On Shipping, Muses, And Other Notes Out of a Romance Reading Binge

[shipperx]

Still stuck with the sparkly pretty pink princess because I didn't bother to finish yesterday (and, yes, I realize that there is no rule that I must finish the book, except now I'm doing it for the pure meaness of waiting for the hero to (unjustly) call her a whore, because it is so, so, so very coming. And then I will high five myself for knowing that it was coming, that he really is that douche, and that she walked right into it by being a moron.

In discussing deconstruction of romance novel tropes with shadowkat67, I've begun wonder what an author such as Sherry Thomas would do with this (since her niche seems to be deconstructing genre tropes.)   I don't honestly know what Thomas would do with this one.  Something deeply angst-rific probably.  There could be a heck of a lot of work done with its repressed, spineless heroine and her love for a guy she has nothing in common with. But where Thomas would probably come up with something troubled and angsty, I'm more likely to lean towards rahirah's concept of unicorn goring (sounds like something where BtVS's Harmony would be involved).

Actually, though,  when thinking about it on the commute to work, I thought that the way to re-work this novel in a more entertaining way would be to tell the entire thing from the points of view of the lady's maid and the hero's valet.  They could recognize what compete imbeciles and douches their employers are and fun could be had.  In fact, I've had tangential ideas about that sort of thing from a couple of books.

From one set of books where there's clearly a cascade effect going on with its heroes (by that I mean that the hero of one novel is set up in the previous novel.  Usually by hinting at some brooding secret.) I also began thinking of the ways that some authors slip in sub-plots into their stories that are actually more involving than the main plot. In one of the Milan novels, there was a lovely subplot that had the heroine's sister fall in love with an law student from India during the timeframe of Victorian England.  I wondered whether this was a romance that Milan had wanted to tell but which she found it easier to sell to a publisher as a subplot rather than a main plot.  (The subplot pairing got their happy ending BTW).   And I remember another subplot pairing (in a 1980s book whose title I've long since forgotten and whose author I cannot even remember ) that's always been my standard bearer "the subplot romance is better than the main one" pairing.  It was a Civil War romance with an entirely forgetable hero and heroine {I seriously remember NOTHING about them!} with a subplot where the Southern hero had a half-brother who was a slave.  The bi-racial half-brother and his starcrossed love for the daughter of the plantation next door was an infinitely more involving story.  {They eventually ran away together to California, never to be heard of again but yearningly towards a happy ending).  I haven't seen the like of that story again.  Probably because it's more difficult to market...?  I've always wondered whether the author had felt compelled to couple that story with a more stereotypical pairing in order to get it published in the 1980s.  (Romances often have a conservative audience.  Don't believe it, read some of the Amazon reviews complaining about 'unclean' love scenes. Which considering some of the vampire love scenes I've read in fandom, is a phrase that sends my mind to an entirely different place than the complainers mean...}  Still, that sub-plot pairing worked because it didn't take unrealistic obstacles.  They had obstacles aplenty based in historical reality, which is what made the subplot a compelling story.

Anyway, back to the original thought of cascading brooding  secret-keeping Victorian heros, while I'm well aware of the existence of its very own genre, I'm actually waiting for the day when the baton pass in the relay to the next brooding secret-keeping hero in a mainstream romance is that he's gay. If the brother or best friend with a 'secret' turned out to be gay and in some star crossed love for some guy he didn't think he could have (but of course could and would) took place in the Victorian era with their having some hot young version of Professor Higgins/Colonel Pickering (sans Eliza Doolittle) or Sherlock Holmes/Doctor Watson  'confirmed bachelor' story where they were accepted as a loving pairing by the other pairings in the romance series (anachronistic?  Whatever.  Historical romances are virtually always anachronistic so go for it.  This romance cascade effect with a group of happy pairs is what happens in romance triologies and romance series) I think its time is coming.  Soaps have already gone there.   Can the romance industry get around to it any time soon? Contemporaries probably get away with it now.  So, come on, historicals.  It could totally work.  Fandom would do it (and probably has many, many times over).  Romance publishers will be a lagging indicator of change.   It'll probably happen in e-publishing first.  They tend to feel freer to take chances there.

Another tangential thought while reading was that it's really weird how we react to certain things.  In one of the Victorian novellas I read, the hero had gone abroad to mountain climb and that had taught him some life lessons.  One of the Amazon reviewers had complained about this aspect, about how he'd gone ten years doing something that shouldn't take that long and seemed self-indulgent.  And...well... it was perhaps odd subject matter, but I could see Sir Edmund Hillary-like adventurer thing.  I was intrigued.  Then again, I'm someone who enjoyed reading (well, was fascinated by reading)  Into Thin Air and Dark Summit, which chronicle two of the deadliest expeditions taken to Everest.  Those sorts of stories are compelling and awful and speak to the nature of people in a way that is stark (and often unflattering.)  Those people are hard core.

Of course the thing that's also jumbed out at me when reading the appendixes of books like Into Thin Air and Dark Summit (and watching several "I Shouldn't be Alive" Discovery channel things), is that that particular strain of adventurer frequently climbs until they kill themselves.  It's rather stunning when reading the updated appendix of those books to find that the survivors of those deadly expeditions not only went back to climbing, but many of them have since died on the mountains.  The ones who display common sense live to a ripe old age, almost appear to be a minority.

None of which had to do with the Victorian novel I was reading, but which did make my muse think... you know, I could see how the adventuring mountain climber could be a charismatic hero... and how it could be a real and compelling obstacle in a romance because the danger is real, and these mountain climbers seem to keep doing it until they kill themselves.  You know what might work?  If there was a romance pairing that this aspect became the big obstacle.  There would need to be a heroine who was both attracted and repelled by this.  You know, I always feel for those rangers who have to pull people off of El Capitan or
the helicopter pilots that have to fly into the death zones to pull idiots off of Everest.  And it would make a good place for the pairing to meet.  A pilot/ranger heroine.  A charismatic, adventuring hero.  His death wish hobby.  That could work as a comtemporary romance novel.

Alas, I've got the muse for this sort of thing, but I'm not the one to write it.  (Would totally read it though).

Rounding out the random thoughts, Nashville has a bazillion things wrong with it, but the Avery/Juliette pairing is not one of them. They've managed to build these two into quite the rootable ship.  She's this fiery star with a tragic past who is often her own worst enemy.  And they've slowly grown Avery into the man who BELIEVES in her.  When, after her music publisher, called her trailer trash of mediocre talent, and then Avery later found her drunk and told her that she was damned talented and that she would survive, then took her out so that they sang together incognito as players of street music....  Yep.  That worked.  I love a supportive guy. This pairing was nicely built.  They're still slow-burn, but they've definitely set up the elements to make me root for these two to at long last hook up.

Comments

[usedtobeljs]

Sherry Thomas actually took on a character who seems like SUCH an alpha-douche to the heroine in her Tempting the Bride. It's one of those cascading trilogies -- we see Helena and David in the background of the first two books, and it's fascinating and complex because he's an asshole to her but wonderful to the other characters. The third book is "Yeah, he's an asshole to her and here's why," with psychological depth and some trope-subversion. (It helps that Helena is not a sweet heroine at all, and she's got her own stuff to work on.)

[paratti.livejournal.com]

The Victorian exploreres did go off for years, due the unmappedness, the slowness of the available transport or to take the Top Gear Search for the Nile Special, they were Victorian Hoo-rays on a Gap Year.

Have to read Touching the Void by Joe Simpson, on the whole surving thing, and his later books on going back and the deal toll?

[molly_may]

Contemporaries probably get away with it now.

Contemporaries have already gotten away with it.:) Suzanne Brockmann has a long-running series about an elite private security firm that had a gay supporting character, who, over the course of several books, falls in love with an actor. While they didn't get their own full-length book, they did get a novella about their wedding.

And last year JR Ward released Lover at Last, a gay vampire romance that hit the bestsellers list. (If you're not familiar with Ward, she writes a vampire series in which the heroes have names like Rhage, Tohrment, Vishous, etc. They are, uh, not my cup of tea.)

I haven't heard of it happening in a historical romance yet, but it's only a matter of time.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Male/Male is more likely...apparently it's quite popular right now - particularly in paranormal, sci-fi and fantasy.

Female/Female less likely...did see it referred to in a Eloise James Regency Historical though, the hero's fiancee dumps him for another woman, and takes off with her. But not quite developed. (Pleasure for Pleasure).

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

There was a very oblique mention in "Duchess War" where the heroine mentions in passing that her aunts aren't BOTH her aunts. Just one is actually related to her and that her impression is that her aunts are more than 'just friends'

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Oh, I remember that - it is rather oblique, can go either way. The Eloisa James's one is a bit more avert.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I don't think I could take a hero named Rhate, Tohment, of Vishous seriously. At that point it really needs to be a satire or farce.

I could buy Brockmann pulling a pairing off. I do think it will happen with historical's eventually. There have been a couple of really oblique references recently, I'm just waiting for the full-blown subplot.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

That genre is odd about names...it's one of my difficulties with paranormal/urban fantasy romances...they are often unintentionally farcical.

I kept trying to read the shape-shifter ones, but the blurb alone had me burst out laughing or rolling my eyes.

"There was just something about a man with big paws" - this was in regards to The Mane Event (can't remember the writer) - a contemporary romance about a female werewolf and a guy who shapeshifts into a lion. (It was recommended to me, along with the dragon shapshifting romance novels by a co-worker.)

[molly_may]

There's a pretty funny (though long) review of the first book in Ward's vampire series here that describes all the introduced characters who eventually got their own books:

So there’s Wrath, the Blind King, the six-foot-six broad-shouldered massive-wanged leader of the Brotherhood. Then there is his second in command Tohrment, the level-headed one who is the only warrior amongst the Brothers to have found true happiness with his shellan. Following on from those we get Rhage, whose Hollywood-perfect good looks give way to a terrible beast when his curse is upon him. Vishous, the goateed, tattooed genius whose gloved left hand holds a terrible destructive power. Zsadist, the former blood-slave whose face is marred by scars and whose cold black eyes hold the promise of death. And Phury, who … has really good hair.

The series is wildly popular, but I honest to goodness can't even get past the character names to give it a chance.

[(Anonymous)]

Those names are pretty ridiculous, so I share your reservations.

Maybe if I get into a particularly absurd mood one day I will(the same mood that drove me to download the Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter {novel}. That said, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter turned out to be unreadably awful (not 'bad in a good way' bad just... bad) and I gave up half way through. Amused snarking only takes one so far, so I tend to try to resist the moood).

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Oops. That was me. Didn't sign in first.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Agree on Nashville, although I think I like Rayna better than you do, and am enjoying the bits on the music industry, which is realistic. It is a nasty industry.

Juliette and Avery...yes, so much...they've built this well, and have two great actors and musicians in Jonathan Jackson and Hayden Pantierre.

Scarlett has a lovely voice but grates on my ever-living last nerve.

On romances? There's a novel called Sweet Revenge by Zoe Archer - which is about a working class, uneducated guy who breaks out of prison and then is captured by Revenge Unlimited whose sole purpose in life is to even the odds against the aristocracy who gets away with nasty things and never pays for them. One of the leaders is the heroine. Haven't read it yet - it's sitting on my Kindle. Deals with class issues, goes from action to strategy to action.

Oh for a laugh - go read this at smartbitches about bad sex scenes in romance novels - its hilarious:

http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/blog/10-things-i-hate-about-sex-scenes

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Ooh! The Revenge one sounds interesting. I just finished Thomas's "Scartlet Pimpernel" rif "His at Night" which was relatively fluffy but fun. (Like the Smart Bitches reviewer, I had a thing for the Scarlet Pimpernel as a kid so I figured it would be something I would like.

I'll check out Revenge.

And the 10 things made me laugh out loud. One of them reminded me of my reaction to a Spike/Buffy/Angel fanfic from ages and ages ago where I just kept thinking "I don't think that's humanly possible. And wouldn't it... hurt? But really, where would all the LEGS go?!!" *snort*

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Let me know what you think of Revenge. Haven't gotten there yet. (Currently bogged down in Margaret Atwood's Blind Assassin, which I've decided to read before bed - it actually works very well for that, short chapters and puts me to sleep.)

I just finished Thomas's "Scartlet Pimpernel" rif "His at Night" which was relatively fluffy but fun. (Like the Smart Bitches reviewer, I had a thing for the Scarlet Pimpernel as a kid so I figured it would be something I would like.

Oh, I have "His at Night" on my Kindle...how is that? I bought it for the same reasons you did, I also have a weakness for The Scarlet Pimpernel (amongst my favorite romance novels as a kid - I think I read it five times. And I've seen every movie and televised version of it. I did however draw the line at seeing the Broadway Musical (it got really bad reviews and cost $140 bucks, just no.) Adore that trope.)

Right now, I'm thisclose to buying the Countess Conspiracy by Courtney Milan. And...another Thomas, either Beguiling the Beauty or Tempting the Bride (I have a weakness for memory loss stories, and ironic romances).

One of them reminded me of my reaction to a Spike/Buffy/Angel fanfic from ages and ages ago where I just kept thinking "I don't think that's humanly possible. And wouldn't it... hurt? But really, where would all the LEGS go?!!"

Hee. I've wondered much the same thing. Apparently threesomes are the thing in contemporary erotica. Although, after reading fanfic, I can't be shocked. I remember reading one that described a frog position. I sat there and thought, okay, how is that possible? Are they gymnists? Another one had Buffy and Spike in the shower, Buffy was facing the shower head, both her legs were wrapped around Spike, who was standing directly behind her. Oh and this was an everyone's human fanfic.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Have read the Scarlet Pimpernel rif His at Night and am about 80% through Revenge, Inc. (one thing about cold weekends when 90% of TV is on hiatus, you have time to kill with books).

I enjoyed both. Neither is overwhelmingly angsty. You do want to kick the hero of "His" in the head at least once for being willfully self-destructive, and, yeah, he has created his own predicament with his secret identity, but generally he's enjoyable. I liked his leading lady as well. So while the 'mystery/investigation' is somewhat weak, don't care. I enjoyed it.

"Revenge, Inc." Isn't all that romance novel-y. Doesn't follow the tropes. It's more of an action adventure/caper. It's a bit "Leverage" meets "Ripper Street".

It's rather implausbile that in the Dickens era a Whitechapel street thug/convict, such as the hero, would turn out to as intelligent and...well... as nice as Jack is (Probably not as literate either. They don't play him as educated or anything, but a guttersnipe from Whitechapel during the age of Ripper would most likely be unable to read at all. His 'roughness' seems primarily to be his boxing and his vulgar language. Everything else about him is surprisingly civilized.)

At any rate, the hero is quite likable (though they go overboard mentioning how HUGE he is. It's like he's The Hulk or something.) The primary weakness so far (to me at any rate) has been a failure to explain (at least to the point I've read) what turned Eva, the daughter of missionaries, into such a sexually liberated Victorian. I got the explanation for how she went from frustrated missionary into the Robin Hood-esque aspects of Nemesis, but she is anachronistically liberated where sex is concerned (which, there are worse flaws for a story to have, so it's not much of a complaint. She's likable, smart, and tough... just anachronistically modern. And, because of that missing bit of her psychology (at least to the point where I've read) I don't quite grasp her romantic obstacle with Jack. They seem perfect working together (with benefits): serendipidously in-sync spy-partners. And he seems perfectly made for Nemisis work. Plus, it's pretty clear that they both fell ass over teakettle for one another... so why can't they just stay together once the mission is done? (It's a romance novel, so I assume that in the end they will. But Eva in particular behaves as though there's no possibility for it, and I'm still unclear as to WHY she thinks so.)

At any rate, it's action-filled and caperesque with Jack and Eva gravitating into a partnership pretty quickly. Fun, not too angsty, and explicit.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Interesting on "His at Night" - the Amazon and Good Reads reviewers had issues with the heroine, complaining that she was too weak or wimpy.
But the hero, they were fine with.

At any rate, the hero is quite likable (though they go overboard mentioning how HUGE he is. It's like he's The Hulk or something.)

Apparently this is a kink with a lot of readers/writers - how big the guy is. Also the woman is often described as tiny, making me wonder - okay how well does this actually work anatomically speaking?

The primary weakness so far (to me at any rate) has been a failure to explain (at least to the point I've read) what turned Eva, the daughter of missionaries, into such a sexually liberated Victorian. I got the explanation for how she went from frustrated missionary into the Robin Hood-esque aspects of Nemesis, but she is anachronistically liberated where sex is concerned (which, there are worse flaws for a story to have, so it's not much of a complaint. She's likable, smart, and tough... just anachronistically modern. And, because of that missing bit of her psychology (at least to the point where I've read) I don't quite grasp her romantic obstacle with Jack.

Another trend - I've been picking up on. This tendency to write a female character with a modern sensibility. A sort of having your cake and eat it too - she's in a historical but she acts like she was born in the 1980s.
It doesn't bother me that much, but it has been popping up a lot.

Also...a lot of these writers like to skip over key plot points and character development or summarize, spending most of their time on the sex or action scenes. I keep wanting to send them to a creative writing workshop.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Interesting on "His at Night" - the Amazon and Good Reads reviewers had issues with the heroine, complaining that she was too weak or wimpy.
But the hero, they were fine with.


I think that would probably boil down to the fact that she seems very even keeled about most things. When the hero (somewhat inexplicably) asks for a divorce, she doesn't fight it, and she doesn't make him work overtime when he later reverses the decision... but I didn't take it as weakness so much as her not being prone to theatrics and to being pragmatic about things.

If you took the POV that she had tricked him into marriage (which she had) then her calm acceptance of his demand for a divorce makes sense even though it does seem to come from out of the blue for her (and was a low blow from him).

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I think that may have been the complaint...that she was a doormat and just let him roll over her. But, you're right depends on how you interpret it.

Also, Good Reads romance reviewers are odd ducks. Smartbitches recommends selecting books off Good Reads reviews based on ratings that sort of give you the finger (ie, lots of 3 stars not just 5 stars), and to figure out if you have similar tastes to the reviewer.

They are right - those reviewers adore the New Adult romances - which, ahem.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Well, some things are very much a preference thing, so it's going to vary person by person. I didn't mind the heroine being rather forgiving as that was an overall character trait for her, and I tended to respect her unwillingness to go into hysterics about things but taking them directly.