read it if I was bored. Well, boredom came and I grabbed the book - I can't remember the title but its from The School of Heiresses series - and I loved it. It was well-written (i.e. not just about bodice ripping encounters with fluffy dialogue as filler) and really captured my attention with the story. Sure romance stories are always a little far fetched - beautiful intelligent women falling for men that don't always seem to be the best match - but Jeffries make it so easy to fall into their character's world. I went to the library and quickly scooped up every Heiress book I could find. Sure some are better than others - that's the way of novels - but all of them are interesting stories with a little bit of sex. I can't even pick a favorite. I did join her fan club so I get random emails and I bought her latest book The Truth About Lord Stoneville - I'll have to let you know if it's any good.

Gist is different - I read one of her books a few years ago - A Bride Most Begrudging - I actually picked it up thinking it was just a regular piece of fiction - not realizing it was romance or Christian romance at that. I was reluctant to read it thinking it would be all scripture and Bible study - but its not. Obviously, she works that into the story but most of the time it doesn't seem forced. The only two books of hers I wasn't really into were Deep in the Heart of Trouble and Courting Trouble a series about Ellie. Ellie just isn't that likable to me - its not because she has premarital sex (gasp - apparently this has gotten Gist a lot of flack on Amazon) - but I don't care about her. She's ahead of her time (the book takes place in the late 1800's) - she believes in women's right, loves biking, helps run a company but can't find a husband. The stories were just ok - Ellie spends way too much time harping on the fact she gave her virginity to a scoundrel and now she's not pure and no man will want her (not to mention she's decided she's going to be married to God).

Do you read romance novels? Are you too embarrassed to admit it if you do? I'm almost tempted to pick one for Book Club just for fun of course.

Thoughts on Mansfield Park Thus Far

So I’m reading Mansfield Park for book club. I was reading like a mad man this weekend thinking book club was this Wednesday but I am saved and can once again procrastinate as book club is next week. It has gotten me thinking though and I don’t know if I’ll bring up at book club or not – am actually afraid to bring up here as I know a lot of people are die-hard Jane Austen fans. But here I go (don’t be too mean in the comments).

Is Austen as good of writer as everyone claims or is she really the seventeen hundred’s version of say a Nicholas Sparks? I read a lot and I’ve read a lot of Jane Austen books (if not all at this point at least 90%). And reading this one I’ve struck with the thought all her books are pretty much the same romance bundled up and packaged under different characters and different names. Girl meets boy, is somehow unworthy of boy or not interested in boy, girl realizes she is deeply madly in love with said boy, randomness happens (usually something to do with what’s proper and not or social classes), boy and girl get together. I tried to google Jane Austen critics but got a bunch of literary reviews that I didn’t feel like reading and none that screamed in the Google site description – same story over and over. Are they well written? Sure – better than half the dribble current authors put out at lightning speed. But that doesn’t change the fact that pretty early on you can guess where the story is going.

Maybe this is just the way it is with romance – I recently heard a romance writer talk and she said publishers want the heroine and hero to meet in the first chapter and if you can do it on the first page even better. Have romances not changed in 200 years?

It makes me mad though when I fall for a writer and slowly come to realize after devouring a few of their books that it’s the same stories repacked in a shiny new cover with a few new names. I can name a list right now: Janet Evanovich, Nicholas Sparks, Danielle Steel, practically any romance novel, Jodi Picoult, Sophia Kinsella (although I’m still addicted to the shopaholic series)…. They all have a stick – Nicholas Sparks is guaranteeing some tragic event, Danielle Steel is most often some down in her luck heroine with expensive things meeting an unlikely price charming, Evanovich with her Plum series is all about an unlikely bounty hunter and the scrapes she continually finds herself in… And Picoult, who used to be a favorite of mine is all drama wrapped up in a social commentary of sorts - school shootings, the death penalty, suicide, it’s all fair game and it’s all likely to be an open ending.

Is it the curse of a prolific author to be drawn to the same story over and over? Maybe. I truly believe you write things you want to read. But I also think some of it is pure laziness - it's easy to repackage something that already works. Hell, half my job is to think of a new way to sell the same products. There's only so many ways you can write a love story.

So get to discussing... I'm interested on your take.