Retro Wendy: The “I Only See You” Scene in Jeannie Lin’s My Fair Concubine

This post originally ran on Heroes & Heartbreakers on August 7, 2012 and was part of their Delicious Despair series - posts that talked about emotional "rip your guts out" moments in romances.

When I settle in to read a romance I always hope for two things: 1) that I’ll enjoy the story and 2) that the author will rip my guts out. I love emotional angst. I love moments of delicious despair where the characters are figuratively bleeding on the page. Moments where it seems like all hope is lost, that there is no way to break free. Those are the moments that feed my insatiable appetite for the genre, and it’s such a moment that makes My Fair Concubine by Jeannie Lin so emotionally satisfying. 

Chang Fei Long is a man who is trying to clean up a mess his now deceased father has left behind. In order to do that, he needs to keep the financial turmoil of his house under wraps and secure an alliance with a neighboring kingdom by marrying off his younger sister. The rub is that sister has no desire to enter into this arranged marriage and takes off to be with her true love. Fei Long needs this marriage to happen and since the man arranging it has never met his sister? Why not replace her with a lowly tea house girl? It’s win-win. His family escapes ruin, and Yan Ling, a girl with no future or prospects, gets to live the life of a princess.

What follows is a story set to the Pygmalion theme—a My Fair Lady that takes place in Tang dynasty China. Naturally, as tends to happen with stories of this nature, teacher and pupil end up being attracted to each other, and falling in love. It’s especially poignant here because Fei Long literally has his back up against a wall. This marriage has to take place. If it doesn’t? He’s doomed. His household is doomed. His name, his family’s name, will mean less than dirt. So he feels he must deny his feelings for Yan Ling.

“I think of you, Yan Ling, more than I should.” A wave of longing struck him. “When I see your face at night, I don’t see the tea girl or the elegant lady. I only see you.”  

He could see her now, even though he couldn’t face her.  

“I think of you, too.”  

Her soft confession nearly unraveled him. He had to get this out and be done with it.  

“If I acted on these feelings, if I…if I took what I wanted, it would be an abuse of authority. You’re under my care. That was what I meant when I spoke of our positions. I won’t treat you like that.” His mouth twisted. “As if you’re here for my pleasure.”  

The whisper of silk told him Yan Ling had risen. She approached him while he counted each step with the thundering beat of his heart.  

“You told me I wasn’t your servant,” she said.  

“You aren’t, but that doesn’t change who I am.”  

He turned before she could reach him and took a step away. They had to keep their distance. Yan Ling came closer anyway.  

“The only hours of the day when I’m truly awake…” her lower lip trembled “….are when I’m with you.” 

Not only is it poignant and emotionally draining, it seems so final. How the couple is able to find their way through this moment, a moment that seems to brook no argument, is what makes the happy ending that much sweeter. That, ladies and gentlemen, is romance.

Retro Wendy: Category Romance: More Than Cute Little Books with Dreadful Titles

This post originally ran at Heroes & Heartbreakers on March 10, 2011 making this very much a "time capsule" read. For one thing, I use the word "diverse" - which has taken on a different connotation within publishing since 2011.  Also, Harlequin has closed a number of lines since this post originally ran, and digital publishing has completely changed the "short contemporary romance" landscape. 

All my life, I’ve had a thing for the underdog. The little guy who is not only the odds on favorite to lose, but is expected to do so in a spectacularly epic fashion.

The romance genre is the ultimate underdog in the court of public opinion. Romance readers are used to nobody taking us seriously, to people treating us like brain-dead ninnies, and to the snide remarks that inevitably follow if someone finds out what we like to read. But it’s even worse for the category romance reader. Those of us who like to read The Cute Little Books With The Dreadful Titles. Because not only do we have to deal with the non-romance reading population sneering at us, we also get it from fans of the genre who really should know better.

As a librarian, I spend a lot of time banging my head up against brick walls. One of my favorite brick walls is educating fellow librarians on the genre, and I tend to devote whole talks on just category romance. Why? The number of titles published every month is mammoth, and it’s a diverse sub genre (no, really—it is).

The biggest reason, though? It’s by far and away the most misunderstood branch on the fiction tree. I would argue even more so than the romance genre as a whole. Hey, when even some romance fans deride the category format as “trash,” you know there’s something rotten in Denmark.

I’m often asked what the appeal of the category romance novel is. Why do readers love to read them? The short and sweet answer is that it’s all of the romance, with none of the BS. Ask any romance reader why they like the genre and you’ll get a variety of answers. At the end of the day, however, aren’t all of us there for the love story? We’re there for hero and heroine falling in love and riding off into the sunset. Category romance, with its shorter word counts and fewer pages means that the author has to have an intense focus on the romance in order for the book to work. A category writer cannot mess around. They cannot get sidetracked on a 25-page tangent about the weather, the history of the quaint small town, or the Battle of Waterloo. They need to get to the point. And the point of it all is the romance.

I kicked any lingering snobbery I had towards the romance genre to the curb when I was hired on at my very first professional library job some 10+ years ago. However, I told myself that it was OK to read romance because “It’s not like I read Harlequins!” Seriously, even this librarian can be an idiot. Then one day I actually read one of those “trashy Harlequins” and I fell in love with that strong, intense focus on the hero and heroine relationship. To this day, when I pick up a category romance, that’s what I’m hungry for. Give me the romance, all of the romance, and let nothing else in the story detour me off the road to Happily-Ever-After Land.

I’ll admit it can be easy to make fun of category romances. The titles. The sometimes dippy cover art. The overblown, over-the-top-sounding back cover blurbs that are staples in some of the lines. I also admit that it can be a confusing sub genre to navigate. Even years after a lot of publishers have fled the sub genre, only leaving Harlequin, there’s so much published every month, so many different lines, that for the uninitiated it can be a little confusing. It also tends to enforce the negative stereotype that because the books are in separate imprints, then all the books are somehow the same. Yes, each line might have certain guidelines, but just as there is more than one historical romance out there about an American heiress in London, or more than one paranormal romance out there about vampire hunters, it does not mean category readers are reading the same book over and over again. Likewise, the authors are not filling out some generic template for their books, cranking a story out in a couple of hours.

Seriously, if only it were that easy, right authors?

This nonsensical idea that All The Books Are The Same proliferates across the genre, but nowhere more than in category. Those of us who love them know that this could not be further from the truth. And because I love banging my head against brick walls, over the coming months I plan on highlighting many of the category romance lines and expounding on what makes these Cute Little Books With The Dreadful Titles so great, and so addicting. Hopefully by the end of these posts, even if you aren’t a converted category romance fan, you’ll maybe come to understand a little bit of why so many of us love them. At the very least, I hope that the members of our community will stop throwing some of those slings and arrows our way. Hey, don’t we get enough of that garbage from everyone on the outside?

Retro Wendy: If You Build It, They Will Come: Erotic World-Building

This post originally ran at Heroes & Heartbreakers on August 5, 2012

Even though I’ve currently declared a moratorium on paranormal reading, that does not mean I ignore the subgenre completely; I still buy plenty for my library patrons to read, and I follow many bloggers who are diehard paranormal fans. One thing that is typically always mentioned in reviews for paranormal books is the world-building. Was it good, bad, or indifferent? In some cases, the world-building can make or break a book for a reader—too much and the romance gets lost. Not enough and the reader is slogging through wallpaper. But what about world-building in other corners of romance? 

Any story worth its salt—regardless of genre or subgenre—needs to have decent world-building. It’s what helps transport the reader into the story, as opposed to relegating us to the sidelines where we’re barely interested observers. I love getting lost in a book, sucked in to the point where I don’t want to come up for air. World-building does that for me.

Some of my favorite worlds have been built within the realm of erotica and erotic romance. An excellent example would be Logan Belle’s Blue Angel series. It follows the travails of Mallory Dale, a law student who hangs up her legal briefs for pasties when she gets sucked into the world of the New York City burlesque scene. What Belle has done very well in this series is flesh out that scene for readers. She’s got an excellent back-drop to populate her characters with, she sprinkles in plenty of drama, and gives readers a soap opera feeling against what, for many of us, is an exotic lifestyle.

Megan Hart takes a slightly different approach, especially in her early Spice novels, Dirty and Broken. It wasn’t the setting so much as the characters. She has a way of slyly interesting recurring characters without beating readers over the head with a series-baiting stick. Newcomers won’t feel like they’re missing anything, but fans will get a giddy thrill recognizing and seeing former secondary players again, waltzing across the pages of multiple books.

But as well as Hart does this, Portia Da Costa is the pro. Da Costa has a long and extensive career that carries across several publishers and lines. What I love about her books is that she’s designed her own erotic universe. It’s like all the characters she’s ever created reside in this giant bubble, and they can pop up in any given book.

One couple that the author seems especially fond of is Maria and the enigmatic Mr. Stone. These two got their own book with Entertaining Mr. Stone, showed up in In Too Deep, and even crossed publishers to make an appearance in the recent Carina Press book, Intimate Exposure. Then there was the time the couple from In Too Deep, one of my personal favorites, was spotted in a crowded restaurant scene in Kiss It Better. It detracts nothing for the newbies, but for someone who had read all those stories, it caused my heart to skip a beat.

The misconception with erotic writing is that as long as the author delivers the sex, readers will happily return to the trough to gorge. Is the sex important? Yes, but it’s not nearly enough. For a book we can really sink our teeth into, one that will linger beyond just a few scintillating moments of feeling naughty? We need the characters and we need the world.

What are some of your favorite moments of world-building in erotica and erotic romance?

Retro Wendy: Let’s Talk About Sex, or Not: Sexual Tension For the Win!

This post originally ran at Heroes & Heartbreakers on August 5, 2015

As long as the romance genre has existed, it has had unimaginative critics. Sometimes even before the word “trash” is uttered, we get “Mommy porn.” Women should know their place. If it’s something you enjoy, if it’s something you take pleasure in, it must be wrong, and nothing screams wrong quite like dismissing readers and suggesting they are “dirty” for liking something. What these critics are really reinforcing is the old adage that women shouldn’t like sex, talk about sex, and heaven help them, they shouldn’t want sex. The truth is that if these critics asked a large sample of romance readers why they enjoy the genre, “I read it for the smokin’ hot sex!” is pretty far down on the list, if it’s on the list at all. Oh dear, silly, hopeless naïve critics. We don’t read romance for the sex. We’re looking for all the delicious things that lead up to sex. The tension, the chemistry, the foreplay, two characters who are beginning to realize that taking on the world together is ever so much better than taking it on by themselves.

To illustrate this point, all three of these recent releases, of wildly varying heat levels, illustrate that it’s not the actual falling into bed we love – it’s the journey the characters take to get there.

Charlotte Stein writes erotic romance, a sub-genre that one would think would be “all about sex.” Except, of course, that it isn’t. Good erotic romance knows that it takes more than pages of kink and fetishes to make a story “hot” – to make the romance work. In Sweet Agony, Stein takes anticipation to a boiling point featuring a young woman looking to escape poverty and despair and a young man with a mountain of entitlements emotionally stunted by a past he’s unable to break free of. So haunted by a traumatic past, our hero is emotionally crippled at the mere thought of basic human touch. Which makes navigating a sexual attraction particularly tricky, but leads to a story filled with tension. That old saying about the brain being the biggest erogenous zone? Yeah, that.

He just did the equivalent of throwing everything in on a pair of jacks, so sure I would back down that he barely saw the straight flush lurking in the river. He was too explicit, too rude, too eager to say that word: spanked. He should never have said spanked. Maybe he could have to someone else, someone who cares only a little, someone less like him. But I am not nearly so closed off, nor so silly. And when he pushes, I push back.

...

I glance over my shoulder. I meet his gaze. His face is so pale it could pass for a fainting lady’s. And I say with the most relish I can muster: “Would you like me to leave my dress down, or do you prefer a bare work surface?” followed by the longest silence the world has ever known. It goes on and on and on, and the longer it does, the worse it gets. If nothing happens in the next thirty seconds I am almost definitely going to die. 

In The Fighter and the Fallen Woman, Pamela Cayne is working within a sensuality landscape that is fairly typical for the historical romance sub-genre. It’s in that middle ground between just-kisses and erotic romance. What this story features is a forbidden sexual attraction between a boxer/hired thug hero and a prostitute/mistress heroine who both happen to work for the same dangerous crime lord. The tension between the two hits a boiling point even before the reader is out of the first chapter, when our villain suggests his mistress kiss his fighter for “good luck,” something the hero, King, is reluctant to do.

“Come, King, it’s only a kiss,” Lady said, deliberately pitching her voice low. She would give the kiss and pray her trembling barriers would hold, keep her safe against the desire to close her eyes, breathe in his scent, and feel for one moment that a fighter and a fallen woman had a future together. 

…

“Lady, you should know when it comes to you, it’s never only anything,” he whispered so that only she could hear. “It’s everything.” 

…

He grabbed her hand only for an instant, but it was long enough to brand his touch on her skin before he let go. Lady pulled back and her eyes drifted open, her held breath slipping from her mouth and into his. King was right. This would never be only a kiss. 

Deeanne Gist started her career writing inspirational historical romances, but her most recent books have moved towards secular Americana. This has been a move that has not been met with enthusiasm by all of her fans, and there is criticism, in some circles, that Tiffany Girl is “pornographic.” This is laughable for the most part since the only love scene fades to black while the hero is helping the heroine out of her wedding ensemble….on their wedding night. But upon closer inspection, these critics have somewhat of a point. Gist does more with sexual tension in a “just kisses” historical romance than some erotic romance authors do with an encyclopedia of fetishes and a chest full of sex toys. Things heat up for our hero and heroine when they agree to help a photographer take a series of photographs of them dancing so he can make a phenakistascope.

Now they were cheek to cheek. Flossie’s face, nearest the camera, shielded his. Her ear lobe peeked out from beneath her coif and was within an inch of his mouth. He resisted, resisted, then could resist no more. He took a gentle tug with his lips. 

…

She closed her eyes, her lips there for the taking. He didn’t so much as breathe. “Okay. Ready?” Holliday settled himself beneath his shroud. “Just a few more shots.” Holliday took them through the rest of the dance, one step at a time. When she had her face shielded by Reeve’s, she blew across his ear.

...

The stairwell was silent. The hallway was silent. The rooms were silent. He didn’t know where everyone else was on this sunny Sunday afternoon, but he was thankful they weren’t around.  

He followed her back down to the first floor, narrowing his eyes. Were her hips swaying just a touch more than usual? Or maybe he was simply too attuned to her every move. When she began to enter her room, he grabbed her hand, hauled her to his room, shoved his door closed, pulled her against him, and took her mouth with his. 

All of these authors employ the use of tension to increase the personal stakes for their characters. Cayne introduces it to the reader from the very first chapter, in a first kiss scene the simmers and boils through the remaining early portions of the book and carry the reader to the eventual consummation. Stein and Gist both go a different route, keeping their characters apart by circumstance. Stein, with a hero who abhors anyone touching him and Gist with the social restrictions and mores of the time period. However, in the case of all of these books, something has to give. All of these characters are mere mortals, after all, and tension can only go on for so long until someone eventually snaps. It’s those delicious moments that lead up to the snapping that keep romance readers coming back for more.

More Unusual Historicals & Two First Looks

I'm finding my wee lil' corner of the Interwebs a trying place to be at the moment because of....well, all the "stuff" going on and the fact that I have felt genuinely blindsided by all of it.  Plus, I'll be frank - there's stuff going on in Real Life right now.  Yes, residents of The Bat Cave are fine.  It's just "family stuff" - sick relations, dying relations, relations getting "old" in general - nothing that everybody else doesn't deal with in their day-to-day lives.  Needless to say though it's left me feeling tired, drained and my will to read has left the room.  And I really, really need to read since I know getting lost in a good book is exactly what I need.

I know....whine, whine, whine.  Please pass the cheese.

In the meantime, I've had several posts go live over at Heroes & Heartbreakers that I have failed to blog about.  First up is a round-up of unusual historicals for October.  For the record, six of the featured titles are in my TBR.  I might have a problem, ahem.

I also did two First Looks: Tempted by a Cowboy by Sarah M. Anderson and Snow Angel Cove by RaeAnne Thayne. 

The Anderson is the second book in a series featuring an American brewing dynasty and it's good folks.  As in, really, really good.  It didn't pass my "must reread someday" test so not an A, but it's a high B+. Oh, and since I read this before reading the first book in the series?  I can attest that it stands alone just peachy.

The Thayne is a small town contemporary Christmas story that starts a new series, but is loosely connected to a previous series.  If the thought of reading yet another small town contemporary makes you want to drive nails up your arms - well, this one probably isn't going to change your mind.  But if you can't get enough of small towns?  If you're looking for a warm and fuzzy, cozy Christmas read?  This one may be worth checking out.  It was the very definition of an "OK" read for me.  Didn't love it, didn't hate it, but would easily recommend it to readers who lean that way.

She's Come Undone

I'm over at Heroes & Heartbreakers again today. 

For those romance readers among you who have "known" me a long time, you will recall that there was a moment in the not-too-distant past where I was fed-up, burnt-out and just plain "over" anything involving Regency England.  And naturally, since my timing has always sucked eggs, my burn-out set in during a period when every flippin' historical romance (or maybe it just seemed like it to my burnt-out brain) was set in Regency England.

Well my latest post?  All about how I got over that burn-out.  Go on over and take a gander.

Beau Brummell Can Suck It

Oh look, a new post from yours truly over at Heroes & Heartbreakers!  I suspect my editor over there was ready to send out a search party.  Or else a mass of angry villagers carrying torches and pitchforks....

Anywho....

Today's topic du jour is all about my mad lurve for Harlequin Historical.  Go on over and take a gander!

The Gateway Category

I have a new column up at Heroes & Heartbreakers today.  I've already written about my lurve of category romance, and how awesome-sauce the Harlequin Romance line is.  Today's topic du jour?  Harlequin SuperRomance.  Or as I like to call it - The Gateway Category.

Go on over, and take a gander.  And hey! Get some book recommendations for your trouble.

Saddle Up!

I had a new post go live on Sunday over at Heroes and Heartbreakers.  This time around I'm talking about western romances and why they rock my socks.

Sam Elliott = nom, nom, nom

Yammering Elsewhere

There's a whole lot of Wendy today, just....uh, at other online venues.  First up, it's my turn in the rotation over at Access Romance Readers Gab.  Today I'm talking about the evolving nature of conflict.  Specifically conflict in contemporary settings.  Ch-ch-check it out!

++++++

Today also marks my first ever post over at Heroes & Heartbreakers.  I'm blathering on about historical romances set in "unusual" locales and time periods, why I love them, why I want more of them, yada yada yada.  Also, if you haven't checked out the new site yet - be sure to do so!  I'm finding it a lot of fun so far, and I'm not just saying that because...well...I'm doing a bit of writing over there.

+++++

A really cool e-mail landed in my in-box yesterday.  This Saturday, February 19 Harpercollins/Avon will be hosting a live video chat at a booksigning at Turn The Page Bookstore in Boonsboro, Maryland featuring Nora Roberts, Jeaniene Frost, Pamela Palmer, Grace Burrowes, Mary Burton and Stephanie Dray.  You can check out Avon's information page for all the gory details.

+++++

And in a different sort of "booking" update, my excitement over baseball Spring Training was dampened this morning by the news that my first baseman, Miguel Cabrera, has lost his damn mind.  I'm pretty well horrified for him, his family, and the entire Tigers organization.  I'm also thankful, that by some incredible miracle, nobody got hurt - because it sounds like Miggy didn't just tie one on....but more like two or three....or fifteen. 

I can't seem to talk about it anymore right now.  I'm flip-flopping between being truly worried about his well-being and mental health....to wanting to drive down to Florida and beat the crap out of him.

Sigh.

Heroes & Heartbreakers

So there's a new online romance community on the Internet block!  Launching today is Heroes & Heartbreakers, a publisher-neutral online community that will discuss (and squee!) about all things romance.  The official launch was today - and holy cow! - there's just about something for everyone.  Whether it be blog posts, excerpts, short online reads, or contests.  There is oodles of content already - well worth heading on over and poking around a bit.

In other exciting news, I was invited to be one of their semi-regular contributors!  So you can expect to see the occasional SuperWendy post over there from time to time.  And since it's a publisher-neutral community, you can bet that I'll be beating a lot of the same dead horses I have in the last 10+ years discussing a lot of my personal favorite pet causes when it comes to the romance genre.  I'm not sure when my first post is scheduled to go live over there - but hey, it ain't all about me!  Head on over and see who else is hanging out.

Sidenote: I understand they're still working out the kinks of the RSS feed.  But in the meantime?  You can follow H&H on Twitter and Facebook.  Weeeeeeee!