Book Report: Cordina's Crown Jewel by Nora Roberts

I'm not ashamed to admit that I sometimes read romance novels.  Indeed, I just finished Nora Roberts's Cordina's Crown Jewel (one of two novellas included in Bennet & Camilla), and found that I have a lot to say about it.  It's your basic Roman Holiday-esque story in which a princess, Camilla, is bored with the duties of royalty, lops off her signature long locks, and happily runs off into the Vermont wilderness to cook, clean, and play secretary for a cantankerous archeologist, Delaney. She takes too long in stores, overspends his money, and fantasizes about being a housewife while strolling the supermarket ice cream aisle. Moreover, she becomes so engrossed in Delaney's work that, groupie-like, she contemplates following in his muddy footsteps and dedicating her life to digging up bones. As such, she is the embodiment of every negative female stereotype, a woman who sets out to find herself only to end up being beholden to a man.  (For accuracy's sake, this is probably a good place to add that the archeologist turns out to be a viscount [as is so often the case in such stories] and therefore a suitable match for Princess Camilla, which is pretty much the antithesis of Roman Holiday's bittersweet ending.)  Why, then, did I find this silly story to be so entertaining?  How could I view crude backwoods living through the rosy lens of cozy domesticity?  Or romanticize a situation that I, as a lover of independence and individuality, should have found to be insulting?  The easy answer is that I, like millions of other readers, was being manipulated by Roberts's writing.  The more complicated answer is that the real fantasy being spun by this book and those of its ilk isn't romance, but paradoxically, the attainment of an uncomplicated life, the kind that can be put to rights by a trip to the grocery store.  And honestly, what woman doesn't want that?

That's enough of being up on my literary high horse for one post.  And also, I have to go to the grocery store.  Where the book/greeting card/stationery aisle is crammed almost exclusively with romance novels.             

Book Report: Bed of Roses by Nora Roberts

I've finished the second installment (third for me, really, since I started with book number four) in Nora Roberts's bride quartet series, Bed of Roses. This time the bride-to-be is florist and nice-girl-slash-man-magnet Emma. As I've mentioned in previous posts, the series centers around four friends who run a wedding planning business, each one with a different personality. But then, each member in a fictional group of friends seems to fall into a preordained category. Take Desperate Housewives, The Golden Girls, and Sex and the City.  In each clique you have the nice ones (Susan in DH, Rose in GG, and Charlotte in S&C), the intellectual ones (Lynette in DH, Dorothy in GG, and Miranda in S&TC), and the sexy ones (Gabby in DH, Blanche in GG, and Samantha in S&C). I realize my logic falls a little short because I left out DH's Brie and S&C's Carrie, but you get the idea. Anyway, Emma embodies the dual and seemingly discordant goody-two-shoes and siren stereotypes, which works for the most part. Still, she has the annoying habit of eating only slivers of food at a time. She says she does it to savor her food, but her behavior strikes me as the earmark of an eating disorder. (I'm not trying to be flip; I just hate stories that perpetuate the idea that women eat like rabbits.) Hmm. It's beginning to look as though I didn't really like this book after all, does it? And I didn't even get to the part about Emma's brute of a commitmentphobe boyfriend who takes offense to her doing nice things for him and - gasp - spilling cosmetics on his manly bathroom counter. But I suppose all's well that ends well because he falls in line with an engagement ring at the end.

Although romance novels are fun, the one-dimensional characters sometimes get on my nerves. But then, I'm bound to feel that way since I started reading the anything-but-one-dimensional page-turner The Help. More on that later. (Much later, as it's quite thick.)

Book Report: Vision in White by Nora Roberts

Remember when I read the last book in Nora Roberts's Bride Quartet series first and said I'd go back and start reading the books properly, from the beginning? No? That's okay. I figured as much but couldn't stop myself from starting this post with a question :)

Well, I finally got around to book one, Vision in White, an aptly-named tale about a fiery redheaded wedding photographer named Mackensie and a charmingly befuddled English professor named Carter. (The next installment is called Bed of Roses and stars a florist, and the one after that is Savor the Moment and showcases a pastry chef. Cute, huh?) The said professor is too perfect to be believed, not in a Joe Cool kind of way (obviously, and anyway, what woman wants that?), but in a so-smitten-he-stumbles-over-his-words-and-doesn't-even-notice-other-women kind of way. Plus, he reads. I think we can all take a collective sigh of envy. But Mackensie, or Mac, as she's more familiarly known, has a manipulative mom and a fear of getting hurt and keeps him at an emotional arm's length for most of the book. I know, I know. Such women exist only in the realm of fiction, whereas most real women would jump at the chance to shackle themselves to such a specimen. But as they say, only trouble is interesting.

Sprinkled by shoe shopping expeditions (electric blue boots, anyone?) and descriptions of lust-worthy wardrobes (including a pair of lime green pumps I'm trying to wish into existence), Vision in White is your typical cotton candy romance: frothy, feminine, and cloyingly sweet. But tasty. Because, honestly, who doesn't like a little cotton candy every now and then?

Book Report: Happy Ever After by Nora Roberts

' "Women should all move to Amazonia, or at least vacation there four times a year."

"Amazonia?"

"It's the girl world in my head, where I go when I'm annoyed with Carter, or just men in general. There are five shoe stores per capita, nothing has any calories, and all the books and movies end happy ever after."

"I like Amazonia. When do we leave?" ' (Roberts 288)

That's a little snippet from Happy Ever After, the Nora Roberts book I just read. I posted it because I like it (what woman wouldn't like a place with five shoe stores per capita?), and because Amazonia itself sounds like every Nora Roberts book I've ever read. There's always a diamond-in-the-rough man, plenty of money for new shoes, and, of course, a proposal. Happy Ever After offers up a bonus in the form of a diamond-in-the-rough-man who earns his shine (in part) by buying his lady love a pair of designer shoes. If that's not the stuff of fairy tales, then I don't know what is.

I debated the wisdom of admitting that I read romance novels to all of cyberspace. But then I remembered that The Tote Trove has no shame. I'm going to go ahead and buy the other three books in the Bride Quartet series (yes, that's what it's really called). The series is about four friends who run a wedding planning business, a job that seems pretty stressful and unforgiving to me. But then, I'm the sort who breaks out in hives at the thought of drafting seating charts and taste-testing chicken and vegetable lasagna for my own wedding some day.

Let's Talk about Text: A Few Words about Nora Roberts

I'm in the midst of reading a Nora Roberts romance novel. Well, two Nora Roberts novellas, "Night Shield" and "Night Moves," packed into a paperback that's the last in the illustrious Night Tales series. Are you laughing? If you are, then I don't blame you. Romance novels are, well, silly, not to mention predictable. But therein lies some of their appeal. Unencumbered by the search for themes and symbolism that comes with reading weightier fare, my mind is free to revel in other details. For instance, the language. Say what you will about bodice rippers. But you can't deny that they are often rife with descriptive, fluid writing - and I don't just mean the sex stuff. Outfits, meals, and vacation spots are illustrated with gusto, stirring in the reader an almost forgotten appreciation for life's finer things.

An even more salient hallmark of a Roberts novel is the heroine's passion for - wait for it - her career. I've read dozens of these books, and each one focuses on a protagonist who loves what she does. She may be a chef, an executive, a makeup artist, or a cardiologist, but she is always unequivocally fulfilled by her occupation. Which is kind of interesting given that these women are fleshed into fiction solely to bag a man. I mean, you'd think they'd be fainting away on divans eating bonbons or something. Then again, such behavior wouldn't be very flattering, would it? These books are, after all, written for women. And most women want to believe that they can be whoever and whatever they want. Granting these heroines dream jobs is Roberts's way of adding yet another dimension to the fantasy in which her books deal. Well, Roberts and her phalanx of ghostwriters, anyway.