Why, it is!
Mike O'Hearn himself!
Sure, the clench-cover has gone out of style a decade ago, but you can always count on chiseled, brawny Mike to star in MY fantasies.
What I find interesting about romance novel cover boys is, I wouldn't really want to have a good old-fashoined groupie shag with THEM, but with their characters. It's like they use their bodies to stand in for more interesting, dangerous, romantic male figures.
I suppose, for my male readers, the best thing I could translate this to is how, after BASIC INSTINCT, men fantasized not about the "real" Sharon Stone, but the image of Sharon Stone. That, and even I can tell Sharon Stone could probably suck the chrome off a bumper.
Another amusing/frustrating element of romance novels is how, if a romance book is any good, it's never called a romance novel. Jane Austen is never called a "romance" writer, despite the fact her work is the single most influential material for the modern romance novel.
Likewise, take a work like Zora Neal Hurston's THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD, unquestionably a part of the western tradition along with ETHAN FROME and others. Nobody calls it a "romance novel" because it's considered a classic. But it is: a woman's search for love and personal authenticity ends with a sinister, slightly aggressive giggolo that she "tames."
Of course, Janie and Tea Cake's relationship wasn't perfect (he often beat her because he felt he wasn't good enough for her, a detail left out of the film version), but it was, undoubtedly, a romance plot with a histrionically tragic ending. What I find interesting is, because of the nuance and complexity of the Janie/Tea Cake relationship, and the fact it wasn't idealized, disqualifies it from being labeled a "romance novel."
This irritates me, because I hate the hyper-idealized relationships in romance novels...the only ones I enjoy are ones that have nuance and quirks and unexpected twists, as well as elements from other genres (detective, horror, action, thriller) that make their categorization unclear.
Incidentally, the movie starred the very beautiful piece of man candy, the naturally blue-eyed stud Michael Ealy, quite easily one of the best-looking men in Hollywood. How he got those blue eyes I'll never know, but they smoulder and make a grown woman melt like butter on a skillet with a gaze.
Supposedly, he also likes older women, so good news for all you cougars!
1 comment:
I think those same covers turn a lot of men off from reading romance novels. I remember looking at those covers, then at myself in the mirror, and thinking they'd just be depressing to read because I don't look like that. What I learned is that we all imagine someone wildly hot when we're imagining, but romance novels are really focused on the excitement of meeting someone new and mysterious and overcoming obstacles to become involved with them. It's about the content, not the cover, but since we haven't read the content, the cover needs to make the first impact.
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