Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Cannonball Read - Book 30

About once every two months, the Cannonball Read leader throws up a 5K challenge - five books in two weeks, and they all have to fit certain parameters. For the first 5K, all the books had to be over 400 pages (thankfully, I missed that one). For the next 5K, we readers had to select one book from each of the following genres: fiction, non-fiction, biography, sci-fi or fantasy, and romance. And I plowed through the first four, no sweat.

But then came the romance. I've only read two other romance novels. One had something to do with Ireland, and the other was called VIKING! There was definite longing and moistness and throbbing manhood in each of these fine tales - you might say they were trashy romance novels. So I decided to go with a solid novel-y romance novel, by one of the great romance writers of our time, Iris Johansen. You can tell that she's a big deal because her name is the biggest think on the book cover - no heaving bosoms thrown back in ecstasy for Miss Iris! She's written a gazillion books! She's a New York Time #1 bestseller! I thought this might be a safe bet.

Too safe, it turns out. I didn't see my first nipple until about sixty pages in, and the first sex scene between the protagonists takes place on page 204! Outrageous! I was thinking that the sex would have started much earlier. Well, to be fair, the longing started earlier, but it took over 200 pages to get the the actual sex. And there was a lot of book that was not about sex. Lots of battles, and wounds, and fires and stuff, and some silk and magic, too. And I don't think I need to read another romance for a while.

Lion's Bride - C

1 comment:

Figgy said...

This whole thing cracked me up.

"Didn't see a nipple until page 240!"

OUTRAGEOUS.

Seriously, these romance novels need to bring in the sex at least by the first 50 pages. What's the point otherwise?