Books so bad you threw them away?

Has anyone read a romance novel that you though was so bad, you threw it away?

I got the flu about a year ago and I ran to CVS to get some drugs and a book to read while I felt miserable. I had never read Fern Michaels before and decided to give her a chance so I picked up Hey Good Looking. I read about half way through the book and was so disgusted by the horrible dialogue, stupid characters, etc. that I pulled myself out of my sickbed to throw it in the trash. Normally, I strongly believe that books are your friends (who didn't learn that growing up?) but that book should not have been anyone's friend!

I know everyone has their own taste and someone out there probably loved the book but I will never pick up another Fern Michaels book.

I tried to read Promise Me Forever by Janelle Taylor several times when I was younger (and consequently my supply of trashy romance novels was severely limited by my uberchristian mother) and was never able to get into it. I recently found it in a box while moving and might try to read it again. I've forgotten what it was about, and possibly it was too mature for me at the time...or something.

Oh, there's plenty of stuff that's so bad I won't read it. In fact, I had to create the tag "unreadably bad" for some books. The worst book I ever tried to read in the romance genre was Patricia A. Rasey's Facade. The "one star" review of it on Amazon contains an excerpt that pretty much says it all.

And sometimes it's just one book by an author. For example, I usually love Barbara Freethy, but I couldn't read Summer Secrets. And Jennifer Crusie's Don't Look Down, written with Bob Mayer, was appalling, so I won't read any more of her collaborative efforts, though if she writes more books by herself, I'll buy them because I loved her earlier stuff.

A few years ago we were cleaning out the basement and I ran across a box of old PB's. I sorted through them, remembering each one and deciding which to keep and which to take to Goodwill and found one I didn't remember. I sat down to read it, and it was awful. A contemporary from the early 80's, the hero was absolutely creepy - the heroine didn't like him, either at first, but for some unexplainable reason fell for him in the end - of course. He wasn't one of those likable rogues that we all love - this guy stalked her until she just gave up, I guess. After I finished it, I threw it in the trash so that no one else would ever be subjected to it.

#1 - I also read a Fern Michaels book once - The Nosy Neighbor, and didn't like it. A while later, I got another by mistake and didn't make it half-way through. Like you, I'll never pick up another - but I see people reading them all the time, and sometimes I wonder if I just got the only 2 bad ones, or if my tastes are that much different than the mainstream.

I was reading a Dream Lover, and it was so bad that I put it down, (and tossed all of the books by her that I had) since then I just can't read anything by Virginia Henley. I've had others where I forced myself to finish, and sometimes I'll put a book down and pick it up a few weeks later, and suddenly I can read it. (All except for Virginia Henley).

When I first got back into reading romances as an adult a few years ago, I picked up Dreaming by Jill Barnett at the used bookstore. I had just read everything by one particular author and was looking for a new author to try. (I hadn't discovered LibraryThing yet.) So I just browsed the shelves and saw that this Barnett woman had a few books out and picked one at random.

Needless to say, it wasn't very good. I made it about halfway through before finally throwing it out. I'm not sure I'd ever thrown a book away before that. The heroine just really REALLY bugged me. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, so I won't go off on it - but will just say that I thought the heroine was very juvenile and not likeable.

I've never tried anything else by that author since then, so I don't know if that was an isolated incident or what.

re: #1 & #4:
I have Fern Michaels' Dear Emily and really liked it. However, that might just be because the heroine and I share a name. ;)

#1 - After I looked up Hey Good Looking that you mentioned, I believe that may have been the 2nd Michaels book that I tried, the one I couldn't finish.

#7 - have you read any others?

I have not read any others by her, but I do own the Texas Series, Texas Heat, Texas Fury, Texas Rich, Texas Sunrise and I have heard good things about them (mainly from the person who was having the garage sale I bought them from)...they're on my TBR list...I'll let you know...

Oh yeah, the worst ones I tag "Drivel", and then make them into airborne missiles headed for the trash can. I got great satisfaction once out of shredding, literally, a Norah Hess book about a "hero" who has sex with a sleeping woman, night after night. He knew she wanted to sleep with his brother, but he thought his brother was a creep, so he slept with her and let her think he was his brother instead, and she was just stupid enough to fall for it. It still makes me mad to think about it.

CC

It doesn't happen very often, but I've read a few I just can't stand to have in the house. Johanna Lindsey's Prisoner of My Desire, Catherine Coulter's Rebel Bride, and several of Jayne Ann Krentz's books from the 80's (Uneasy Alliance, Dangerous Magic) are a few. Mostly they're ones where the hero has no redeeming quality (boy, did Krentz have some terrible heros in the 80's!).

I never actually throw any romance novel away no matter how bad it is because I'm interested in the development of the genre and trends within it, but I do box the bad ones up and store them deep under the bed (or somewhere equally inaccessible), rate them with half-stars here and tag them something unflattering.

Linda Berdoll's Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife might be the absolute worst romance novel I own, at least in print form (I couldn't even finish it as I felt my brain cells exploding with each new paragraph read and was afraid I'd permanently lose a good ten IQ points before I turned the last page). I think some of the Ellora's Cave ebooks I've yet to catalogue might give this a run for the money though. The bad there just burns! (The good can be pretty hot too though! In a different way, of course ;-))

Oh, man, Marie, I had forgotten the Berdoll book. I couldn't get past the first ten or so pages of that. Ghastly.

There was one book by Karen Robards that put me off her books forever. I didn't throw it away but it did hit a wall on its way back to the 2-for-1 store. The story was OK but she totally mangled the geography of the state in which I grew up.

Hailelibe-

That's a total pet peeve of mine. I read a book once where a crime took place in a made up town next to the town where I grew up. This is usually a fine way of dealing with that kind of issue, but the author proceeded to have the crime investigated by the *wrong county's* Sheriff dept. It made me want to scream. I kept going "that's in Suffolk, not Nassau!" I have huge maps on my walls and in my computer of the places I am writing about, even when those places are imaginary.

I usually enjoy Robards, but she wrote one book, Obsession, that made me want to scream. The heroine is amnesiac and goes through the whole book with a headache. So does the reader.

"The heroine is amnesiac and goes through the whole book with a headache. So does the reader.'

LOL!

Adept & Haile, I so hear you on that!
One time in the early eighties I picked up a paperback in an airport newstand to read on the plane. It was called BALLET! - a thriller about a rogue American spy who was assassinating high-profile Russian defectors, staging it so that it looked like the Soviets were doing it. It had a lot of interesting stuff about the ballet, details of the actual performances, loads of NYC color, and I really bought the story - until, when the villain was caught, and - due to an interesting deal brokered by the CIA and KGB - was loaded onto an Aeroflot flight to Moscow in secret - a flight that left from Dulles International Airport in MARYLAND.

Growing up in the DC area, I (and everyone who has ever flown into DC) know that Dulles is VIRGINIA.

I could see mislocating a street or a building, but a huge international airport????

It just ruined the entire book for me. If the author could get that wrong (and I don't remember who it was), what other details in that story were incorrect?

One of my biggest pet peeves in books is the Southern stereotype. We are not all rednecks who drive pickup trucks with a gun rack and a confederate flag license plate, live in trailer parks, eat possum and marry our cousins and/or are beauty queen sluts addicted to plastic surgery. The last time cousins married in my family was 200 years ago. I will own up to having tried baked possum, but it was only once. I prefer alligator, and I still have all my own, unadorned, God-given body parts.

CC

CC - alligator is really tasty! i actually liked it.

and i detest anything by virginia henley and bertrice small. give me some time and i'm sure i can come up with a list of 'drivel' authors, though those two always stick out in my head-

That's funny, because I'm always trying to tell people that most romance novels are NOT all fluff and sex. That most of the authors do research as thoroughly as those in other genres and how much you can learn from them while experience a great romantic plot. Of course, romances are just like the other genres and sometimes the authors don't do their research that well. Even journals get facts wrong sometimes and their supposed to have fact checkers!

I'm not defending them, I think if you going to write books that take place in the real world you should do your research (and at least one editor should have caught that mistake about Dulles). I just hope the problem isn't that editors/publishers think the readers are too stupid to know or notice these errors.

I'm really annoyed by grammatical or spelling errors (hello, where is the editor for those)! And actually plot errors. I know that no one is perfect, but most authors seem to have several people read the book before it's published (look at the acknowledgement page), but I've found some bad errors. That doesn't ruin the book for me, I can still enjoy the storyline, but I think just a little less highly of the author.

Example: One of my favorite authors, wrote a scene where her car was wrecked, in the next scene she drove her car somewhere, and in the following scene someone had to pick her up because the car was wrecked! I'm sure she didn't mean to do this, she probably wrote the scenes and the reordered them and missed the continuity. But still it urked me a bit. And the book I read last night, actually said "last night" when it should have been "two nights ago".

I don't know, maybe I enjoy those mistakes a little because it's sort of fun discovering them.
But I found an error so bad once that I want to print and use it in my classroom (when I start teaching) about the merits of proofreading. In a non-fiction book about Shakespeare, someone was taking an argument out of the university and into the public arena. Except it didn't say "public" it said "pubic". I laughed out loud so hard on the train, everyone probably thought I was nuts!

>19 aznstarlette:. az, I may never be able to read a Bertrice Small book again, I've only read one but she kept using the word "manroot" to describe his you-know-what. I've heard it called a lot of things, but that was just ridiculous. And that's the only term she used! Over and over again, as the heroine got raped and seduced by multiple men! Ugh!

Edited to fix my very bad typo which changed my whole message!

^20: I agree about the research put into romances. The only reason I know anything about William the Conqueror and the Norman Conquest of 1066 is because of Princess of Fire.

#20 I also agree about research - for all kinds of fiction, not just romance. The only problem is that I have to try to remember that, as you said, not all authors do complete research and some of the "facts" embedded in the story may not be true at all. Without doing my own research (I wish I had that much time!), how do I know which are the true facts, and which are fabrications?

But, even if all the details aren't quite accurate, I love coming away with a feeling that I've been exposed to a time or place that I didn't know before. And I like it even better when that knowledge is confirmed later by a ~reliable~ source!

I think most of the Scottish and English history I know is from romances (and maybe Highlander). Also anything about medieval life, Regency life, etc. Also I know what a fortnight, a sennight, and a score are!

But true, you do have to keep in mind that the author has a bit of creative license when it comes to fitting characters into history. But incredibly egregious mistakes are unforgivable. And you can't unmake history (unless you provide a disclaimer that says that's exactly what you're doing). I like it when authors do that at the end. Some little author's note says, some of these events are true, some are my imagination.

In fact I just finished an anthology of short stories and one by Pamela F. Service has this great line in the note: "Much of this story happened, much might have happened; the joy of fiction is the freedom to interweave the two." Very nice.

>20 Ilithyia:, Ilithyia

That Bertrice Small book...was it Lara: the World of Hetar or does she pull the man-root multiple rape/"seductions" in multiple books?

I've got a review up on Lara, and I think there's a whole paragraph of me essentially sputtering 'manroots? seriously? MAN-ROOTS?!!?!!"

The best romances, in my opinion, are not all fluff and sex. If you've ever read Laura Kinsale, Carla Kelly or Madeline Hunter, you'll get an in-depth history lesson and an exquisitely crafted romance. Their books stay in your mind long, long after you finish them.

CC

> 24. Yes, that was the book. I think it was more suited as a fantasy than a romance. I'm sorry but to me a romance is one hero and one heroine who live HEA. Otherwise it is either a fantasy/fiction with romantic elements or a fantasy/fiction with sex.

>25 CarolinaCatherine:. CC, forgive my typo! I totally meant that romances are NOT all fluff and sex. I've corrected my error. See, that just illustrates my point about proofreading (which I did) and how multiple people should proof something if it's going to print, because the author is going to see what they MEANT to say, and not always what's written. Case in point.

lmao ditto on manroot!!!

i agree with making sure historical facts are accurate but please don't bore me to death with a history text book (ie Virginia Henley). at the end of the day, i'm still reading the book for a story, not for a lecture.

I haven't read Small's 'Lara', but that whole manroot (dumbest and most unsexy euphemism ever!) and multiple rapes and "seductions" is pretty much her Standard Operating Procedure. She's written a lot of books that, whatever their actual setting, fit best into the "harem slave" genre first made really popular in Victorian pornography. I think Small somehow got mentally stuck in the worst, most misogynistic excesses of late '70s and '80s romance and, even after decades of writing, she's never managed to emerge from or transcend that.

Don't forget the 'love sheaths'. I suppose depending on the author that phrase could mean a vagina or a condom. Small has a book called The Love Slave which I did hurl at my bookshelves when I read it. Unconquered hit the wall also I think. Moment in Time certain did, with a resounding smash. Fortunately my roommate, whose books they were, did not mind.

I admit to loving the original Skye O'Malley books (probably has something to do with my being about 16 when I read them). The Friarsgate series wasn't too bad either, at least no one was kidnapped and ended up temporarily spending time in a harem. I couldn't bring myself to pick up the Lara series.

Which one's the one with the hero Morgan, who turns into a bird? That one was terrible....

Anything by Marion Chesney or her mystery-writing alter-ego M.C. Beaton, Katie MacAlister, Susan Grant (and too many others) as well as many of the authors mentioned above.

I really like the idea of the "drivel" tag and am looking forward to reviewing my "read" file just to find the culprits and mark them as such.

I like (not love) MC Beaton, and make a point of reading each new Hamish MacBeth and Agatha Raisin book as it comes out, but I could never make it all the way through one of the Marion Chesney titles.

I also like the idea of a "drivel" tag and will try to keep it in mind - I've never kept any written record or journal of my reading, and I'm having trouble getting the hang of rating and tagging (reviewing is still way over my head).

The great Patricia Cornwell published a secondary series referred to as Brazil/Hammer, an older woman / toy boy set, just a terrible waste of time and trees. After the 1st, I promised never to read another, but I was tricked by the cover (and a change of venue to Virginia) into reading the 3rd, unbelievably worse than the 1st.

A friend who's a devout, religious, apostolic feminist gave me 2 Laurie R. King novels in her Mary Russell series. The premise is that Sherlock Holmes marries a cocky teenage girl. OMG, they were awful. No plot, shallow characterization, just feminist rantings and a silly crush thing on a cold, distant man.

Lip -

Which just goes to show that taste can be everything when it comes to books. Because you lost me at this statement: "The great Patricia Cornwell..." I thought her first two books were excellent -- really, five star reads -- and then the series deteriorated and I stopped reading her entirely after about the fifth book because I was so disgusted by the whining of her characters and their self-importance.

Oddly, those are things that will make me stop reading, but not things that will make me physically hurl a book across the room. I consider Cornwell competent--her grammar is fine, her dialog isn't all stilted and awkward sounding, her research seems accurate -- but she bores me to tears and her characters are a total turn-off. I might tag her "drivel" if I had such a tag, but I wouldn't use "unreadably bad," that I reserve for things that make me want to scream and tear my hair out.

Hehehe...
Laura

Ouch! Adept, tell us how you really feel! LOL

I like Patricia Cornwell's books, but must admit, it's mainly because of the romance between Kay Scarpetta and Benton Wesley. I gagged all the way through The Body Farm, but didn't want to miss an episode of the romance. When he was killed off, I stopped reading her, but picked up the series again when I heard she moved the locale to my neck of the woods, Charleston, SC.

CC

LOL! CC...unfortunately, tact is not my strong point, which is why I keep my private library private. I'll say stuff in discussions, but it's better if comments like "Insomniac? This is the book for you," which is an actual comment in my library, are kept to myself! My public library only has books in it I've rated at least at 3 stars. (Of course some authors consider three stars worth starting a war, but I think it means about a B- rating. Worth reading, not worth exclaiming in wonder.)

Adept, oh please don't keep your comments private. It is very refreshing to hear different opinions, and I think the diversity of tastes and our members' willingness to make such comments is what makes this group so successful.

So, if you don't hold your tongue, I won't either, okay?

CC

::snicker:: Don't worry, I comment plenty in threads!

I once read Florence King describe a series of stories she wrote (I think the essay was in Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye) that sounded like the worst historical romance ever: the heroine is kidnapped by pirates in Wales and saved by St Patrick in Eire. Might be worth trying to find?
Nova

Hey, Novark! Welcome to the group!

CC

#37, 38 I agree about wanting to hear different opinions. Adept, you've really got my curiousity aroused with that insomniac comment. I'm sure we've all read books that we thought were totally worthless. Sometimes hearing why someone hated a book is as revealing as why they loved one.

>24 Caramellunacy: Caramellunacy - I had to go check out your review after reading your post. That was hands down the funniest review I've ever read! (I'm still sitting here catching my breath!) First the sewing, then the manroot and other descriptive quirks! Thanks for the laugh!!

The worst book I didn't read recently was Sweet Liar, I can't remember the author, but it is a well known name. It was the characters that had me groaning. The heroine is supposedly a genius computer whiz but can't buy her own clothes, so the hero takes her shopping. I'm sorry, it just seemed very lame to me and I couldn't soldier on!

It sounds like a Jude Deveraux title. She is very hit and miss, IMO.

#45 That is another author that I always avoid.

Has Deveraux moved to contemporaries? She was one of the first strictly romance writers I ever read (as opposed to the kind of gothic romantic suspense stuff a la Mary Stewart and Phyllis Whitney) but back then...and we're talking thirty years ago...she only wrote historicals.

She hasn't necessarily moved to contemporaries, but a lot of her more recent work has been comtemporary. Also, she's started to do a little of that witchy, paranormal thing that Nora Roberts has been doing lately, too.

I have always liked Jude Deveraux and will buy anything new by her. I have never been disappointed. I remember really liking Sweet Liar, although I can't remember much about it right now. The comment about the heroine supposedly being a computer genius does not sound familiar to me. Possibly I will have to read it again. What I do remember is this paragraph from when the hero first sees the heroine: "For his part he'd like to carry her off to his house and keep her there, maybe forever, but if she wanted something from him first, like to climb to the heavens and bring her back one of the stars, he thought he'd like to know so he could start tying ladders together" (/paraphrase) Hee!

Hey, Lily! Welcome to the group!

CC

Aha! Thanks! I remember really enjoying her historicals when I read that genre, so I will have to dig up a contemporary and see whether I like it.

>43 Jenson_AKA_DL:, Jenson

I'm glad you enjoyed it! I had a good time writing that one. Actually looking forward to panning the book was pretty much the only thing (aside from boredom) that got me to finish it.

But I certainly won't be picking up any more Bertrice Small in the future.

I had to join this group so I could post on this thread! I recently read Forbidden Magic by Cheyenne McCray, and not only was it full of annoying faux-celtic paranormal character names, , but reading it was like watching a porn movie, the sort where you start to take inventory to see if they can cover all the bases in 40 minutes. Let's see, there was bondage, domination, orgy, missionary, threesomes, doggie-style -- you name it, the evil witch and demon did it. I can't remember if there was a lesbian scene, but I would be surprised if it was left out. I did finish it, but by the time I was done I wanted to pick it up with tongs and put it in the recycling bin.

I wanted to pick it up with tongs and put it in the recycling bin.

LOL!! Now, that perfectly describes my reaction to some books I've picked up. Notably, the above-discussed Mr. Darcy Takes A Wife

Oh God, I remember Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife. That was downright scary. And gross. That was SO not the Mr. Darcy I had envisioned. He was just icky.

>52 aviddiva: I thought I had read Forbidden Magic, but after looking at the book description I really can't remember if I did or not...maybe that's a good thing LOL!

Aviddiva -

How did you hear about the thread, out of curiosity? I love to find out how people "discover" stuff.

:D
Laura

Sometimes when I am avoiding constructive RL work, I browse messages under All Topics instead of Your Groups or Your Posts, just to see what's out there. I read a lot of romances, and that thread just shouted at me, "Read This!" A book has to be pretty awful to make me want to throw it away, but I've read a few.

Actually, without the "erotica," Forbidden Magic would have been OK. Then again, without the sex there wouldn't have been much left of the book, LOL!

Then again, without the sex there wouldn't have been much left of the book, LOL!

LOL! I know that feeling...I tend to classify books by publisher that way sometimes. "Gee, I am in the mood for romantic suspense. But I think I'll go for a Mira vs. a Brava because I don't feel like reading all the sex." Or, conversely, "I'm in the mood for Brava today." Hehehe.

Note to self...Brava has sex...

;)

CC

I actually like the Magic books by Cheyenne McCray, as we always say...tastes differ, that's what makes this group so great!

I don't know if the author meant to do this, but I thought is was interesting that only the bad guys got to have the kinky sex. (Actually I think these are the only romances I've read where anyone besides the h/h have sex.) But in these the bad demon lady and the bad warlock guy are the ones having the threesomes, bondage, etc. Pretty steamy stuff, but definitely not the intimate lovemaking that the h/h are having. I just thought it was an interesting point. Maybe about the bad guys' lack of ability to love, but them craving power and sexual pleasure, and the weakness of the badass demon when it comes to her own satisfaction.

I liked the paranormal storyline line too! But I do understand what you're talking about with the sex, my face definitely gets red when I read them. But that doesn't mean I'll stop! I think it seems like a lot of sex because it's more than just the h/h having it, but it don't recall it going on for pages and pages.

Anyway, we'll just file these under the paranormal erotica catergory...and say, to each their own!

LOL, CC. It does, indeed. It's not erotica, or at least some of it isn't, but it's much more explicit than than just "romance". Brava's an imprint of Kensington (I think), and it's trade paperback. I find that the more explicit sex tends to show up in trade. (Of course, that's a massive overgeneralization, but you get the idea!)

I read boatloads of romantic suspense, so I need ways to sort stuff out depending on my mood. In fact, I think I've read just about everything there is--unless it includes fangs/fur, which is totally not my thing--in the field, and am now resorting to category-length. Those don't really take long enough for me, so I tend to avoid them, but I am all out of my preferred material! Any suggestions in category-length?

I have a five day hospital stay starting MOnday...GAHHHHH...where I won't be able to do anything, so I need to pack a BUNCH of books! Luckily, there are some new things out this week I can pick up! LOL!

Adept, I looked at my trade paperbacks and most of them are Brava! LOL

I'm sorry to hear you've got to be hospitalized. I hope everything goes well and you have a speedy recovery.

CC

Oh, it's just a test. I'm epileptic, and they hook me up to a bunch of electrodes and videotape me. They do it because the seizure meds can cause problems and they can stop working. It is without a doubt the MOST boring thing I've ever done in my LIFE.

You're hooked up to all these wires, so you can't go anywhere. You just sit in the bed or in a little chair next to the bed. And it's in a hospital, so it's noisy and not really conducive to concentrating or anything. So I *really* need books! I will have a DVD-capable tv (with headphones so I don't bug my roommate), so I can watch dvds, too.

Oh, please, can I jump in? I just joined so I could comment. One of the worst romances I ever read was so bad I can't even remember the name or who wrote it. But it was by someone who had been writing historical romances that I liked very much so I grabbed up what turned out to be an attempt to write a science fiction romance. I swear she took one of her historicals and just changed towns to planets and knives and swords to lasers and had seductions take place in space ship control rooms. After I found this discussion I popped over to google and looked up "science fiction romance" and, to my amazement, this now seems to be a recognized genre. Whoa!

Tally -

I've read a couple sci-fi romances, though it's not my preferred genre...luckily, the better written ones don't sound like historicals with just a few details changed! Of course, I sometimes read a contemporary that sounds as if a historical author just changed the clothing and technology...they're still relying on the "arranged marriage for the family honor" or something that seems equally antiquated.

Hi, Tally. Welcome to the group!

Adept, if you can find it, I highly recommend the DVD of The Painted Veil, and the BBC's version of North and South (from Elizabeth Gaskell's novel), and A&E's version of Pride & Prejudice, which should take care of about 10 hours of wait time. :)

CC

On the subject of science fiction and romance, Tally Di (welcome, by the way!), physicist Catherine Asaro writes books that cross these genres and have been quite successful with fans of both. I've only read excerpts of her work in anthologies, but it seemed pretty good overall, although not really my thing (I like my science fiction explicitly feminist, linguistically playful and/or highly meta-fictional and my romance historical or, if contemporary, highly eroticized and Asaro's work is a bit too traditional and well-mannered to fit into any of these groups).

I don't think she's written any historicals-so, it's probably safe to surmise she's not your mystery author. I have to admit that I'm really curious as to who it was!

Oh, I love the A&E P&P! I own that. And the Keira Knightly one, too. I do need to pack those up! And I will see if I can find a copy of Painted Veil or the BBC North and South.

Have we already had a thread on great romantic movies?

MW, we do have a thread on great romantic movies, but it hasn't been visited in awhile. Feel free! :)

CC

>64 TallyDi:

Was it by any chance Warrior's Woman by Johanna Lindsay? This may be the worst book she ever wrote and it is a particularly bad example of futuristic romance. It may even be a throw against the wall book.

adeptmagic - I feel your pain girl. I had month of bedrest during BOTH of my pregnancies and enforced lying around in bed all day has got to be the most boring/frustrating thing ever. I remember reading a lot of romances and mysteries during that time. I liked reading Agatha Christie mysteries because they weren't very long and were extremely diverting. I also remember watching the A&E Pride & Prejudice, a couple of seasons worth of X-Files, and a whole lotta cooking shows on Food Network.

I can recommend A&E's Horatio Hornblower series of movies (lots of eye candy - Ioan Gruffudd in a British naval uniform - Rrrrrowr!). In addition to movies and books you might find a good TV series on DVD to watch - they are short installments so you can leave off and pick back up easily.

Oh and I unearthed our romantic movies thread:

http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=2281#20792

Katy-I went through a couple years where the only show I watched was The X-Files. Love that series.

When I was pregnant and wound up on bedrest (thankfully for just a week) the only thing I remember watching is Baywatch. Really strange because it certainly isn't my favorite show. I found it oddly relaxing.

The rhythmic jiggling can be soothing...Or maybe it's just the lack of plot?

A MONTH, Katy? Oh, no, I'd go totally insane!!

#71: hailelib -- Yes, Yes! That was it. I didn't throw it against the wall, but I tossed it on the floor and it wound up under the couch with the dust bunnies.

71 & 76, well, now I guess i can be glad that I was never able to bring myself to read that book. There was just something about the description/cover.....whatever.........that just really turned me off of it. Looks like that was a good thing.

I have to say I liked Sweet Liar by Jude Deveraux. It has that Cinderella type of storyline. My favorite part is when the heroine meets the hero's extended family. Oh and when she goes on a shopping spree in a NYC bookstore.

ETA all the x's. Why do I always miss the letter x?

#61 Adept --unless it includes fangs/fur, which is totally not my thing--

Hi! I totally agree with you on this. I just never said it so wonderfully. For some unknown reason vampire romance stories have never appealed to me.

I guess I'm not much of a 'magical powers' type. I couldn't even finish the first Harry Potter book. (I thought the continuous mail through the slot/in the house was stupid.) and I have no desire to read the popular Stephanie Meyers series either.

I know I'm weird that way. But, I'm glad to know I'm not the only weird one with regards to fangs/fur!

On topic: Recently I read Christina Dodd's Priceless. I hated it. I kept reading because usually I like her work. But, this was just awful. I even wrote her and said she should rename it 'Painful' because it was painful for me to finish. But, I did finish it.

The problem with the book was that it was set in, I think, the Georgian time frame. The heroine had a patch and a patchbox. But, it is never explained why she is the only one with this. The heroine also wore a wig, which seemed to cause her some problems. (again, apparently she was the only person who wore a wig.) Her parents were poor apparently because they spent money quickly. She had older sisters who had married quite well though, so why her parents had to pawn her off on a man who didn't really want to get married is a mystery to me. I mean, couldn't some of their rich relatives have supported them a bit?

The heroine kept getting into trouble (adventures!) and I just never felt the chemistry in that book between the hero and the heroine. She had a younger sister who was a beauty but was not that bright. I felt like I was reading a P&P knock off with Elizabeth Bennet and Lydia (except in this case Lydia wanted to be a nun!) and it just never made any sense to me.

I guess what I'm saying, is that if a plot is even a little bit believable than I'll enjoy the book better than if it is totally not believable. Anyway, has anyone else ever read this book?

Oh, but I must admit that I did love Move Heaven and Earth by Ms. Dodd. If you ever get the chance to read that book. It's a keeper!

We love Move Heaven and Earth here. Or at least, CC, and I do. Rand is delicious and Sylvan is the perfect heroine for him.

#78 Eyehartanthony -

I wish I could take credit for the "fangs and fur" designation, but it's not mine. I've seen it around in several places. It's particularly useful for me because while I don't like vamps, werewolves, etc, I don't mind a little "psychic" stuff, just so long as it doesn't overtake the plot entirely. (Gwen Hunter's Bloodstone, for example.) So I can't say that I don't like any paranormal, just the fangs and fur type!

Hey, Eyehart! I'm so glad you decided to join us. I think Priceless must have been a very early Dodd book recently reissued. I couldn't finish it either, it bored me silly. She is a MUCH better writer now. Have you read any of her contemporary romances?

I see you are a Balogh fan, too. You will fit right in here!

CC

>74 gracer: LOL! I guess it was just that it didn't take a lot of brain power to watch or maybe it was that at the time it seemed to be on all the time and I couldn't be bothered to change the channel. But, I guess the rythmic jiggling could have been it too...

Ok Mine had to be Danelaw by Susan Squires. OMG so fricking confusing lol! Her name was Pony and her horse was called First Mare, just made it all the more confusing, hated that book. That's been the only one I can honestly say I wanted to start a fire with. Ick!!!

I just found this group, and I just had to join. I like pretty much every kind of romance novel there is. BUT there was one book that I couldn't even force myself to read. The male character was Irish and usually I love books set in Ireland or the UK but I could not stand it when this character spoke (which seemed to be all of the time:). Every single word that he said was spelled phonetically--I felt like I was translating a foreign language!! I can appreciate a little creative spelling to get a feel for how the accent may sound, but too much just makes it unreadable.

The sad part is that I can't remember who the author was, so now every time I get a book with an Irish character, I feel the need to read the first two chapters standing there in the store so I don't make the same mistake twice.

Welcome, debrann!

That book does sound awful, like it would make my brain throb and eyes bleed. Maybe someone here will recognize it and then you can avoid having to read so much in the store.

I hate it when authors feel as if they have to spell everything phonetically. I am not an idiot--give me a suggestion of an accent and I can take it from there!

OK, so, what drives you crazier? When the author writes everything phonetically or when they include the character's native language (that you don't understand) without including a pronunciation/definition guide?

Personally, though they are both distracting, not having the correct pronunciation really irritates me. It just throws off the flow of the story.

Hey, debrann. Welcome to the group!

I kind of like it when the author has the character speaking in his native language. I can usually figure out what they are saying. The phonetic thing does bother me, though.

CC

I'd much rather have the native language than the phonetic spelling.

Actual foreign languages don't bother me. If an author feels the need to put a glossary or pronunciation key at the end of the book, that's cool, but it shouldn't be in the middle of the story where it interferes with the flow.

I kind of like it when they give clues in the dialogue that allow me to translate the foreign words - I like trying to guess what they're saying and get frustrated if I don't get instant feedback.

I love it when the hero murmurs to the heroine in gaellic, don't you?

CC

Oh, my, yes. French and Spanish work for me, too.

One of the first romance novels I was willing to read was Kathleen Givens's Kilgannon. I'd have to go look it up now, to see how it was actually written, but in my mind I can still hear him saying "Mary" in a perfect Scottish accent.

Personally, i despise books with glossary's. Especially ones that contain a language the author made up. Lucky for me, I havent' found that in the romance genre.

Looks like I'm probably the only person here who feels this way, but I actually don't mind it when the author writes the dialogue phonetically when the character has an accent.

I think I kind of got used to it in college, when I took an African-American literature course. Many Af-Am novels and plays are written in dialect and I enjoyed the way the language drew you into the story and made the characters real.

I also like it when the characters use a smattering of their native language in the story. Particularly when they're calling the other person a pet name (querida, ma chere, etc). Makes me all fluttery! :D

katybear, you're not alone. I don't mind *some* phonetic spelling. I went and looked up the book that I mentioned above, and I think all the 'dinna' and 'aye' and 'ye's helped me hear his voice properly.

I just don't like having to learn a new language in order to enjoy a novel.

And I like the endearing pet names too. Mary Balogh has a character in a short story who calls the heroine "Little Bird" and I've never forgotten that. Now, if she did it with all of her characters then I wouldn't care for it. But, it really fit this story. It is in Captured Hearts.

I don't mind the phonetic spelling either. I was first introduced to it in Gone With the Wind when I was 12 years old, and now I'm just so used to it in the Outlander series and the many Scottish romances I read, it doesn't bother me at all - in fact I almost prefer it! The last one I read (a Julie Garwood Scottish medieval) I had to do a double take when the hero "wasn't" saying things like "ye" for "you" or "dinna" for "don't" - I think it's all relative to what the reader is used to. Since, I'm still fairly new with Scottish romances, maybe I just haven't come across some really clunkers when it comes to phonetic spelling.

I don't mind things like dinna or ye, which are really just dialect -- what I don't like is when authors make up spellings in order to show that the character speaks with an accent. "Oh, ma cherie, zis eez ze time for us to be togezzer..." Tripe like that.

There are a few of the paranormal romance/chick-lit variety I've felt like throwing agains a wall. The only one I've actually thrown out is Charmed and Dangerous by Candace Havens. I was traveling, and didn't want overweight going home;-)
Another real bad one is Minion by L. A. Banks - it's a whole series, and I got the first few before I found out how badly they were written.

Both of these are compared to /associated with Buffy the Wampire Slayer, but since I've read some really good books who were similarly compared to BtWS, it can't really be used as a guideline for bad books.

Highland Fling by Tess Mallory. This book just hurt my head reading it! Some sexy hero - he's throwing up everywhere in the book everytime he kissed the heroine! It was laughable. See my scathing review.

Oh dear dog...you mean to tell me that wasn't a PARODY? That was a SERIOUS BOOK? Looking at your review, I find it hard to believe anyone could take it seriously.

#101 adeptmagic - Yes, it was totally serious. There were some humorous moments, but his throwing up was a "serious" problem, although I think the author meant it to be somewhat comical - albeit gross.

I have read-- well, tried to read-- a fair amount of books over the years *not all from the romance genre* that I have absolutely hated. I can't even think of any right off hand, that's how bad they were! But I've never THROWN a book away. Even if I don't like the book, no matter how atrocious it is, I can't throw a book away. Instead I take it to the local D.I., Library, or, most commonly, a local used book store that allows me to trade my books I bring in for whatever they have-- and they have some great books in there, it's so hard to only get as many as I have 'credits' for from trade in values! But I suggest that anyone who finds a book they can't read once little loan twice, don't throw it in the garbage-- find a used book store,or even a D.I. if you have nothing else around, and get rid of it there-- someone out there might like it, and even if they don't, hey, you 'recycled' the book AND, if you are going with the first option I gave, you can get some great books that you've always wanted to read out of a bad book experience!

My local recycling center has a few shelves where they put books people bring in, and they are free for the taking, so even the stinkers are given a chance at a new home. something satisfying to do with the ones the used bookstores won't take (they're picky around here!)

Then there's BookCrossing, so you can see where the stinker goes and what other people stink...er...think of it.

I disliked Johanna Lindsey's The Devil Who Tamed Her. It took me ages to finish. I just couldn't connect with H/H. The heroine was a spoiled brat most of the time.

I couldn't get into Fern Michaels' or Kasey Michaels' books.

I'm usually a fan of Julia Quinn but there was a Bridgerton book I couldn't get through. I can't remember the title now. I got bored after a few chapters.

I would never toss a book in the trash can. I would send it to book fairs and hope someone else would appreciate it more.

I've started books that I just can't finsish. I don't remember the titles, which is bad because I usually end up with them again! I think I'll start keeping a list of the ones I don't like so that doesn't happen so often! To be fair, sometimes it's just my frame of mind at the moment. A few times I've gone back to read a book I gave up on and found I liked it. If I give up on it the second time it's going on that list I'm going to start!