Remember the Zipless Fuck? Modern romance How to Sell a Romance by Alexa Martin will remind you

 

In a book published in 1973 called Fear of Flying, author Erica Jong gave the world the concept of the zipless fuck -- you meet a hot stranger, you have amazing sex with them, there are no repercussions.  Zipless because in this fantasy the sex is so easy that there is no fiddling with the flies on jeans; clothes just fall away.  

SPOILERS:

Towards the end of the novel the narrator, protagonist Isadora, is on a train, sees a hot man, and has an opportunity for a zipless fuck -- and she is horrified.  Who would want to have sex with a complete stranger without any conversation?  It is scary and gross.  

How to Sell a Romance, by Alexa Martin, begins with a zipless fuck and ends SPOILERS

 

with a zipless happily ever after.   

Heroine Emerson goes to a crowded rooftop bar after attending a conference for a fictional MLM skincare company.  (For the uninitiated, MLMs, or multi-level marketing companies, are pyramid schemes aimed at women who invest a lot of money in products but can only make the money back if they recruit other women to sell the products.)  Emerson doesn't know anyone at the bar and is planning to leave but manages to snag a table.  Suddenly an impossibly handsome man asks if he can sit with her. They exchange a few words.  She asks if they can go to his hotel room.  He enthusiastically agrees.  She hasn't had sex is years and he has the biggest cock she has ever seen.  They don't need to ask each other what they like, sex-wise, because I guess they can read each other's minds or because in this world everyone likes the same things so you don't need to communicate.  The magic giant cock brings only pleasure.  

Things go south the next morning when it turns out that magic-cock-man, a/k/a hero Lucas, is writing an expose on the MLM that Emerson is joining.  Apparently in this world no one has ever heard of or researched MLMs because Emerson is shocked -- shocked, I tell you! -- that anyone would dare question the business savvy of investing money she doesn't have in overpriced skincare products in the hope of recruiting other people to sell them.

But, wait, there's more!  Emerson is a sweet as sugar kindergarten teacher who has been recruited into the nefarious MLM by her boss, the principal.  We learn over the course of the book that the principal spends all of her principal-ing time recruiting teachers to the MLM, and firing those who refuse to be recruited or who quit.  I guess the school runs itself, despite what must be incredible turnover?  

And --  you could not have seen this one coming! -- Lucas's daughter is placed into Emerson's kindergarten class.  And, Lucas's ex-wife, mother of Moppet (™) is also in the MLM and is good friends with the principal.  

At any point does anyone in this book say, it is inappropriate for a principal to run an elementary school as a front for an MLM?  At any point in this book does anyone say a kindergarten teacher should not be having sex with the father of a student?  No! and No!  Well, okay, the principal gets fired in the end, not for running the school as a front for an MLM but for getting mad at Emerson for secretly recording their conversations (which is definitely illegal in some states, FYI).  And everyone agrees that Emerson should be able to continue to have sex with Lucas and that Moppet (™) should not have to switch classes.  Yay for the HEA!  

Note from Jasmine Gold: As the name of this blog indicates, I write erotica. Check out my dark, dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames. Your darkest fantasies, with a phenomenal plot and characters you will come to think of as beloved friends. Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited  and in paperback.  Or read my book of short stories about hot, consensual sex, The Mature Woman's Guide to Desire, available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

 

 

The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet by Lindz McLeod manages to make both Pride and Prejudice and Regency lesbian love boring

 

The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet by Lindz McLeod is not the first fanfic book to come out recently that stars Mary Bennet, the annoying middle sister in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.  Although I had some issues with the first book about Mary, The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow, it seems like a masterpiece compared to McLeod's book.

The Other Bennet Sister was true to the Pride and Prejudice world and its characters.  I believed the backstory Hadlow created for Mary as the overlooked and socially awkward but brilliant teen who grew into an adult finding her place in society.  While that book didn't stick the landing, there was nothing about Mary that didn't make sense from her character and circumstances in Austen's work.

In The Other Bennet Sister, as part of her travels Mary visits Charlotte, her sister Elizabeth's best friend, who in Pride and Prejudice had married the very annoying  Mr. Collins.  Mary develops an unlikely but completely platonic friendship with him.  He is lonely in his marriage and is the first person to notice and encourage Mary's intellectual pursuits.  Charlotte, concerned about Mary's effect on her relationship with Mr. Collins, sends her packing.

In The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet, as the book opens Mr. Collins has just died.  Charlotte has lost the secure future that her marriage promised.  She asks Elizabeth to visit, but Elizabeth sends Mary in her place.  There is frisson.  Charlotte discovers that lesbians exist and that she is one and that Mary is one. A plot that involves much too much discussion of the secret messages conveyed in flowers ensues, and then HEA.

The Mary in this book is not the Mary in Pride and Prejudice.  She is a dull, nice, somehow rich girl with very little personality.  Charlotte was not well enough developed in Pride and Prejudice for the reader to say whether she is the same character as in McLeod's version, but it is impossible to imagine Austen creating a character who is so bland.  (Again with the flowers.)  Her hero's journey -- spoilers if you care -- is that she is hired by a rich gay man to be his gardener, even though she has never done a  day's work in her life and really is unqualified to care for his greenhouses, and then he makes her his heir, and then she wears a pretty dress and reconciles with Mary who she luurves.  

As I wrote here, I found Pride and Prejudice hard going when I first tried to read it.  McLeod's book is harder, and unlike with Pride and Prejudice repeated attempts are unlikely to make it easier.   

Note from Jasmine Gold: As the name of this blog indicates, I write erotica. Check out my dark, dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames. Your darkest fantasies, with a phenomenal plot and characters you will come to think of as beloved friends. Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited  and in paperback.  Or read my book of short stories about hot, consensual sex, The Mature Woman's Guide to Desire, available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

I am mostly here for modern romance Here for the Wrong Reasons by Annabel Paulsen and Lydia Wang

 

 

I went into modern romance Here for the Wrong Reasons by Annabel Paulsen and Lydia Wang with some trepidation.  First, it's yet another romance set on a reality TV show.  Second, it is jointly written, which is the next thing to being written by committee.  Third, we are told on the first page that the Bachelor (er, Romantic) is the show's "first Ashkenazi Jewish Romantic."  What does this even mean?  That the show has already had a Sephardic bachelor?  Or a Mizrahi bachelor?  Nobody talks like this.  And, it's never a plot point.  Josh has no conversations with any of the contestants (none of whom appear to be Jewish of any variety) about what their religious differences might mean for a relationship.  Or whether anyone believes in God.  Or in what religion they will raise their children.  When the main characters meet Josh's family there is no discussion of religion.  Josh doesn't wear a yarmulke.  He doesn't keep the sabbath.  He doesn't keep kosher.  So what exactly is the point here?

That said, once I got over these hurdles, the book is charming.  Heroine Krystin is a literal rodeo queen -- like, she's been crowned the rodeo queen of Montana (or maybe Wyoming? A square state), and we see how hard she works on her riding skills, which I appreciate.  At the beginning of the book she has not realized she is a lesbian, although on some deeply subconscious level she may know it, and she has come on the show to find true love.

Heroine Lauren is a closeted lesbian.  She is an influencer.  She has come on the show to increase her follower count.  (Weird glitch in the matrix: At the beginning of the book she is a moderately successful influencer -- and we are told she has around 40,000 followers.  That seems pretty damn low to me.  But what do I know?  I hover around 4,500 on Twitter, of which at least ten are real people and not bots.)

Anyhoo, they meet, they mud wrestle, Krystin saves Lauren from a runaway horse, kissy kissy, HEA.  The plot is slight but the book is engagingly written, and I enjoyed it.  

Note from Jasmine Gold: As the name of this blog indicates, I write erotica. Check out my dark, dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames. Your darkest fantasies, with a phenomenal plot and characters you will come to think of as beloved friends. Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited  and in paperback.  Or read my book of short stories about hot, consensual sex, The Mature Woman's Guide to Desire, available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

Unromance by Erin Connor is an excellent author's-wish-fulfilment modern romance

 

Unromance by Erin Connor is not the first modern romance I've read recently about a romance writer (or other writer) who dates a celebrity.  Despite its common wish-fulfilment-for-the-author plot, Unromance is charming and engaging.

Heroine Sawyer is a romance writer with writer's block brought on by a bad breakup.  She has a meet-cute with hero Mason, a famous actor who is currently in the tabloids for getting dumped, again.  After a one-night stand, they bump into each other and decide they can help each other out -- by reenacting all the biggest romance tropes from romcoms and not falling for each other.  Spoiler: it doesn't work.

But to get it to not work, Sawyer and Mason each have to realize that they need to work on themselves before they can be in a successful relationship.  Sweetly, they each find help from exes who are willing to tell them the truth about themselves.  Sawyer needs to find the courage to share more of herself.  Mason has to find the wisdom to back off.  I loved how their character development meshed.

The only thing that didn't make much sense to me about this book was Sawyer's devotion to staying in Chicago -- an important plot point because Mason needs to move to LA for work.  Sawyer is not from Chicago, she doesn't have many friends there, she is self-employed and works from home, and I never got the sense that there was anything particularly compelling to her about the city.  She just kept saying, "My life is here."  Maybe?  But this was a conflict that added nothing to the plot.  Other than that, no notes.   

 

Note from Jasmine Gold: As the name of this blog indicates, I write erotica. Check out my dark, dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames. Your darkest fantasies, with a phenomenal plot and characters you will come to think of as beloved friends. Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited  and in paperback.  Or read my book of short stories about hot, consensual sex, The Mature Woman's Guide to Desire, available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

 

Once a Spy by Mary Jo Putney is more of an adventure story than a Regency romance - but it's a really good adventure story

 

I don't really know how to review Once a Spy by Mary Jo Putney.  It's clearly supposed to be a Regency romance, and it has romance elements, but the romance itself has very little plot or tension.  Heroine Suzanne is the widow of a mean French nobleman.  She was captured and lived as a slave in a harem until she escaped, a story apparently told in a different Putney book.  At the opening of Once a Spy she is living as an impoverished seamstress in England.  

Hero Simon has had his own adventures and misadventures working as a spy for the British army during the Napoleonic wars.  Those wars are now in a lull with Napoleon in his first exile.  Simon is a distant relative of Suzanne's late husband, and Simon and Suzanne had known and liked each other years ago.  He tracks her down and impetuously asks her to marry him.

The plot of the romance is that Suzanne and Simon are both so traumatized that neither of them think that they will ever want to be physically intimate ever again.  This makes them well-matched, so Suzanne accepts Simon's proposal.  Simon quickly realizes that he is attracted to Suzanne; it takes several backrubs before Suzanne realizes that she also wants to have sex with Simon.  

Simon and Suzanne are a good couple.  They are nice to each other.  They are honest with each other.  They don't have any stupid miscommunications.  They fall in love.  

The real plot of the book begins when Napoleon escapes his first exile and become emperor of France again.  With war afoot, Simon and Suzanne happen to bump into the head of the English army at a park.  He knows that Simon is one of England's best spies, so he recruits him to go back to spying -- an event that would not have happened if they hadn't been at the same park at the same time.  I call that a lucky coincidence!

Suzanne insists that she accompany Simon behind enemy lines. They sneak around the countryside gathering information.  They steal horses, and a kitten.  

Simon and Suzanne then go on solo missions.  Suzanne happens to meet Napoleon when she is captured and pretending to be a prostitute, and is able to feed him misinformation about English troop movements, which plays a big role in England defeating him at Waterloo. Another lucky coincidence!

Much of this book is overwhelmingly silly.  But it's also fun and charming.  With significantly less romance and significantly enlarged details of the adventure story, it could be great.

 Note from Jasmine Gold: As the name of this blog indicates, I write erotica. Check out my dark, dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames. Your darkest fantasies, with a phenomenal plot and characters you will come to think of as beloved friends. Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited  and in paperback.  Or read my book of short stories about hot, consensual sex, The Mature Woman's Guide to Desire, available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

Regency romance Project Duchess by Sabrina Jeffries is not the best project

 

Project Duchess by Sabrina Jeffries started as a perfectly adequate Regency romance -- easy to pick up for a few minutes at a time but not hard to put down.  

The main characters, hero Grey and heroine Beatrice, are fine.  Grey is a curmudgeonly duke.  Beatrice is a poor relation who likes to speak her mind, but usually doesn't.  Sparks, plot plot plot.  

But: Grey's back story made no sense whatsoever.  After his father the duke died when Grey was a child, his uncle became his guardian and the trustee of his estate.  When Grey was twelve, the uncle tried to get Grey to sign over to him ownership of unentailed properties.  Grey spent a couple of days teaching himself how to read and understand legal documents, and then refused to sign the documents.  The uncle would lock him in a basement and starve him in an attempt to coerce him, then try to be nice to him in an attempt to convince him, but Grey still refused to sign.

This plot seems bafflingly stupid.  I can't believe that even in Regency England a twelve year old could sign a binding contract.  But if the uncle was trustee, he could sign on Grey's behalf. Sure, he could be sued later for breach of trust (or whatever), but Grey noted in retrospect that if he, Grey, had signed the documents when he was twelve without researching them, as an adult he probably would never have realized that the properties had ever belonged to him.  So if the uncle had signed them over to himself, the result would be the same.

The second worst thing about this book:  It ends on a cliffhanger.  The plot centers on a murder mystery -- which is unresolved at the end of the book.  Even in the epilogue new twists are introduced.  Yes, the first third of the book spends way too much time discussing the extended families of Grey and Beatrice, meaning that this is the beginning of a series, but come on.  Regency romances should not end this way.  Ever.   

Note from Jasmine Gold: As the name of this blog indicates, I write erotica. Check out my dark, dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames. Your darkest fantasies, with a phenomenal plot and characters you will come to think of as beloved friends. Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited  and in paperback.  Or read my book of short stories about hot, consensual sex, The Mature Woman's Guide to Desire, available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

Modern romance Celebrity Crush by Christy Swift did not crush it -- and a detour into my thoughts on Marvel movies

 

When I started reading modern romance Celebrity Crush by Christy Swift I thought I might love it.  It was so over-the-top and silly.  Heroine Emmy had written a romance novel called Celebrity Crush about a romance writer who meets and falls in love with her celebrity crush.  Then, Emmy  meets and falls in love with her celebrity crush who was the inspiration for the celebrity crush in her novel!  Also, Emmy is a romance novel writer who can afford a personal stylist and designer clothes (even though she's a single mom who lives in a trailer park)!  Also, Emmy swims with dolphins all the time, like maybe every day!  (The closest I could find to this is here, at $70.00 per swim.)  (I am not endorsing this.) (Emmy implies that she is swimming with dolphins who have been released into the wild and miss performing tricks.  Yeah, no.)

But eventually I realized that Swift is not in control of the over-the-topness and silliness.  Emmy has a book sitting for weeks in the top ten of the New York Times bestseller list, but can't sell her next book?  She's not sure when her royalties will come in and doesn't call her agent to ask? (I was pretty sure a plot twist was going to be that her agent had stolen her money, but that didn't happen.  So why keep mentioning this dead end?)  She's a writer working on her next book, except she never works on it or writes at all and never mentions any passion for writing.  In fact, she states that she makes her living as a social media consultant.  Towards the end she is accused by someone of purposefully writing a bad book and figuring out how to ride its wave to Hollywood.  It's not clear whether or not that's true; she certainly doesn't seem to be attached to her book.  (For contrast, here's a poem I wrote to a character in my smutty naked sex slave novel, Mindgames.) 

Most unforgivable to me, Emmy and hero Jason are terrible, terrible parents.  

Jason has custody of his toddler son two weekends a month and wants more time with him.  Yet, without a qualm, he hires a babysitter to take care of his son during the weekend he has.  Also without a qualm he brings a stranger (Emmy) into his house when his son is there, someone he has a romantic interest in, hooks up with her with his son (hopefully) sleeping in the next bedroom, and allows her to interact with him, when they've known each other for like five minutes.

Emmy is almost as bad.  She leaves her tween daughter with a friend for weeks at a time, allows the daughter to  be seen extensively on Emmy's social media (I don't want to sound like an old coot here, but, yuck), agrees to take her on a cross-country road-trip with someone she's been dating for fifteen minutes even though his drinking is problematic (also re: drinking, at one event there's a three drink maximum -- enough to have me doing bedspins), introduces her daughter to the daughter's father with no warning that she had been lying to the kid her whole life when she said she did not know who the father is . . . 

The problems with the plot started to make sense when I read Swift's acknowledgments, in which she thanks everyone involved in Marvel movies because they helped get her through Covid -- fair enough -- because "good storytelling matters!"  I also watched the Marvel movies during Covid and enjoyed them, but I'm pretty sure that nobody has accused them of good storytelling.  (Well, maybe Endgame.)  Joss Whedon famously whined that he was not allowed to tell good stories in the Marvel movies he directed.  When I watched the movies I came to think of their basic storyline as:  Opening quips!  Funny and interesting!  Five minutes or so.  Then for the next two thirds, too many characters, plot plot plot, which may involve bad guys so evil that the Nazis fight them, or, best case (but also the same movie) hints that in an alternate timeline Captain America becomes a showgirl.  Then action that I doze off for.  Wake up for five minutes of resolution and post-credit scenes.  

When I was in college I took a poetry-writing class in which I referenced John Cougar Mellencamp's Jack and Diane in a poem I wrote.  My professor told me flat out that I needed deeper inspiration than rock music.   He was right. (No hate to Mellencamp -- Jack and Diane is still on my favorite playlist.) Likewise, Swift needs better inspiration than Marvel movies.  

 

 

Note from Jasmine Gold: As the name of this blog indicates, I write erotica. Check out my dark, dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames. Your darkest fantasies, with a phenomenal plot and characters you will come to think of as beloved friends. Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited  and in paperback.  Or read my book of short stories about hot, consensual sex, The Mature Woman's Guide to Desire, available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.