"With the clash of swords and the thrust of spears, The Purple Quest builds to an exciting climax."

[meganbmoore]

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Smart Bitches, Trashy Books? What other website would link me to a blog full of trashy, vintage romance novel covers and blurbs?

They must be seen to be believed. (Be sure to click the link for the other post. It's even better.)

[Poll #1300036]

Comments

[lilacfield.livejournal.com]

"A magnificent, ringing novel of the days when lusty Northmen raped and plundered the civilized world."

For some reason this hit my giggle button. I really don't know why. Maybe because I've seen sentences of that sort in fanficrants, heralding badfics.

[mierin-sama.livejournal.com]

I've never really had much interest with these kind of books :P

But seriously,

"To restore the honor of Rome and of his own family, Severus Varus left the decadent life of Rome... his only hope was to join the barbarians."

It would certainly inspire me to see if they are as bad as they sound.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

I just love the covers.

[maxineofarc.livejournal.com]

Somehow I suspect a few of those weren't really aimed at lady romance readers-- a lot of them have the look of trashy not-quite-porn for men ("Messalina" stands out - Unabridged! Uncensored!).

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Romance novels as we think about them now (books w/ sex about romance and aimed to women) didn't really start until the 70s with Kathleen Woodiwiss.

[maxineofarc.livejournal.com]

Ah, that explains a lot.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, really? Goodness knows I'm not the expert on this genre, but I've personally seen (and read, when I was wretched with the flu at school and there was absolutely nothing else available in the room I was too wretched to move out of) a bunch of absolutely dreadful late-1950s and early-1960s British category romances. Wikipedia claims that while the Woodiwiss marked the start of the modern romance genre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_novel) (i.e. single-title, non-category, paperback original, more explicit than the earlier chaste category titles), but that the Mills & Boon category romances date back to the 1930s...

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I suppose it depends on how you define it. Aside from "oh, Harlequins..." I think the Woodiwiss style (eventually much improved on, thankfully) is what most people think of with romance novels. Really, I can see the argument both ways, so I guess it defends on what you're used to seeing, and how you've seen the subject approached.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's a generational thing, too? I honestly think of the most ridiculous Harlequin/Mills & Boon "Millionaire Exoticized Ethnicity Tycoon's Mistress's Secret Baby" category stuff first when I think of "stereotypical romance novel". But I was a small child when the single-title stuff a la Woodiwiss was just getting off the ground, and my mom and her older female friends weren't romance readers, so my main exposure to the genre was seeing book covers on the grocery-store shelves or the spinny racks at the library; the early clench covers were there, but they were way outnumbered by all the eleventy-squillion interchangeable-looking category titles.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Very true. My introduction to romance novels was...errr...the Kathleen Woodiwiss novels my mother kept stored on the very top shelf in the library, resulting in my 14-year-old self needing to find out just why they must be kept out of reach.

[shiegra.livejournal.com]

I checked '...trashy enough to make Bertrice Small look classy.' but....I have to take it back. Nothing could make her look classy. I'm sorry, I just won't believe it.

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

Apropos of nothing, I was totally planning to use that Kaze Hikaru icon as my standard "books 'n' stuff" icon until I saw you were already using it. I mean, I know I could, but I think it would be a little bit weird.

Hence this Honey and Clover substitute.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Hmm...why would it be weierd for us to both use it?

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

I have myself friended, because I like to be able to see my own entries on my flist. And I tend to strongly associate people's icons with them. So it'd be weird for me to see that icon on your entries as well as on my own.

I never said it was a rational objection!

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Ah, yeah, I get that. That's especially jarring when you associate an icon with one person and then see someone posting with that icon saying or doing something that the other would never say or do.