Pam Rosenthal's Blog: Passions and Provocations, Even Now, page 5

Something for Everyone: A Comedy Tonight

"Right after reading it," Jennie says in her wonderfully positive DearAuthor review of Janet Mullany's Mr. Bishop and the Actress I thought it was an A- (perhaps because my natural inclination is to think a straight A read requires more angst)."

But, she continues, since a few weeks later the book has still stayed with her (no small thing, I should imagine, for a reviewer who must have to gorge herself on enormous, highly sweetened servings of romance fiction just to stay current) — and since "just thinking about" Mullany's hero and heroine Harry and Sophie still makes her smile, "an A it is."

As well it should be, in recognition of the art and the heart of this love story between two servants in a genre (Regency romance) that usually limits itself to the teeny tiny ton-y tip of the social iceberg that called itself the Polite World.

"Nothing for kings," as the Sondheim lyric from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum has it, "nothing for crowns/ bring on the lovers, liars, and clowns." You can get the whole song in this Youtube clip — and I'm delighted to suggest that you do so, because I think Sondheim's bawdy neo-Roman vaudeville that goes up and down the social scale like a slide trombone is exactly the right context for Janet's wicked comic skills.

Here (as large numbers of English people were in the 18th and 19th centuries) our lovers are servants. In this case upper servants: Harry (whose parents run a mildly seedy London hotel) just been hired as Viscount Shadderly's steward, or right-hand-man around the estate. While the ex-actress and recently dumped courtesan Sophie barely and not quite honestly manages to slip into the Shadderly household in sort of governess position.

A household, I should point out, in Sondheim's words, where there's "nothing  polite." If you've ever felt impatient with the kind of romance-novel imagination that supposes in a past life you yourself would have been received without question at Almack's, you need to visit Janet's world.

The boggy country estate  where Lord and very pregnant Lady Shad (from the earlier novel Improper Relations) live with their outspoken adolescent wards and sweet, mostly unwashed, pair of little boys is a haven of cheerful if not quite hygienic chaos. Quite the most appealing Regency setting I've yet encountered, it reads like a hilarious extended send-off of a rapturous romance novel epilogue. After honest Harry imposes a little order and shrewd, decent Sophie injects a bit of style, I'd move in in a New York minute.

As might you, if you have any interest at all in the endlessly inventive ways that middling people like you and me make life livable and even romantic, told in a wise, delicious, take-no-prisoners comic voice.

And especially because you just might win autographed copies of both Improper Relations and Mr. Bishop and the Actress, just by entering my new contest.

©2011 Passions and Provocations. All Rights Reserved.

.

More on Other People's Books

Adding a link to a book review I published last summer in the online Journal of Popular Romance Studies.

The book's called A Vindication of Love: Reclaiming Romance for the Twenty-First Century. The author's Cristina Nehring. Needless to say, Nehring never once mentions the popular romance genre or its not-too-shabbily sized readership. But there are other things to be said about her book as well.

And while I was updating my essays page, I also added a link to some of my earliest, but still-useful (at least to me), thoughts about SM erotica.

Hope you can find something useful here.

©2010 Passions and Provocations. All Rights Reserved.

.

Losing it at the Movies

What did you think of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I?

Come on over to History Hoydens for my take.

©2010 Passions and Provocations. All Rights Reserved.

.

Double Contest for Booklovers — Come Play With Us

My first response (besides sheer delight) to The Dangerous Viscount, my friend Miranda Neville's latest book, was to want to take notes.

Or outline it; make charts or graphs. Whatever it would take for me to figure out how she made something so light-hearted and entertaining so smart, believable, and wonderfully well-plotted.

But for right now, I'm simply going to tell you that I happily gobbled down this feast for anyone who loves books about lovers who love books.

Miranda lets us — and her hero and heroine — in on the thrill of rare book collecting and the practical uses of period erotica. Her hero Sebastian is the sexiest book nerd to pass through my hands (I wish) in a while, while Diana has just enough willful worldliness (which is to say less than she thinks she has) to fall hard and happily into Sebastian's world before she's quite sure what hit her.

As a former bookseller myself, I'm already a goner for any kind of bookish setting or plot. But in truth (and isn't it always that way?) it was Diana and Sebastian who caught and kept my attention.

And after I'd written to Miranda to sing her book's praises, it was especial fun to learn by return email that my favorite scene in The Dangerous Viscount was also Miranda's. And might be yours.

Anyway, here's a chance to find out. Well, actually 2 chances, because starting this morning, November 24, Miranda and I are running parallel contests, with twin sets of prizes. That is: each of us is giving out 3 autographed books: Miranda's The Wild Marquis and The Dangerous Viscount, and my book-loving historical romance, The Bookseller's Daughter. Plus some chocolate.

Sound like fun?

For Miranda's contest, go to http://www.mirandaneville.com/contest.php

For mine, go to http://pamrosenthal.com/contest2.php

And special congratulations to Joy in Redmond, Washington, happy winner of my just-completed contest.

©2010 Passions and Provocations. All Rights Reserved.

.

Once is Not Enough

I had a fantastic time delivering my "Imagining Sex" erotic romance writing workshop last week.

Twice.

First at a monthly Maryland Romance Writers meeting and then at New Jersey Romance Writers' fantastic Put Your Heart in a Book Conference. They were great, smart audiences at both venues — if you've done any teaching, I'm sure you know the feeling, when your points are connecting. Great. I'd love to do it again sometime soon.

But meanwhile (as promised) here's the supplementary reading list from the workshop.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pam Rosenthal: Imagining Sex

Tiny Little Reading List

How to Read/Write a Dirty Story, by Susie Bright

~ Susie's been writing and speaking about sex, sensibility, expression, intelligence, and well… freedom for decades. Funny, brilliant, essential – even if she does think erotic romance began and ended with Robin Schone. Oh, well. Skip that chapter, but read the book.

Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex, by Sallie Tisdale

~ Built around an essay first published in Harpers, about a simple and sensible, if radical idea. Tisdale knew that her own sexual desire was a source of mystery to her, and she had learned that pornography—that much-maligned technology for seeking, pondering, and choosing what we actually like sexually—had something to teach her. The original essay caused a scandal, and for my money, it's still the core of the book. But I also like her further discussions of technologies of desire: the whole subculture of sexual arousal—sex stores and sex workers and sex zines—including a loving report on the art of selling dildos at Good Vibrations.

"The Romance and the Empowerment of Women," by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, in Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women, ed. Jayne Anne Krentz

~ Why the bodice-rippers worked (even for some feminists).

Molly Weatherfield, "In Bed With Groucho And Harpo: Thoughts About Irony, Humor, And S/M Pornography"

~ My first (and in some ways best) try at an essay about hardcore erotic writing, repackaged as a blog post here.

Molly Weatherfield, "The Mother of Masochism," originally published in Salon.com

~ Salon's title, not mine. About the writing of Story of O — in tribute, on the occasion of the author's death. You can find a link to it here. George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language"

~ Romance writer Janet Mullany brought this one into the conversation for me. You can read it online here.

Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way.

~ A richness of excellent ideas and provocative thoughts.

©2010 Passions and Provocations. All Rights Reserved.

.

Question for the Day

Am I the only erotic writer who looks to Jane Austen as a muse? This and other items of note posted at the History Hoydens Blog. Come on over and chat.

©2010 Passions and Provocations. All Rights Reserved.

.

Of Music, Metaphor, and Romance

And a very happy 4th of July, everyone.

Which is an anniversary for me — of the long-ago day when Michael and I first became a couple.

And which, last week, was close to another anniversary — the hundredth of the birth of the great American pop composer Frank Loesser, who wrote GUYS AND DOLLS, and some 700 songs that are so profoundly part of our cultural landscape that you can hardly believe they weren't always there, like Heart and Soul.

Anyway, I had a great time posting it at History...

Still trucking…

Will write soon about our terrific trip to Mexico and what I'm thinking about otherwise.

But meanwhile, here are some nice links, both to the Dear Author blog. One about my first sale, and one about a subject very dear to my heart — a (mostly) reader discussion about whether folks read the erotic scenes or not.

Do you?

©2010 Passions and Provocations. All Rights Reserved.

.

Marriages of True Minds

Blogging today on a subject most dear to me, over at History Hoydens.

Do come by and tell me what you think.

©2010 Passions and Provocations. All Rights Reserved.

.

O! (Getting Graphic)

Smart Bitch Sarah, via email, on The Slightest Provocation's forthcoming May mass-market cover:

…shirt unbuttoned but still tucked in + mullet + O-face is TOTAL WIN. Way to go on achieving the romance trifecta!!

Making it sound, though its curlicues of well-wrought irony, more-or-less like a good thing (I think), though I wasn't entirely sure what "O-face" meant.

Well, I figured I could guess, but Sarah, in a subsequent email, said it much better than I could, in inimitable Bitchspeak. To wit,

...