SBD: the p word
Oct. 20th, 2008 04:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmc_bksMonday again. And Beth has rung the bell for the SBD. Beth, in my head, you're actually ringing a bell, like the guests of honor at the New York Stock Exchange, opening the market for the day's trading. Except instead of buying and selling securities, we're all supposed to be exchanging ideas about genre romance or reading generally.
Today's SBD is semi-related to my post over at Readers Gab: it's about another Harlequin Presents that I read recently. HPs and other categories really seem like my primary source of non-paranormal, non-suspense reading these days. It's hard to find a straight up contemporary romance among stand alone titles, so when I get desperate for a normal (relatively speaking) heroine and hero, it's off to categories I go.
Helen Bianchin has a pretty standard plot, it doesn't vary much across any of her HP offerings. An arranged marriage of some sort, with the heroine loving the hero but being afraid to say anything because she's afraid he doesn't love her back. The billionaire businessman hero (and he must be both, billionaire and businessman) loves his heroine, but never says so until the very end of the book for one reason or another. Sometimes the reader gets his POV, sometimes not. Formulaic. Yet somehow rather like Hershey kisses. I know that I don't need another one, that it is going to taste exactly like the one before...but I still cannot resist. I like the fact that Bianchin's heroines are not doormats, that they are professionals, businesswomen in their own right.
The title for Bianchin's October release: Purchased: His Perfect Wife. Which is a little offensive, y'know? Hey, you can pick up the perfect model spouse at the department store, warranty and all. Except, well, the heroine does sell herself in exchange for the money to bail out her restaurant.
I'm not posting the backblurb because (as I've complained before), it bears relatively little resemblance to the actual story. My summary: When Lara's business partner absconds with the restaurant's money, she goes to a loan shark for temporary cash, thinking she'll be able to get help from her stepfather when he returns from vacation. But stepdaddy dies on the way home, leaving Lara in a vulnerable position, since she gets no money outright upon his death. Stepbrother Wolfe, upon whom Lara had a terrible crush as a teenager, returns for the reading of the will, and decides that he'll pay Lara's debt...for a price of his own.
While the asshat to doormat ratio was pretty even, I feel pretty ambivalent about this book. Basically, Lara made bad decisions and sold herself to solve her problems, then got lucky with the buyer. Typical rescue fantasy, I get it. Her decision-making early on just seemed deficient. I understood her desperation but found it hard to empathize with her stupidity.
The thing that I noticed most? Language used during the love scenes. Orgasms. Clitoris. Vaginal muscles. HP seemed (to me) to hold out for a long time, in terms of euphemisms for sex parts and sexual behavior. I know I've seen "clitoris" used before, in fact I'm pretty sure I posted my amazement here on LJ when I noticed it. "Sensitive nub" is still the more commonly used phrase, though. "Orgasm", too, although most HP authors do still prefer to write about peaks and waves and drowning in pleasure. "Vagina", now, I'm pretty sure that this is a first. At least the first time I remember reading the word in an HP, at least in a non-clinical way; it may have been used before, after all HP puts out 5 or 6 books per month and I usually only read one every couple of months, so I could've missed the word's debut.
Know what I'm waiting for now? The p word. That's right, I am waiting for an HP author to use "penis" or "prostate", instead of describing the hero "thrusting his length" or "easing himself" inside. Surely if a woman's body parts can be properly named, a man's can too? Yes?
Today's SBD is semi-related to my post over at Readers Gab: it's about another Harlequin Presents that I read recently. HPs and other categories really seem like my primary source of non-paranormal, non-suspense reading these days. It's hard to find a straight up contemporary romance among stand alone titles, so when I get desperate for a normal (relatively speaking) heroine and hero, it's off to categories I go.
Helen Bianchin has a pretty standard plot, it doesn't vary much across any of her HP offerings. An arranged marriage of some sort, with the heroine loving the hero but being afraid to say anything because she's afraid he doesn't love her back. The billionaire businessman hero (and he must be both, billionaire and businessman) loves his heroine, but never says so until the very end of the book for one reason or another. Sometimes the reader gets his POV, sometimes not. Formulaic. Yet somehow rather like Hershey kisses. I know that I don't need another one, that it is going to taste exactly like the one before...but I still cannot resist. I like the fact that Bianchin's heroines are not doormats, that they are professionals, businesswomen in their own right.
The title for Bianchin's October release: Purchased: His Perfect Wife. Which is a little offensive, y'know? Hey, you can pick up the perfect model spouse at the department store, warranty and all. Except, well, the heroine does sell herself in exchange for the money to bail out her restaurant.
I'm not posting the backblurb because (as I've complained before), it bears relatively little resemblance to the actual story. My summary: When Lara's business partner absconds with the restaurant's money, she goes to a loan shark for temporary cash, thinking she'll be able to get help from her stepfather when he returns from vacation. But stepdaddy dies on the way home, leaving Lara in a vulnerable position, since she gets no money outright upon his death. Stepbrother Wolfe, upon whom Lara had a terrible crush as a teenager, returns for the reading of the will, and decides that he'll pay Lara's debt...for a price of his own.
While the asshat to doormat ratio was pretty even, I feel pretty ambivalent about this book. Basically, Lara made bad decisions and sold herself to solve her problems, then got lucky with the buyer. Typical rescue fantasy, I get it. Her decision-making early on just seemed deficient. I understood her desperation but found it hard to empathize with her stupidity.
The thing that I noticed most? Language used during the love scenes. Orgasms. Clitoris. Vaginal muscles. HP seemed (to me) to hold out for a long time, in terms of euphemisms for sex parts and sexual behavior. I know I've seen "clitoris" used before, in fact I'm pretty sure I posted my amazement here on LJ when I noticed it. "Sensitive nub" is still the more commonly used phrase, though. "Orgasm", too, although most HP authors do still prefer to write about peaks and waves and drowning in pleasure. "Vagina", now, I'm pretty sure that this is a first. At least the first time I remember reading the word in an HP, at least in a non-clinical way; it may have been used before, after all HP puts out 5 or 6 books per month and I usually only read one every couple of months, so I could've missed the word's debut.
Know what I'm waiting for now? The p word. That's right, I am waiting for an HP author to use "penis" or "prostate", instead of describing the hero "thrusting his length" or "easing himself" inside. Surely if a woman's body parts can be properly named, a man's can too? Yes?
