book review: "smooth talking stranger," by lisa kleypas

it was her historical romances that drew me into lisa kleypas. she's an amazing author, and her hathaway series remains one of my favorite (i still get shivers thinking of the wonder that is "married by morning." i have yet to finish the series because i can't bear to say good bye to the beloved hathaway family.)

i had seen this book on quite a few favorite lists and had it in my amazon wish list when i finished a few others. historicals will always be my first love, but i'm oh-so-slowly treading water into contemporary romances.

maybe it's that i love history, maybe it's that i like imagining a different time and place, but i've never been drawn to contemporary. then this book happened and doomed me because not only is jill shalvis amazing (seriously, i can totally picture sharing a bottle of wine with her and having a blast), but she gets people. she gets how they talk, how they respond to situations, how messed up they can be. and lisa gets that too.

"smooth talking stranger" centers around ella, a 20-something texan finally getting her life together after what can only be described as a truly fucked-up childhood and years of therapy. then her sister, tara, who has obviously not invested time into therapy, dumps her baby on their mother - then tara checks herself into a heath clinic. ella gets pulled in and goes after the baby's father, jack travis, only one of the most powerful and richest men in houston.

the question in romance novels is NEVER who falls in love with who. it's always how - and maybe why not. the best novels often have incredibly (to borrow a word from SB's Candy) schlocky premises and details - hello, illegitimate baby meets hippie girl meets big town manwhore! - but it's all in the execution. ella is an incredibly believable, smart, caring character who wears glasses and worries about things like how much water a luxury shower is wasting. the schlock is taken for granted in this genre. some write crappy schlock. some write good schlock. and then there's lisa.

a project

t left today. we're both trying to stay positive, and doing a pretty good job about it. his leaving involved a frantic search for the cell phone at 6:15 a.m. then hammie redeemed himself after pooing on the floor yesterday by finding it laying on the ground a ways away from our apartment. what are the chances? hey, i never said i was an atheist...completely. so t has his cell phone, thank goodness, and is coming home next weekend to help my brother and dad move all the heavy stuff. so it's just like way back when he was working for hh gregg and would travel for a week or even two weeks at a time. just like that.

meanwhile, i'm lonely already and need a project. besides the whole house thing, i've decided that i want to try to write a romance novel. i love my romance books. this is a love affair that's been going on for more than a year now, so i'm pretty sure it's not a crush. there is little else that makes me happier than snuggling in bed with hammie and a new eloisa james (i broke down and had to buy her new one, "a duke of her own." being #20 on the waitlist at the library wasn't going to cut it, especially after "this duchess of mine" was so good!). good romances, as i've said before, are really well-written pieces of literature. writing one isn't going to be easy. but i have fallen in love with this world that i can't believe took me so long to learn about. then of course i had to think of a good story idea and decide what period i wanted to write in. of course i picked regency. i've rarely veered away from romances from that genre, and vastly prefer them to any others. i just need something to occupy my time and help me remember everything will be alright. because i really, really believe it will be.

my obsession with romance novels...this may be a multipart post

so first i should explain that i have always been a reader, but have stayed away from the chick lit in my usual uppity-nosey fashion, telling myself that i have to be enlightened or invigorated or at least feel smart when i read a book. it was long novels or thick nonfiction books about the Romanovs that lined my bookshelves and piled up along my bed. i spent a fortune at borders and barnes & noble in college, which also became my favorite study haunt.

then several big things happened to me. first of all, i finished my masters, effectively ending my official education for the rest of my life. if i thought collegiate and academic reading was bad in undergrad, grad school was a hundred times worse. i needed a break. i didn't want to have to concentrate or even think when i read a book.

with the finishing of my masters came moving away from bloomington (big thing #2), the town i called home for the past five years. but i couldn't move back to what i now considered my childhood home because big thing #3 happened: my mom's house flooded, to the point where it would be unliveable for the next five months. so i not only moved back in with my mom and brother, but joined my grandma, grandpa and uncle. all of us, a big happy family, under one fucking roof.

i needed distraction from cleaning out muck and smelly river water and childhood memories literally gone down the drain. i was shamefully at walmart with my brother buying fans when i spied their pathetic book section - and saw the book pictured above. a duke, i thought. i love learning about royalty. why not give it a go? it was only $6 (another fantastic perk about romance novels). i threw it in the cart and took it home, only to devour it in a matter of hours.

from that moment, i was hooked. julia quinn became my favorite author, and i preceded to go to waldenbooks (the disgustingly mediocre lone bookstore in columbus that stocked romance novels) and literally bought them out of her books. after checking her websites for recommendations, i moved on to gaelen foley, who i also treasure - though she is a little more into the specifics sex-wise and a little bit less believable romance-wise than julia. i couldn't get enough of romance novels. i finally had to renew my library card for the first time in 8 years and check out the books. i know those pissy librarians were totally judging me as i came in week after week, only to rent books with titles like "her only desire" and "one night of sin." oh, but it was totally, totally worth it, because the books have opened me up to a whole new literary world.

Romance novels account for billions of dollars and millions of copies in the book world and appear in 90 languages. the genres range from contemporary to historic (my favorite) to science fiction to fantasy - and there are even genres within genres (in historic, there's pirates, vikings, native americans - don't laugh!). for any topic that interests you, i guarantee there's a romance novel out there.

and they are surprisingly well-written. i say this because i have read some really, really good ones - and some disgustingly bad ones. the covers are usually embarrassing, but don't let that fool you - both good and bad books get mostly bad covers. my absolute favorite website and the place i go to for my daily laugh - as well as recommendations for other books - is Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. Sarah and Candy are geniuses and take the books very seriously, as they believe it undermines the romance novel industry to treat them any other way. For a good laugh, please go to the Cover Snark section of their website, where they have so much fun with seriously awful covers.

finally, i'll share with you the book known on SBTB as "romance novel crack", the book that turns even the most cynical reader into if not a fan, at least a person who respects the genre: Lord of Scoundrels, by Loretta Chase. if you read only one romance novel in your whole life, let it be this one. just grab a glass of wine and enjoy. i promise you'll thank me later.