Sarah MacLean's Blog, page 6

Maya Rodale on “In Love With A Four-Eyed Girl”

Maya Rodale is cool. We started publishing at Avon around the same time, and quickly discovered that we were both New Yorkers, both interested in the academic side of romance novels, both love our dogs quite desperately. It’s also worth saying that her most recent novella, Seducing the Single Lady,  is inspired by Beyonce…and so…well…that just proves she’s cool. 

Since then, Maya (a co-founder of New York’s romance reading series Lady Jane’s Salon ) and I have become friends…so of course, when I launched Girls Who Wear Glasses, I invited her to join! 

And boy did Maya have thoughts on Ladies in Lenses (despite not being one herself)…She immediately introduced me to a fabulous song about specs, and I asked her to come here today and share it with you!  

Welcome Maya!

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Don’t hate me because I have perfect vision. Or because I might have tried on those reading glasses for sale in the drugstore to see if I could rock the sexy hipster librarian look without giving myself headaches in the process.  I might have done that a few times. I might be reconsidering it as I write this.

I am not a four-eyed girl, but there is a song called, um, Four-Eyed Girl by the super cute singer/songwriter Rhett Miller that makes me wish I was. It’s one of those uppity, fast, melodic alternative pop songs that you just can’t help but sing a long to. And did I mention it was sung by a very cute boy?

Lyrics sample from the chorus:

LA LA LA LA LA

I’m in love with a four-eyed girl

I just love a good la la la chorus all about a cute boy’s love for a girl. But what I really is my memory of seeing this song live in a large theater. When Rhett hit the opening chords a bunch of girls ran up to the stage and one girl in particular stands out: She’s dancing like crazy and holding up her pair of glasses high above her head.  The song was totally for her, from a man who hearts four-eyed girls. Awww…

Have a look and listen:

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I am wild about this song…and forever indebted to Maya for introducing me to it!

Your turn to talk musical inspiration, readers! Tell Maya and me which song you are most inspired by these days, and one lucky commenter (US Only), will win both a digital copy of Seducing the Single Lady and a copy of Maya’s latest full-length historical, The Tattooed Duke! 

Linda Francis Lee on Diane Keaton

I’m so lucky to have such great friends in the writing world…including the tremendously talented Linda Francis Lee, bestselling author of The Sexy Trilogy and Emily & Einstein: A Novel of Second Chances…who just so happens to be a girl who loves glasses herself!

Linda is filled with good conversation and always up for a night of chatting about romance over dinner and a glass of wine, and I’m so happy she’s joined us for Girls Who Wear Glasses Month — a transcript of our chat below!

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Sarah: Ok, so we can all agree that girls who wear glasses are the most fun…what makes them so fabulous? 

Linda: What’s not to love about a woman who wears glasses unapologetically? I was intrigued by One Good Earl Deserves a Lover the minute I saw the gold-rimmed spectacles on the cover. I fell in love with the book the minute I met the heroine who wears them. Wonder Woman, Debbie Harry, Sophie Loren . . . the list is long. And Lady Philippa wears hers unapologetically, and goes after what she wants.

Sarah: I’m so happy that you enjoyed Earl! You’re so sweet! So…who is your favorite lady in lenses?

Linda: Diane Keaton. I love that despite all the apologetic characters she frequently plays, she appears to live her life without a thought for never marrying, having kids at fifty, for wearing white turtlenecks and fabulous hats!

Sarah: She’s a big favorite with everyone here on the blog…including me!

I love the way she laughs and puts people at ease. I think one of the greatest gifts anyone can give is to make people feel welcome. On top of that, she doesn’t seem to be afraid to live a unique life.

Sarah: Absolutely–there’s something totally refreshing about her honesty.

Linda: Yes! From Diane, we can all learn to give ourselves over to our craft and not worry about where it will take us. And when it takes us to a place that we might not have anticipated (50 and not married and no children), to be brave enough to create a new dream and go for that rather than sit around regretting what didn’t happen.

Sarah: So…imagine you’re having dinner with Diane…what would you ask her?

Linda: I’d ask her, “What is the source of your courage to live your life outside of the box?” Or, perhaps more importantly, “Does it feel like courage is what fuels you, or is it that you just do what you need to do without thinking?” Or maybe the best question of all is, “Where do you get all your fabulous hats?!”

Sarah: Ha! That’s a great question. And definitely the most important. Thank you so much for joining us! 

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Your turn! If you could dine with any lady in history, who would it be…and what would you ask? Share in comments for a chance to win Linda’s Emily & Einstein! We’ll choose one winner on Monday (US Only)! 

Loretta Chase on Dumb Blondes in Born Yesterday

The very best thing about writing romance is that I sometimes get to meet someone who changed my life. Someone who made me love romance and love writing and dream of someday, somehow, getting to write a romance myself.

This time last year, I had that chance in Boston, MA, when I had dinner with the incomparable, unbelievably talented Loretta Chase, who wrote my very favorite romance novel, Lord of Scoundrels . Mainly I stammered and hemmed and hawed, and I made a general fool of myself, but Loretta was very kind and very patient and pretended not to notice my general fangirling stupidity.

And now she’s offered to be a part of Girls Who Wear Glasses, my monthlong celebration of ladies in lenses in honor of the heroine of One Good Earl Deserves a Lover …and she’s chosen the very best kind of GWWG — the dumb blonde who’s not so dumb after all.

Welcome Loretta!

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One helluva girl who wears glasses!

In Born Yesterday, Judy Holliday plays Billie Dawn, the dumb blonde mistress of junkyard millionaire Harry Brock (played by William Holden), who’s come to Washington, DC to corrupt a few congressmen. Wanting to make the ex-showgirl fit into Washington society, Brock hires journalist Paul Verrall to decrease her stupidity and increase her refinement. It’s a Pygmalion story, yes, and Holliday makes it one you want to see over and over again.

Where to begin with her fabulousness? How about the New York accent and the amazing voice that goes up when you expect it to go down, and deep when you think it’ll go tinny. How about her direct approach to wooing Verrall—and his resisting her advances with the sweetest manly stoicism. Then there’s her self-awareness and lack of pretense. And the sharp, funny dialogue. But for girls who wear glasses, the great moment comes the first time she puts hers on, to read something to Verrall. It’s a seismic shift, in her, in the story, with the simplest message: She’s ready to see.

“You have to be smart to play a dumb blonde over and over and keep the audience’s attention without extraordinary physical equipment,” Holliday said. I think she was the best dumb blonde ever, and she was really, really smart.

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Thank you so much, Loretta, for joining me! Your turn, readers! We’re offering up a copy of Loretta’s Silk is for Seduction…for a chance to win, please tell us your favorite classic film in comments! We’ll choose one winner on Friday (US Only)! 

Kieran Kramer on Girls Who Wear Glasses — Aunt Polly

Today, I’m so excited to continue Girls Who Wear Glasses Month with the fabulous Kieran Kramer — a friend and funny funny lady. I’ve loved Kieran’s books since I heard the title of  her debut, When Harry Met Molly. I mean, who can’t get behind a Nora Ephron (another GWWG!) reference? 

I knew Kieran would come up with an awesome lady in lenses…and I was right. Aunt Polly from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is an unexpected and perfect choice! Take it away, KK! 

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Aunt Polly in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is my favorite Girl Who Wears Glasses in literature.

I loved her long before I was a mom myself—she’s hilarious, quite frankly. Almost everything she says makes me laugh out loud. I revel in Mark Twain’s genius in creating her—a secondary character who is both comic and noble.

She’s noble because she loves Tom to pieces. And she refuses to forget her duty to him as his guardian and mother figure, even though Tom gives her a run-around that would wear out even the most stalwart, wise, and experienced of mothers.

And she’s comic because she’s not nearly as clever as Tom is.  Obsessed with cure-alls and of a generally superstitious nature, she believes the craziest things. But she means well.

She always does.

I think Aunt Polly touches my heart because I am she…as are all mothers who love their children. To one degree or another, we’re a ruthless combination of savage love and inconsolable confusion: these people we’re mentoring refuse to be us. They insist on being themselves. And dammit if it isn’t the most frustrating, glorious job in the world to watch them lurch, twirl, careen, and soar toward being who they’re meant to be!

Thanks, Aunt Polly, for showing us that mistakes can be made in mothering, and it’s all right.  If love’s there, every child—even rebellious wanderers like Huck and Tom—will thrive. And your example, bumbling and misguided as it is sometimes, gives us hope that love will always lure our children home.

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I love this piece so much…it really captures the value of maternal affection in literature — something that is all too often missing!

Thanks to Kieran for joining us in the crazed lead up to her new release — The Earl is Mine (out February 26th! Don’t forget to preorder!), which I’m so looking forward to — I’m a sucker for hot earls (in fact, I’ve got one out this month!).

So…in honor of Aunt Polly and mothering in literature…who is your favorite mother (or maternal figure) in pop culture? Share in comments for a chance to win Loving Lady Marcia — the first in her House of Brady series! 

Eloisa James on Linda Howard’s MacKenzie’s Mountain

Great glasses!

I’m very very lucky to live in the same city as the fabulous Eloisa James for lots of reasons, not the least of which is this–she’s always willing to have a rousing conversation about romance novels. I don’t use the term rousing loosely.

The woman loves romances and has read what seems like all of them…which makes conversations about the genre–I’ll say it again–rousing and awesome. So, of course, when I launched Girls Who Wear Glasses month to celebrate One Good Earl Deserves a Lover, I knew Eloisa (who is, I might add, one of my favorite ladies in lenses) would come up with an amazing lady in lenses…and boy was I right!

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One of my favorite girls-in-glasses romances is in the outrageously non-PC MacKenzie’s Mountain, by Linda Howard (first published back in 1989 and it’s held up!).

In the preface, Linda says that she wanted to write “a simple love story about a half-breed Wyoming rancher and an old-maid schoolteacher.” A lot of girls-with-glasses stories start with an old maid.  But in the good versions, the girl turns out to be far from meek and mild: she wields her glasses as a weapon to get exactly what she wants in a world that tends to consign pretty girls to a career as a wife.

MacKenzie’s Mountain opens with the immortal words, “He needed a woman. Bad.”  That’s not only a fragment, but ungrammatical as well, but Wolf Mackenzie would never say, “He needed a woman. Badly.”  Howard delights in her rough-hewn, uncivilized hero: imagine a ruthless outcast who’s seen the inside of a prison due to an unfair rape charge: “In his veins rans the blood of two of the most warlike peoples in the history of the world, Comanche and Celt.” So what do you think the good people of Ruth, Wyoming would think of a school mistress who beds their most-loathed outcast?

Mary Elizabeth Potter doesn’t care. She heads up the mountain to confront Wolf about the fact that his son Joe dropped out of school a few months ago and falls directly into lust. At first, she thinks Wolf is making fun of her, so she sets him straight:  “I know I’m not an attractive woman, certainly not the type to stir a man’s—er, savage appetites.”  Well, you can see where this is going.

But Mary is tough.  She’s just as tough as Wolf, and in some ways, even stronger.  She confronts small town prejudices about race with a kind of guts and glory that puts her in danger, but also slashes through the hatred and intolerance that made Wolf and his son outcasts.

That’s all great, but at the heart, this is a really terrific romance between a man with a crazy amount of testosterone…and a girl who wears glasses.

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It’s been way too long since I read MacKenzie’s Mountain, but you can bet that after reading this amazing homage to Wolf and Mary Elizabeth (who is one heckuva lady in lenses), I ordered it right away and rectified that tragic wrong. I might add, for those of you interested — that MacKenzie’s Mountain is now bundled with MacKenzie’s Mission in the combo paperback, MacKenzie’s Legacy!

So…who is your favorite bespectacled romance heroine? Or hero, for that matter? Share in comments for a chance to win a signed copy of Eloisa’s latest, The Ugly Duchess. US only, winner will be chosen on Wednesday. 

Veronica Wolff on Diane Keaton

Veronica in her fab specs.

I love Veronica Wolff. We met accidentally, at a dinner with Anne Mallory and Bella Andre (two other favorites of mine), and I knew then, in between the laughs and the stories, that we’d be fast friends. It’s probably because she’s a tall woman with a big smile. I like those things in a person.

Since then, I’ve come to love every one of Veronica’s books–which she writes in about a bajillion genres because she’s far more organized and put together than I am–I mean, the woman can write a hunk in a kilt like nobody’s business (I’m looking at you, Cormac MacAlpin) and a big-city-girl-gone-small-town contemporary to make you sigh like mad (see her latest, Timber Creek , for proof). 

So, when I discovered that she’s also a girl who wears glasses, I thought, “Of course she is. She’s just that awesome.” I am thrilled to host Veronica here to talk about her favorite lady in lenses–the incomparable Diane Keaton (for the record, also tall with a big smile). 

Welcome Veronica! 

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Keaton the Coolest

Little round ones, clunky square ones, ones that are tinted purple, green, or amber…Diane Keaton has worn them all.

She’s an actress. Director and producer. A mom. A conservationist. A trendsetter in ties and fedoras…and glasses. As I get older, I look for role models. I don’t want to become one of those women who fights the years with scalpels and fillers. I want to go the Diane Keaton route. No nips or tucks. Instead, I’ll rock a pair of John Lennon specs with tinted lenses, or maybe something in leopard. Something Ms. Keaton might wear.

On her, glasses aren’t defeat. Glasses aren’t second best. They’re fierce. They’re a statement. They make her look independent and strong. They’re stylish as hell. She looks like the person you’d want to sit next to at a dinner party. The one in the room who knows her own mind. The sort of woman who might sing at a nightclub, or write a book, or date a famous movie star, or be someone’s muse. And you’d be right—she’s done all those things.

Do men make passes at women in glasses? Hellz yeah. Just ask Diane Keaton. Men love her, but you see, that’s beside the point. She’s cool just as she is, and we love her for it.

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She is SO COOL. I want to be Diane Keaton when I grow up. Seriously. 

Giveaway time! Veronica is offering up  a signed copy of her latest, Timber Creek , and a copy of Devil’s Own , featuring her own bespectacled heroine, Elspeth Farquharson, who would have made a great friend to Pippa.

And because I’m crazy about Keaton, too…I’m throwing in a DVD of my favorite of her movies — Manhattan Murder Mystery (which, aside, Eric thinks I only love because I would absolutely 100% do what she does in this flick)!  

To win, comment below with your favorite longstanding actress! We’ll choose a winner (US Only) on Wednesday! 

Carla Neggers on NCIS’s Hetty Lange

I’m thrilled to host Carla Neggers today on the blog to talk about her favorite girl who wears glasses! As you know, I’ve been asking some of my favorite authors (and non-authors!) to join the blog to celebrate ladies in lenses — the unsung among us — in honor of my most recent release  One Good Earl Deserves a Lover .

Fellow New Englander and New York Times bestseller Carla Neggers has joined us today to talk her favorite — NCIS genius Henrietta Lange, played by the bespectacled Linda Hunt! Welcome Carla!

Having worn glasses since the age of nine. I’m always on the lookout for a glam girl in glasses, but I have to say, I’m going with Henrietta Lange. Hetty! CBS describes her as “all-knowing,” and NCIS-LA wouldn’t be the same without her. Played by Linda Hunt, Hetty is a woman of a certain age, eccentric, experienced and confident. She has a past. She embraces her age, her diminutive size and her femaleness without apology or excuse. You’d want her on your side in a fight as much as you’d want her to choose the tea if you were meeting her for a chat. You’d probably want her to choose the scones, too.

Hetty also has secrets, and a girl who wears glasses must have secrets. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think she started out on the series in owlish glasses that have become more rectangular. And she’s always got them clipped to…what is that called? The thing that you clip your glasses to so you can take them off and let them dangle down your front like a necklace. I’ve never worn one myself. I always need glasses. I even have a pair just for the computer. They cut down on eyestrain. Would Hetty worry about eyestrain? I think not. She worries about bigger things: her agents, national security, people who use teabags.

For me, Hetty’s fabulousness derives from her confidence in who she is now, not ten or thirty years ago or tomorrow. She has a past but it’s not where she lives. She lives today, and I like that.

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I like that, too, Carla. All hail Hetty! 

Your turn, readers! If you could take tea with any television character, which one would you choose? Tell us in comments, and one lucky winner will win Carla’s latest release (out this month!)  That Night on Thistle Lane ! (US only)

Pearl & the Beard: Some of My Favorite Girls Who Wear Glasses

All February long, I’ve been celebrating Girls Who Wear Glasses in honor of my 19th Century bespectacled Pippa and One Good Earl Deserves a Lover. I planned Girls Who Wear Glasses month about six months ago, knowing that I was going to invite some of my favorite writers, artists and ladies in lenses to join me to celebrate spectacles.

A few months ago, Eric and I headed off to an Ani DiFranco concert and discovered an amazing band called Pearl and the Beard. On their website, they describe themselves as: three voices, one cello, one guitar, one glockenspiel, one melodica, several drums, one accordion, ninety-six teeth, and one soul.

They’re also two girls and a guy who wear glasses – Jocelyn Mackenzie, Emily Hope Price, and Jeremy Styles.

Emily Hope Price, Jeremy Styles & Joceyln Mackenzie are Pearl & the Beard

Oh, and I should mention that they’re awesome on a number of levels.

“Eric,” I announced. “They would be awesome for Girls Who Wear Glasses Month!”

Reader, I was not wrong. I’m so excited to share the interview I did with Emily & Jocelyn below…and to giveaway some Pearl & the Beard Swag…and hopefully make Pearl & the Beard some fab new Romance fans.

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Sarah: Part of what I love about your songs is the clever writing…so I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you’re a trio of readers…so…if Pearl & the Beard were a book…what kind would you be?

Emily: If we’re talking about Genre, I would say a children’s fairy tale book – but the OG kind: the ones that were really for adults under the guise of being for children (blood, guts, betrayal, evil, etc) or a Roald Dahl fairy tale.

Jocelyn: I’d say we’d be a Choose Your Own Adventure book for kids, but with a lot of curse words in it. Or Go The Fuck to Sleep.

Sarah: One of the best parts of a romance novel is the first meeting…let’s talk about yours: How’d you find each other…and how’d you know that you three were destined for each other?

Emily: Once, long ago, a mermaid was spit out of the sea onto a deserted beach. Knocked unconscious, she began to wither away in the sun. Jeremy, a sailor at the time, had been living in a lighthouse for several years just a few miles away from this same beach. One morning he went collecting fish from his traps in the ocean, like you do, when he came upon the mermaid. He saw her face and began to weep it was so beautiful. A single tear dropped into the mermaid’s eye. Suddenly, her tail fell off and flipped away into the ocean!

Jeremy screamed like a little girl, but the mermaid’s upper half (which of course was a beautiful girl), started to shake and, without warning, it turned into none other than a beautiful shining guitar. With strings. And it was tuned. And it had an extra 9 volt battery in its pickup. And you could hear it without needing to plug it in to a sound system for MILES and MILES. It was amazing and completely magical. And it was FREE! He looked at it longingly for several minutes and, at first cradling it, then impulsively raising it to the sky, screamed, “PEEEEEAAAAARRRRRLLLL!”

Emily and Jocelyn, sisters of the now deceased beached mermaid-turned-guitar, heard his cry from the ocean and swam to him. Now, Jeremy had a huge beard – it was like a beacon to them – calling them by name. It glowed in the sun!

”BEEEEAAAAARRRRRDDDD!” they called back. ”You killed our sister! She is a guitar now. You jerk!” Now, everyone knows the only way to get your guitar-mermaid sister back is to shave the beard off of the person in possession of the guitar and sprinkle its remains into the sea. So, Emily and Jocelyn are cursed to be with Jeremy and his guitar forever until they can successfully shave off Jeremy’s beard. Hence the name: Pearl and the Beard.

Jocelyn: Also, we met at open mic nights in New York at Pete’s Candy Store in BKLYN and Sidewalk Cafe in Manhattan, respectively.

Sarah: As a writer, song lyrics are a huge inspiration for me while I’m writing — these days I’m particularly fond of Voice in my Throat (I recently wrote a whole scene inspired by “You’re the dream, and I never woke.”) — what’s your trick for unlocking creativity?

Emily: I find creativity can sometimes be like trying to get a kid to do his math homework (or any homework for that matter). Sometimes, possibly not EVERY time, you need to trick him into thinking he ISN’T learning or ISN’T actually doing his homework. This is what creativity is like sometimes. Sometimes we need to trick ourselves into being creative – games and exercises are one way of waking up the creative monster that will so often hide from us in his den of slack and potato chips. It works – you have to be diligent and patient, but it works!

Jocelyn: Thanks for being inspired by us! I’d say I’m personally inspired by mundane moments that then turn into analogies. Voice in my Throat for instance started simply by narrating what I was doing: “I walk down the road and I’m alone again.” When a narration turns to a third person voice, I can often then see the situation from a third eye and it can quickly turn quite poetic. Also, don’t forget to read a lot, look at a lot of art, listen to a ton of new music… any new art form you have in your arsenal is a tool that can teach you new ways of seeing, hearing, experiencing the world.

Sarah: Perfect advice. Now for the most important question! Who’s Your Favorite Lady in Lenses?

Emily: I just found out that Christina Hendrick’s wears glasses! YES. But I wouldn’t say she is a “glasses wearer”. A ton of famous women actually need to wear corrective lenses but most done contacts, so you’d never know. It’s a little unfortunate actually. Women who are “known” for wearing glasses are usually older women – Like Diane Keaton. But there’s also Janeane Garofalo – both women I like.

Jocelyn: I’d have to say my mama, Annemarie. She’s so beautiful! Musically I’d vote for Danielle Ate The Sandwich.

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Thank you both so much for joining us to celebrate Girls Who Wear Glasses month! I hope to see you around Brooklyn very soon so I can fangirl in person.

Let’s talk about music! What song or artist inspires you? What song can make you happy even on your darkest days? What band have you seen a million times in concert? Share your musical obsessions in comments for a chance to win this AWESOME Pearl & the Beard swag — their t-shirt and their CD God Bless Your Weary Soul. Amanda Richardson.

One winner, US only, will be chosen on Tuesday!

Jennifer Bernard on Harriet the Spy

Let’s be clear. I’m a romance reader first and a romance writer second. And there is nothing I like more than talking about romance novels I love.

I think you know about my mail-order Romance of the Month Club from my local indie bookstore, WORD — It’s a super fun book of the month club where every month I choose six of my favorite romances in paranormal, historical and contemporary genres. The books range from brand new releases to classics from the past. Members choose a book from the batch and it’s mailed to them, then followed by a live chat where we talk about the books and why they are awesome. Join us!

This month, to honor Girls Who Wear Glasses, I’ve chosen six books with bespectacled heroines…including The Fireman Who Loved Me –the debut contemporary from Jennifer Bernard. I loved the book–it’s fun and sexy and did I mention it’s about a firehouseful of sexy bachelors? Well, it is. And the heroine is a smart, sexy, bespectacled beauty. You should read it. And when you’re done, read the most recent book in the series…Sex and the Single Fireman.

Anyway…I asked Jennifer to join us for GWWG month to talk about her favorite lady in lenses…and she made me so happy with her choice!

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At the age of nine, I put on my first pair of glasses and discovered that my mother’s shirt had flowers on it. I could see! That was good. But shortly thereafter I realized I’d acquired a new identity. Overnight, I’d become a Girl Who Wears Glasses. And that was bad, because in those days glasses weren’t cute or retro or designer or quirky or hipster. They weren’t sexy.

My glasses were horrid gray cat’s eye frames. Any slim hope I’d had of becoming the glamorous, adored queen of my school was officially DOA. My social life was doomed before it ever got started.

Thank goodness for that Girl-in-Glasses guru: Harriet the Spy. Harriet wore black frames without lenses – she didn’t even need them! She wore them because she chose to. When she wanted to be invisible to others, she put on her glasses. They were a tool, her way to declare herself someone who looks, not someone who wants to be looked at.

I didn’t particularly want to be a spy, but I did want to be a writer, and Harriet showed me the way. You watched people, wrote about them in your journal, then scrambled for a backup plan if their feelings got hurt. Excellent training for my future career, in which I accidentally named the ex-wife of my hero, Captain Brody, after my sister. (“But it’s such a pretty name! That’s the only reason I chose it!”)

The point is, being a writer means you’re in the business of seeing. Nowadays, when I want to be seen, I often put on my contacts. They’re a tool to keep me from being categorized according to the shape of my eyeballs, which just seems silly. Harriet had her tool, I have mine.

But whether I’m wearing my glasses or my contacts, I will be forever grateful to Harriet the Spy for helping me come to terms with being a Girl Who Wears Glasses – on my own terms.

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Thank you so much for joining us today, Jennifer! I loved Harriet, too! 

Your turn reader, what was your favorite book when you were a kid? Tell Jennifer and me in comments, and one lucky winner will not only receive her debut The Fireman Who Loved Me, but also a copy of Harriet the Spy! (US Only) 

Sophie Jordan Has an Adventure in Babysitting

It’s no secret that I adore Sophie Jordan. Aside from being super fun and a dear friend, she’s also one of my very favorite authors. It started with an obsession with her historicals (I mean, have you read Sins of a Wicked Duke ? No? You MUST. Go now and get it. I’ll wait.), but now I clamor for anything this woman writes — which makes the fact that she is willing to share her draft manuscripts with me very very awesome. 

Aside: Her current Forgotten Princesses series is fabulous — and you can get its next installment tomorrow in her Valentine’s Day novella The Earl in My Bed . It’s the perfect V-day treat!

All this is to say, when I conceived of Girls Who Wear Glasses month in honor of One Good Earl Deserves a Lover , I of course invited Sophie to join me…and she of course came up with a FABULOUS choice!

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Hands down, my favorite girl with glasses has to be Brenda in Adventures in Babysitting. Remember that movie? Remember her? If you ever saw the movie, how could you forget Brenda!?

She was played by Penelope Ann Miller. She stole the show for me. I was glued to my seat, anxious for all the Brenda scenes (sorry, Elizabeth Shue!).

 Just to recap the basic premise: Brenda runs away from home and ends up stuck in a bus station deep in the city. She’s out of money and has no way home. Naturally, she can’t call her parents … well, because she’s a teenager. Who does she call to come and get her? Her best friend, of course. Now, I “get” that the movie is really about Chris (Elizabeth Shue) and her “adventures in babysitting”, but Brenda’s storyline … struggling to survive in a scary, inner city bus station was all I really cared about. Let’s just go over a few of the problems our bespectacled girl endures.

A bum screams at her to get out of his “house” (a phone booth). Her glasses are stolen by a bag lady (the look on the bag lady’s face when she puts them on and realizes she can now see is just too, too precious). A hot dog vendor won’t take pity and feed poor, starving Brenda when she tells him she doesn’t have any cash (No money? Then I don’t have a wiener!). And perhaps the best part is when she rescues an oversized sewer rat, thinking it’s a poor little, abandoned cat (Remember, she can’t see without her glasses). Oh, her horror when she realizes she’s cuddling a rat! The only thing better that could happen is for Brenda to meet her hero amid all these mishaps. Oh, imagine the romance of her falling for some guy she can’t see – but of course, he won’t end up being a rat. He’ll have to look something like this:

 

My kind of rat.

Hm. I’m already tinkering with a new story in my head inspired by Brenda’s night at the bus station … and Chris Hemsworth. What do you think? Winning combo?

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Thanks for coming over to play Sophie! You’ve got me thinking about hot heroes to match with bespectacled beauties! So…tell us, readers! Cast Sophie’s movie! Who should play the hunky hero for whom our blind-as-a-bat heroine falls?  

Share in comments for a chance to win Sophie’s most recent (and the one she dedicated to me!), Lessons from a Scandalous Bride and a Girls Who Wear Glasses microfiber lens cloth! (US Only, sorry.)  Winner will be chosen on Friday!