Icky romance stuff -- I can't look

My reading got side-tracked by a romance novel called PASSION by Lisa Valdez. There was a big hullabaloo that she is finally coming out with a sequel to this book after six years or something so I was curious. I read a TON of romance books between 5th and 7th grade. Yes, the gothic romances and yes, I was a bit precocious in my reading and no, my mom wouldn't have let me read them if she'd known. In 7th grade I discovered DUNE by Frank Herbert and I was off to the races in SFF but that's another story. About five-six years ago I was working on an MBA with the goal of starting a bookstore. My store was going to be called Crime and Passion Books and would only carry the two top-selling genre books - mysteries and romance. So I needed to get back into knowledge at least of the romance authors so I started paying more attention to that genre and dabbled every now and then. I've always read Nora Roberts along the way but didn't know much of other contemporary authors. So on occasion, I read a romance.

Back to the story. I downloaded the sample of PASSION onto my Kindle to see what the hubbub was about. Romance novels run the gamut in terms of sex scenes from mild to pornographic. THIS was verging on pornographic. First of all, the female character is named "Passion", hence the title, and get your mind out of the gutter people, she's the daughter of a vicar in Regency England and was named after Passion Sunday because she was born on it. Ahem. Yeah, I don't think anyone could get by even in this day and age with a name like that without sniggering but that's beside the point. And his name is Mark. Just Mark, but he's an Earl, of course.

So having caught my attention with the porn-, I mean, love scene I had to read the whole book because it's like watching a train wreck in slow motion or slowing down to rubberneck at an accident scene. I had to see how bad it really was. If this book were a drinking game, one would be totally blotto'd very quickly in the frequency of descriptions. "vanilla and orange blossom smelling hair" (her) and the smell of "lemon-verbena" (him). And she licked her lips A LOT. And he, of course, was HUGE and we had to be told ALL THE TIME. And they did it ALL THE TIME. And it was the tried and true story of discovering they lurv each other but they couldn't be together and they each had to suffer because of duty but true lurv conquors in the end and having a baby is a sign that they're sexually compatible and they'll live happily ever after even though they live in Regency times and are behaving like a contemporary family. And Mark had to learn to love and trust the love of a woman because mommy is a bitch who cheated on his father and Passion had to learn to let go of her inhibitions (he's huge remember) and let go of duty because she'd been in a loveless marriage and the sex was really bad with her husband who's now dead.

Again, I enjoyed it in that "OMG, really?" kind of way. The sequel that the romance world is worked up about is called PATIENCE. Yes, Passion has a sister.

Much love,
PK the Bookeemonster