Romance Novels

[kafka]

My favorite Heyer is These Old Shade (and its sequel, the Devil's Cub). It was my mother's favorite and was the book she chose to introduce me to Heyer. After that I loved: The Grand Sophie, the Talisman Ring, the Reluctant Widow, and Simon the Coldhearted (set in Norman times).

[nitenurse]

dangwhathaveu8 said:

I about died when I went to Wallmart.com and read some of the romance novel summaries. Be sure to check out the "Time Traveling" section and read the synopsis of some of the books, like this little gem entitled Beyond the Highland Mist:

Sidheach Douglas, known as Hawk, is famous among women throughout Europe and the fairy realms for his sexual prowess. When one of his friends decides he's had enough of the legendary Hawk's exploits, he makes a fateful wish on a falling star that Hawk would meet an ideal woman, perfect of face and form, with a perfect "no" on her lips for the notorious laird. Upon hearing the wish, a sinfully attractive fairy man who covets the Hawk's reputation searches time and space for the perfect woman to put Hawk in his place.
In 1990's Seattle the fairy finds beautiful, intelligent Adrienne de Simone living in seclusion as she tries to escape her checkered past. The quintessential 90's woman, Adrienne is educated and independent. She thinks she's happy in her solitary existence until the fairy sweeps her back in time to medieval Scotland where by the king's decree she is wed by proxy to laird Sideach James Lyon Douglas -- a man who has never truly loved a woman and doesn't want a wife until he meets the incomparable Adrienne and vows to use all of his wiles to make her love him.

Adrienne, who distrusts men, appears to be just the right woman to teach Hawk a lesson in humility; she's determined to push aside Hawk and the stunning fairy man, both of whom vie for her attentions. But when Adrienne is dragged back to her own time, it is Hawk's boundless love that reaches across lime and space to bring her back to the home she finds in his arms.

Brilliant. God sometimes I think that these romance novel writers drop acid for ideas. The guys name sounded out sounds like "Side Ache"..
www.walmart.com/catalog/product_listing.gsp?cat=21251

Hanging head in SHAME -- I read it and it was actually quite good! Fast read and enjoyable.

[pepper67]

Kafka, These Old Shades was the first Heyer book I read - and it was so good, I read it over again once I'd finished it! I hated An Infamous Army though as Justin and Leonie were dead in it.

I love Georgette Heyer's books for her sense of humour. Horry's escape from Lethbridge's house in The Convenient Marriage is brilliant. How Horry kept her sanity dealing with her drunk brother and his friend is beyond me. I would have been tempted to maim them. I especially love it when the two men go back to see if Lethbridge is dead because Pel (the brother) had a bet on it.

I also love how all of Georgette's heroines are different. Some of them are plain, some are sensible, and some (like Eustacie de Vauban in The Talisman Ring) have the most amazing ideas of romance. I've read 7 Barbara Cartland books (I was young, okay?) and all but one of the heroines were identical: blonde hair, big blue eyes set in a flower-like face, and the same insipid personality. The 7th heroine was a redhead. The rest of it was the same though.

[Auroranorth]

I've read at least 50 and the heroines all have long hair, big eyes set in a flower-like face and names that end with A.

[kafka]

auroranorth said:

I've read at least 50 and the heroines all have long hair, big eyes set in a flower-like face and names that end with A.

God, the big eyes taking up one third of the face is such a Barbara Cartland hallmark. So is the weird names. And you're right, Aurora, a good portion of them do end with A.

I'm afraid to admit that I've read far, far, FAR more than 50 of them. When I was about 6 or 7, I came across my sister's big box of Barbara Cartland's in the wine cellar. I was hooked and I used to smuggled them up to my room inside my pants or clothes.

None of them were racy but I remember the most "juicy" book of the lot was a a rare Barbara Cartland where she discussed the heroine's honeymoon and the day after. I read the phrase, "rose tipped breasts" and I was transfixed. God, how embarassing that I remember it so crisply and sharply to this day, but I really do.

Sadly enough, I remember many of those Barbara Cartlands. My sister's collection included quite a few of her really early stuff, so it wasn't quite so formulaic as it ended up becoming later. There were two books set in the 1930s, many with quite realistic names (as opposed to her subsequent made-up garbage like Hyacinthicalita, Gloriana, Zarushka, I'mGorgeousianalita, etc. ), and several with dark-haired heroines, including the book with the aforementioned "pink tipped breasts." IIRC, the girl in that one was a distant grand niece of Queen Victoria, was sent off to some Ruritania-like fake country because her marriage would save it, and the prince captured her on the railroad trip in while disguised as some sort of guerrilla bandit to give her a seeeeeeeeering kiss that she never forget as she..... [insert rest of totally illogical story].

Or maybe it was the one with the Duke yachting in Istanbul and who ended up saving the Circassian born beauty who had been destined for the Sultan's harem, only one of the harem wives tried to have her killed, only for her to be saved by the eunach who smuggled her onto the Duke's yacht in a chest of silks and furs....

It's truly embarassing: I can't remember a host of things that I said or did last month, but I can remember huge details about a ghastly Barbara Cartland book I read back when I was 6 or 7.....

Excuse me while I slink away to flagellate myself with shame....

[Auroranorth]

Skip the flagellation- I read them when I was a LOT older than 6 or seven.

I believe I read somewhere that all of her heroines had names that ended in A. Can't remember where though.

[Deleted]

I'm steadily reading my way through Julia Quinn (thanks to this thread!) and am especially enjoying the Bridgerton family series. I have a question for other Julia Quinn fans--has anyone purchased the "epilogues" for the first two of the series, and if so, was it worthwhile? I see on her website that she's selling these in e-book format--to read on the computer only. They're only a couple of dollars each, but I don't want to go through the whole hassle if it's totally not worth it.

[seton]

I refuse to BUY the Bridgerton epilogues on principle. There are many authors (like Mary Balogh) who have epilogues on a beloved book for free on their website. Luckily for me, the New York Public Library has the epilogues for download (which I havent read yet because the waiting list is damn long!)

I have read about 8 or 9 Georgette Heyers and the only one that I remember with a lot of clarity is THESE OLD SHADES. I do know that a lot of people like published author Eloisa James like VENETIA the best because it is considered the most modern in that it has <gasp> a lot of sexual tension than usual. Remember, Heyer started writing in the 1920s. I remember reading DOUBLE WAGER by Mary Balogh and thinking its a ripoff of a Heyer but couldnt remember which one. After much investigation, I found out that the Heyer that was ripped off was THE CONVENIENT MARRIAGE. There is a good review on amazon.com that details the similarities between the 2 books on the DOUBLE WAGER page.

I dont care what anyone says -- I loved Barbara Cartland books. In what other romance novel can you come across the fact that the model of Botticelli's BIRTH OF VENUS is Simonette Vespucci? You can learn this in THE DANGEROUS DANDY, one of my favorite Cartlands, written in the middle 1970s when she wasnt turning out novels every 2 weeks like she did later on.

If any of you have trouble finding out of print books, you can try www.paperbackswap.com. It's an online paperback trading site. Dont forget to use me as reference -- [e-mail]

[Deleted]

You know, I did think it was kind of strange to be charging the few dollars to read what is probably just a few pages worth of epilogues, when so many authors have unpublished short stories on their websites. She's a NY Times bestseller author of several books, does she really need the money??
Maybe once she's written a epilogue for each of the books in the series, she'll put it together into a little book. I'd buy that.

[bossyboots]

My Mom and her sisters were super into Georgette Heyer when I was growing up. In fact, Mom wrote a Regency romance[/color] inspired by Heyer's stuff. I haven't read any in years (the only one I remember for some reason is Regency Buck, and really I only remember the title).