Harlequin Romance, you tawdry little strumpet, when did you come of age ?
From the back cover:
Jess Cofer isn’t fixing for a fight. All the single mom wants is to run her fly fishing shop and preserve unspoiled Phelps Cove, Florida, for future generations. Too bad Dan Hamilton doesn’t see it that way. It looks as if the tall, dark and sexy surgeon is in favor of handing over the endangered habitat to greedy developers!
Dan would love to get on his gorgeous new fishing instructor’s good side—if she has one. But he can’t throw away this opportunity to fulfill his dream to build a safe haven for foster teens. Dan knows that when it comes to the truly important things like love and family, he and Jess are on the same side. Will she forgive him when she learns what he’s been hiding?
In a word, Dan, No goddamn way.
Miss Jessie knows that limp grasp of yours was never meant to hold anything longer than a dessert fork. You take longer in the bathroom than she does, and them big male fingerprints in her moisturizer suggests you’ve got greasy skin and pluck your eyebrows. She noted your girlish squirm when she mentioned eating what you caught, and knows its not Catch & Release that makes that fillet unpalatable, rather it’s your inability to stomach anything not smothered in Room Service.
Fly shop, greedy deviant developers wanting to destroy Nature, Doctor Dan the MetroSexual restoring his male dignity … Hot Damn!
The reality of all this remains bleak, but the idea that something might want to bask nekkid on hot streamside cobble will bolster your flagging spirits for another couple of seasons …
… despite “Leigh Duncan” being a truck driver from Des Moines, with two day’s growth of beard, and smell to match.
Keerist! You been collaborating with my ‘ol lady?
Almost hate to ask-just how did you come across this little literary gem?
Who knew such drivel existed.
What next?
“Helen wonders if the stained kitchen sink will ever be free of animal and synthetic detritus and if her animal longing for Herb, the fly shop owner, can bring happiness. Bobby longs for the perfect dubbing but wonders if the cost makes it all worthwhile….”
It showed up on a product search I was doing, completely unrelated – which is the source of all Internet gems …
I think one of you guys wrote it, so don’t point fingers at me unless you are calling the kettle a similar color.
That’s a hell of a net he’s got.
I never spread a beach blanket or light a campfire without my backpack supplied with sufficient Harlequin romances, or works by my fave almost-royal, the celebrated Dame Barbara Cartland. What seems to be the problem here ? From decades of direct observation, I can state that most streamside/woodsman types (those that bother to crack a book at all, since college or h.s.) share tastes at a similar unchallenging level – ie, sci-fi and sword & sorcery – and I am told that Harlequins are choice prison fare as well . So, enough with the faux elitism, and let’s hear it for Harlequin – the Alpha male’s streamside companion !
Oh sure, the old “found it by accident” routine, which only works if it goes unexamined; exactly what were you searching for when you found this by “accident?”
A new vein of cheesy romance novels to mine?
As a confessional I’d add that one year the old trailer the guides used for sleeping quarters had a couple of old cardboard boxes wedged in the closet when we arrived in the Spring.
About midway through the Summer some one thought to paw through them and found they were stuffed with Harlequin Soft Porn …
And some fellow would serenade the rest of us with tales of the Duke ravishing the peasant girl, or vice versa.
There was so much “sweaty, bronzed and heaving” that I had to wonder whether I should be blushing or no …
If you are not the owner of a young female brain, prolonged exposure to this material will cause permanent brain damage. If these books are exposed to head cement fumes or vapors from 12 year old scotch it will spontaneously combust. Please use the utmost caution.