The World is Full of Divorced Women
| It even has the old 1980 cover with the gal in the Let's Get Physical headband. Here's the backcover copy:
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And let's not forget the frontpiece teaser:
"Did he think he was going to end up in your bed?" Daniel asked.
"I don't know and I don't care." She stared at him, willing him over to her.
They stood very close together, not touching, just having an eye to eye confrontation.
"Did you want to stay?" Daniel asked.
"What do you think?"
His lips were like fire, burning down on hers, and creating a sensation of excitement and abandon that seemed to have been buried for quite some time.
She wasn't aware of the clothes slipping from her body. Bust she was aware of the way his fingers traced every outline of her form, creating exquisite electric shocks of ecstasy.
She struggled to get his clothes off. Tore at his shirt, ripped the zipper on his trousers. "I want you so, so badly," she murmered. "I've wanted you for months and months. It seems like forever."
He touched her breasts, played with them gently, flingered her nipples until she wanted to scream. She wanted to beg him to make love to her. . .
Now, lest you think I'm just chuckling in a superior fashion, there's a lot to be learned from that back cover copy. 113 words, five names, and look at all the conflicts Ms. Colllins has set up:
- Cleo appears to be involved in a love triangle, with a philandering husband and an aging actor lusting for her. How will that turn out?
- What will Muffin do to get all that Hollywood has to offer?
- Can Mike overcome his sex addiction? After all, it's a real disease with doctors and medicine and everything.
- What will Jon do to keep the profits rolling in?
- Is Cleo still keeping her cool and remaining friends with the woman who banged her husband?
- What will Cleo experience when she joins the thrill seekers?
- Is Jon shagging Muffin? What urges drive him in his world of top models? Are he and Muffin in love? Or is Muffin shagging John to sleep her way to stardom?
- How will Muffin's lusciousness be shown?
I'm going to have to read this just to find out what happens to Muffin. Also, I don't want hands strong enough to rip a zipper anywhere near my junk.
Oh, and you can't mention Jackie Collins without a little French & Saunders.
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That said, reading Jackie always made me feel slightly unclean. Or maybe that was her appeal, I dunno. She sure as hell did bring it.
(I am immeasurably amused. I, too, recall the sex scene in JAWS. :D)
[Of course, it's the French subtitles that make it twice as funny]...
And yes, I read my share of Jackie Collins as a teen before switching to more traditional romance authors like Amanda Quick.
It's not the worst place for sex ed...after all, women who read those novels actually expect a climax...
She adores trashy romance in general (although she did turn me on to Stephen King as well say thankya) and I remember being embarrassed by the heaping armloads of Harlequin Romances she would gather up at garage sales.
Frankly I've never been able to read this sort of stuff with anything but cringing horror. Granted there's not much I can say about the writing itself, never having published myself and admittedly green with envy over the money. Still; like daytime soaps and reality TV, how people get into romance novels is beyond my comprehension.
I think the biggest problem for me was character development. Like porn I never gave enough of a shit about the characters to care what happened to them.
You are right about that back cover copy though. It is brilliant.
Of course, my dad had a fantastic SF collection so I never had to go shopping for that.
When I started reading on my own it was Tolkien (at way too young an age looking back), Lloyd Alexander's "Pyridian Chronicles", Susan Cooper's "The Dark is Rising" series (and I weep for my childhood with that awful movie that is coming out) and CS Lewis of Course. There was an unfortunate flirtation with "Encyclopedia Brown" and "The Hardy Boy's" series about this time. If only real criminals were so clever.
That led to a lot of comic books, a whole lot of Greek Mythology and then stuff like Ann McCaffrey and Terry Brooks. I still like the "Sword of Shannara stuff". But fantasy usually has to have pretty well developed and distinct characters to get me interested.
I've heard people say the same thing about sf and fantasy. It's how I feel about westerns. Is why they print menus. Viva le genres!
Some of us like the smut, too. ;-) I admit it. Some romance is just porn for girls--It's all about the costumes and the total "Mary Sue" experience. Romance novels vary greatly from subgenre to subgenre, and author to author, in how much smut is present. Christian romance readers do NOT appreciate Lori Foster, who is much higher on the smut scale. And vice versa.
I do tend to think that for most folks that are tied tightly to a genre, whatever floated your boat when you were ages 11-13 is pretty much your comfort zone. At that age, I was reading (age appropriate) historical romances. I tried The Hobbit 3 times and couldn't get through it, but I loved A Wrinkle in Time, because apparently I identified more with Meg Murray than with Bilbo. Go figure. For me, it's about how good the characterization is, first and foremost. And most romance novels worry far more about characterization than anything else. Not all other genres do. (Dime novels, for instance, the 19th century version of comic books & adventure stories, are all about action and plot. Characters are REALLY cardboard, 'cause you're just trying to get to the next explosion or bit of derring-do). *GOOD BOOKS* in every genre work hard on characterization.
The other thing to keep in mind is that the romance genre is NOTHING like what most folks think of as the bosom-heaving Harlequin stuff of the 1970s & 80s. Most romance written in the past 15-20 years is much more about the idea of bringing an Alpha Male to the point in a relationship where he can actually admit to having feelings, and act accordingly. Which of course hearkens back to the original romance novel, Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice, which is all about getting two emotionally constipated people to look past their own flaws and admit their feelings for one another.
Yes, I've had this discussion before. MANY TIMES. I will never win. But I keep pushing anyhow, because no matter how much I enjoy the Vampire Earth series, I'm still going to keep reading my Amanda Quick and Johanna Lindsey regencies, too. *Especially* the ones with pirates, yarr....
Escapism. That's what it is for me. :) It feeds the romantic female side of me. That and I lived in a small town, worked my way through every single Hardy Boy and Nancy Drew, all the ghosts and paranormal and most of the young adult ones that didn't bore me to tears.. then when I was eleven I read my Mom's romances.
Our tastes have diverged a lot since then, mostly I read the paranormal/fantasy/scifi type romances and some even have pretty good worlds that would be interesting even without the romance I think (*coughs* Sherrilyn Kenyon) and don't bother with the Harlequin's unless I have an hour and a few brain cells to kill.
I must say, I don't think I've ever read Jackie Collins though.