Bitch Blog

I’ve recently read several novels by a U.S.A. Today best selling author, and the quality of the writing/editing drove me nuts. How can someone who does these things be a bestseller? These are Regency Romance novels, if that helps put my complaints in context.

 

What’s wrong with these books?

Across novels, the following happens repeatedly.

 

  • The women step so fast that their skirts flutter about their ankles.
  • A curl is forever falling over her eye (or sometimes his).
  • The male love interest is invariably over six feet tall (in the early 1800s) with a chiseled body to rival Greek statues.
  • Someone is often willing to “trade her [littlest] finger for . . .”
  • Fingerfuls of brandy are splashed into glasses, which are usually then filled to the brim.
  • Oh, so often, something really isn’t well done.
  • Someone (usually male) often rubs a lock of hair between thumb and forefinger.
  • Stray locks are often tucked behind her ear.
  • People turn their heads so fast they wrench the muscles of their necks.
  • Tense characters grip the edge of a table or the arm of a chair hard enough to leave crescent marks. (Sometimes those crescent marks are on palms.)
  • People have thick dark hooded lashes.
  • When angry, characters often grit their teeth or clench their teeth so hard that pain radiates or shoots up their jaws.
And then there are the awkward or erroneous constructions.
 
  • his head reeling to the side
  • eldest vs. elder when there are only two
  • to not get
  • two very entirely different
  • where she was far safer to his senses
  • there, with but the risk of a patron passing by away from ruin, he kissed her
  • most unfavorable of light
  • to their respective box (or chair)
  • there is nothing unordinary
  • little expectations
  • still bore the blunt of his fist
  • as always, entirely, too cheerful
  • I came tonight at the bequest of my sister

So why is this a bestselling author?

 
  • The heroines are NOT universally gorgeous, perfectly proportioned, and virtuous.
  • Heroines are smart, active, resourceful, and brave.
  • Often minor characters in one book become the principles in subsequent books, offering continuity.
  • And there are usually breaches of the class lines of the period.
So maybe this is a case of readers reading for story, not for style. Oh, sigh.

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