Far too often, category romance novels are unjustly marginalized. You’ll recognize the ‘category’ novel as the naked-torso-man-emblazoned-fire-engine-red-cover. Rather than the ‘highbrow’ single title romance, I can’t give up my love for the cheesy monthly installment of my favorite line - Harlequin Blaze.
That doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t like a well written book. This month’s bad choice has left me in hypen hell.
Clumsy carpenter - balance-challenged
happy - excited-if-deluded-triumph
manly - testosterone-flexing
charming old town - old-fashioned, brick-fronted
feeling bad - soul-deep wounds
It goes on and on. It’s one of those books where the writing distracts you from the characters. And do I care about bad boys returning to small towns? Not after this line: “He’d reached a new low-horny and hot in the Downtown Diner,” properly accessorized by your typical snappy waitress, Lorna. She’s going to single handedly make the reformed bad boy pay for his past and willful-ways.
From all the talk on blogs, you’d get the impression that there aren’t good books in these proscribed pages - but there are. There are some wonderfully-wrought-sentences, and some beautifully-drawn-characters. Those gems are worth every bad book. Sometimes the good authors just get lost between the hypens.
