Well, despite a long-standing and avid dislike of the Romance genre (to which my mother is addicted), I keep trying the occasional novel in the hopes of finding that it's gotten better. Generally, I'm disappointed. The only two I'd read before and *liked* were Stitch in Snow and The Lady (which was a tad too, er, adult for my tastes at the time. I haven't reread it recently) by Anne McCaffrey, which is sort of cheating. I mean, she sort of dabbled with being (genre-wise) a romance writer, but quickly turned to sci-fi and *much* greater success. It was through that genre that I came to know her. (Yes, yes, the Pern books have their share of romance, too, but they come with a few things many Romance books do not: a PLOT. A STORY. CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Yes, I know, I'm horribly demanding of the books I like to read.)
Anyway, I think I've finally found a Romance writer that I *like* to read: Julia Quinn. Her books are funny and smart, and she takes care of all those pesky above-mentioned qualities I look for in a book before the characters start ripping each other's clothes off. (Yes, her books do have sex in them. But she doesn't go every-other-page overboard with it, at least.) And she seems to write primarily Regencies [2], which I'm partial to anyway. (All the contemporary romances I've read-- or started to read-- bored me to tears, and most other historicals choose a medieval/Renaissance setting, about which I know (unfortunately) FAR more than the writers seem to, given the number of glaring inaccuracies.)
And yes, I mention Regencies for a reason, because that's where today's Two New Things come from. Regency phrases often make me giggle, and so I share two of the more amusing ones I've come across in today's reading: "stuck his spoon in the wall" and "making a cake out of herself" (as in, causing herself embarrassment by her behavior-- if anyone has a better definition, pray share, and cite your source. It's been suggested that this comes from Jane Austen). And then there's one of my favorites, "watering pot" (used to refer to a woman with a regrettable tendency of bursting into tears at the drop of a hat).
Posted by gris at July 17, 2005 02:08 PM