SBD: Hop into the way back machine
Oct. 15th, 2007 11:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmc_bksTis Monday, Smart Bitches Day!
I picked up an old category last week from the library’s sale shelf. I like to see what they have to offer –- you can find some bargains -- I found one of Tess Gerritsen’s early books, an old, old Harlequin Intrigue that looks to be her second book (ever) written. Anyway, one of the other books I found was titled The Last Key (copyright 1984, written by Beverly Sommers) and the back blurb made it seem really suspensy. But it wasn’t, not so much. Basically, the hero was an undercover DEA agent who thought the heroine was a drug smuggler down in the Florida keys, when in fact she was an abused wife hiding from her husband. The romance was kind of ~meh~, I thought, but there was a lot of stuff in there that would so not get published today.
First: the hero has been married twice and divorced twice, and it wasn’t because he had bitchy, money-hungry wives. Does that happen anymore in categories? I don’t think so. Now it is only okay for either the first wife to have died or to have been a total skank who refused to have babies that the hero so wants. [Except he didn't want them here.] And there would never be a second wife.
Second: the hero’s current girlfriend leaves him for another guy, but not before offering one last go round. And the scene wasn’t played as anything nasty. Today, she’d be crucified for that! No goodbye sex! No sex of any kind for good girls, therefore she must be a bad girl and be disposed of in an ugly way!
Third: the heroine declines the hero’s offer to become a DEA asset, stating that cocaine use was a problem for the wealthy and that she wasn’t interested in becoming involved in the prosecution of a victimless crime. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that few people today would say that drug smuggling was a victimless crime or that cocaine addiction is confined to the monied classes. Crack, anyone? Plus, the uber-patriotism that category romances embrace (military heroes! pilots! SEALs!) today would not permit a heroine to decline to be involved unless some sort of extensive grunchy-granola-peacenik background had already been firmly established.
Beyond the category no-nos, there are a couple of things that totally date this book, mostly relating to the heroine’s hidden identity. The heroine has no id – real or fake. How then did she use a fake name to buy a plane ticket? Even twenty years ago, some form of id had to be used to board a plane, did it not? Or maybe it didn’t, and I’m just so accustomed to post-9/11 security that I can’t remember what air travel was like before.
Other quibble: the heroine hitched safely from California to Louisiana without encountering any more problems than getting sunburned while standing on the side of the road. Uh, okay. She was a beautiful blonde, according to the mirror and the hero’s lusty thoughts, but apparently she made it without mishap. Call me a cynic, but I have a hard time suspending disbelief about this: there were predators around even 20 years ago, and pretty, vulnerable women disappeared (and disappear) all the time.
I picked up an old category last week from the library’s sale shelf. I like to see what they have to offer –- you can find some bargains -- I found one of Tess Gerritsen’s early books, an old, old Harlequin Intrigue that looks to be her second book (ever) written. Anyway, one of the other books I found was titled The Last Key (copyright 1984, written by Beverly Sommers) and the back blurb made it seem really suspensy. But it wasn’t, not so much. Basically, the hero was an undercover DEA agent who thought the heroine was a drug smuggler down in the Florida keys, when in fact she was an abused wife hiding from her husband. The romance was kind of ~meh~, I thought, but there was a lot of stuff in there that would so not get published today.
First: the hero has been married twice and divorced twice, and it wasn’t because he had bitchy, money-hungry wives. Does that happen anymore in categories? I don’t think so. Now it is only okay for either the first wife to have died or to have been a total skank who refused to have babies that the hero so wants. [Except he didn't want them here.] And there would never be a second wife.
Second: the hero’s current girlfriend leaves him for another guy, but not before offering one last go round. And the scene wasn’t played as anything nasty. Today, she’d be crucified for that! No goodbye sex! No sex of any kind for good girls, therefore she must be a bad girl and be disposed of in an ugly way!
Third: the heroine declines the hero’s offer to become a DEA asset, stating that cocaine use was a problem for the wealthy and that she wasn’t interested in becoming involved in the prosecution of a victimless crime. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that few people today would say that drug smuggling was a victimless crime or that cocaine addiction is confined to the monied classes. Crack, anyone? Plus, the uber-patriotism that category romances embrace (military heroes! pilots! SEALs!) today would not permit a heroine to decline to be involved unless some sort of extensive grunchy-granola-peacenik background had already been firmly established.
Beyond the category no-nos, there are a couple of things that totally date this book, mostly relating to the heroine’s hidden identity. The heroine has no id – real or fake. How then did she use a fake name to buy a plane ticket? Even twenty years ago, some form of id had to be used to board a plane, did it not? Or maybe it didn’t, and I’m just so accustomed to post-9/11 security that I can’t remember what air travel was like before.
Other quibble: the heroine hitched safely from California to Louisiana without encountering any more problems than getting sunburned while standing on the side of the road. Uh, okay. She was a beautiful blonde, according to the mirror and the hero’s lusty thoughts, but apparently she made it without mishap. Call me a cynic, but I have a hard time suspending disbelief about this: there were predators around even 20 years ago, and pretty, vulnerable women disappeared (and disappear) all the time.
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-15 06:38 pm (UTC)I was listening to EF Benson's Lucia book and thinking how little happens and how it wouldn't have a chance to be popular fiction today because of the lack of action.
kate r
no subject
Date: 2007-10-15 06:43 pm (UTC)What's Benson's book about? Off to check.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-16 11:13 am (UTC)I love reading popular fiction and having that whol "whaaa?!" feeling.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-16 01:10 pm (UTC)Tess (yep, it's me!)
no subject
Date: 2007-10-16 01:22 pm (UTC)Sorry about the confusion -- I'll clarify my post.
From Carrie http://lovelysalome.blogspot.com
Date: 2007-10-16 01:25 pm (UTC)Cool review. Thx.