Amazon discontinued the ability to create images using their SiteStripe feature and in their infinite wisdom broke all previously created images on 12/31/23. Many blogs used this feature, including this one. Expect my archives to be a hot mess of broken book cover images until I can slowly comb through 20 years of archives to make corrections.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Random Romance Sunday: Wendy Cleans Off Her Desk

The Book: Joe's Girl by Margaret St. George

The Particulars: Harlequin American #710, 1998, Out of Print

The Blurb:

Follow Your Dream

Joe Townsend had fallen in love with Moly Stevens in Mrs. Paulson's eighth grade English class when she was the most beautiful girl in the school. Over the last fifteen years he'd watched her -- in magazines and on TV -- become the most beautiful woman in the world. Molly had always been a part of his fantasies -- but now she was back...

Joe had watched Molly live the high life -- until her career went bust. She'd been 'American's sweetheart,' but now all he wanted her to be was 'Joe's girl.' But what would happen when she tired of pot luck suppers and mountain nights under the stars...and the big city lights beckoned?

How wrong could a fortune cookie be?

Is It In Wendy's TBR?: Um, yeah. See title of blog post.

Any Reviews?: No. Not even Amazon customer reviews...which strikes me as odd since Margaret St. George was the category nom de plume for Maggie Osborne AKA Bat Cave Favorite AKA She Who Wrote Awesome Historical Western Romances Before She Selfishly Retired And Abandoned Me Lovers Of The Sub Genre.

But I kid.

Sort of.

::sob::


Why Maggie? WHHHHHYYYYYY?!?!?!

Anything Else?: I have a tendency to let newly acquired books pile up on my home office desk where they sit for.....months. Eventually I get tired of looking at them, or My Man gently nudges me ("Ya gonna do something with these?"), I catalog them in my LibraryThing account, and I move them to the depths of the Bat Cave TBR Mountain Range, that can currently be seen from space.

As much as I love category romance, as much as I love Maggie Osborne, it's a little shocking that I haven't read any of the Margaret St. George books. But thanks to the joy that is Paperback Swap, I now have this one and Love Bites.

I'll admit, something about this back cover blurb mildly creeps me out, but I'm still intrigued. I also was intrigued enough by this Fortune Cookie series to look it up and discovered something really interesting. This was a four book, multi-author continuity in the late 1990s that crossed four different Harlequin lines. Usually these continuities stay in specific lines. Not this one. It had installments in SuperRomance, Temptation, and Intrigue.

Neato. Although one wonders how sales were as a whole since readers are nothing if not loyal to specific lines. Had I been reading romance back then, I would have followed the series across the lines....but then, I suspect I'm a bit of a Harlequin Reading Freak, so maybe you can't go by me?

5 comments:

Leslie said...

I need to start looking for the Margaret St. George books. Love Maggie Osborne & like you, wished she hadn't retired.

nath said...

I think the reason it creeps you out is because the blurb is written from the hero's POV... and it feels like he's been stalking her: having a crush on her, then following her career... and the "but now all he wanted her to be was 'Joe's girl.'" I know that's why it creeps me out LOL.

Wendy said...

Leslie: The two titles that people point to from her backlist are Love Bites and American Pie - a historical set in NYC (?). That one was originally published under the St. George name (I think) but several years back it reappeared under the Osborne name.

Nath: Yeah, it was definitely the stalker vibe that creeped me out. These childhood/teen crush themes can be a mixed bag for me. All boils down to if the author can "sell it" to me without the hero and/or heroine coming off as emotioanlly stunted.....

MaryK said...

"I move them to the depths of the Bat Cave TBR Mountain Range, that can currently be seen from space."

Oooohhh, I'm so glad I'm not alone in the TBR Mountain Range department!

luvbooks7 said...

I'm glad I stumbled upon the post and the book. I have the others in the series in the TBR, but I didn't know this was part of the series.

One thing I liked about the book is the girl isn't perfect, she is scarred in a few ways, but Joe is cool. Another thing I liked about the book is it had some issues they both faced, it wasn't just mindless fluff.

I don't want to give away any spoilers and I"m happy it didn't languish in the TBR for years, like the others in the series are.

Thanks Wendy for making me aware of a missing part of a series book.

I'm off to hunt down the other books and pull them to the top of the TBR.

And Margaret St. George writes about a lot of different characters and issues, now I need to track down the Maggie Osborne books.