Go To Girl

I think I might have Romance Novel Slut tattooed on my forehead. Suddenly I'm the Go To Girl for all things Romance Novel Related in my office. I've already been roped into being a moderator on a romance panel this spring when my library hosts it's first (hopefully annual, we'll see how that goes!) literary event. Then I found out at a meeting yesterday that one of our larger libraries would like me to give a presentation on romance novels in February because as the librarian said, "I haven't had that much fun at a presentation ever!" (I gave a reader's advisory talk on the genre back in November 2005, I'm convinced it got me my current job but have no real proof).

On a related subject of sorts, I got my January RT yesterday and shock of shocks, found a couple of paranormals that sound interesting. Paranormals are becoming like the new Regency Historical for me - that is to say they're all beginning to sound the same. But I'm intrigued by Colleen Gleason's The Rest Falls Away (the vampire huntress ingenue in Regency London sold me) and Hell's Belles by Jackie Kessler (the succubus turned stripper who is on the run from Hell sold me).

I'm also curious about Dirty by Megan Hart - because even though I'm still recovering from the last Spice novel I read, this one sounds very promising. Check out the blurb:

This is what happened.

I met him at the candy store. He turned around and smiled at me and I was surprised enough to smile back. This was not a children's candy store, mind you -- this was the kind of place you went to buy expensive imported chocolate truffles for your boss's wife because you felt guilty for having sex with him when you were both at a conference in Milwaukee. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

I've been hit on plenty of times, mostly by men with little finesse who thought what was between their legs made up for what they lacked between their ears. Sometimes I went home with them anyway, just because it felt good to want and be wanted, even if it was mostly fake.

The problem with wanting is that it's like pouring water into a vase full of stones. It fills you up before you know it, leaving no room for anything else. I don't apologize for who I am or what I've done, in -- or out -- of bed. I have my job, my house and my life, and for a long time I haven't wanted anything else.

Until Dan. Until now.

Emphasis mine, naturally. I think the strongest appeal of erotica is that readers can find women who don't apologize. They like sex, they do what they want with whomever they want, and if you don't like it - well don't let the door smack you in the ass on the way out. So to whomever wrote the back cover copy over at Harlequin, I'm sold. Damn you, I'm sold.