Guess what I just found on Amazon? A copy of The Barbarian Princess, by Laura Buchanan, which is supposedly the absolute best historical bodice-ripper of all time. I can hardly wait 'til it gets here.
(Fellow fans of Miss Florence King will already get the joke; the rest of you can get to Googlin'. ;) )
I find it hard to believe you are a fan of this stuff.
ReplyDeleteIs that bodice-ripper, kinda like the Danielle Steel paperback soft porn stuff my mom had a complete library of?
ReplyDeleteIcky-Poo.
Sending you the Speer #13 Reloading Manual ASAP. It'll be good therapy.
Y'know, it's really too sad so many folks just don't appreciate the finer things in life.
ReplyDeletepax
"...the rest of you can get to Googlin'"
ReplyDeleteI would have to say that a company has hit the big time when "Googlin'" or "just Google it!" become part of our language. Even my parents know what Google is, and they don't own a computer!!
Just a casual observation...
"I find it hard to believe you are a fan of this stuff."
ReplyDeleteI'm not, much, but I am a fan of Florence King.
As the review states:
"This is the greatest "bodice ripper" romance ever written, the height of genre writing for the field, and criminally neglected. For this work is far beyond the "Saxon sex" yarn of soft-core porn to appeal to the Marge Simpson habitudes of the K-Mart paperback rack. Laura Buchanan (pseudonym of polymath humorist Florence King) deftly constructs a fabulous world and weaves a wonderful story filled with excellent historical detail and famous classical personages. And it is all funny as hell. But Buchanan never breaks character, and so the tale reads on so many multiple levels of excellence of its type, stereotype, and self parody of the genre, that one must read it several times to even begin to appreciate its full dimensions. Highlights include the heroine staying as an unwelcome refuge amidst misogynist Christian ascetics, and the appearance of Hypatia. Hypatia's welcome cameo perhaps is the only unfunny portion of the book, for Buchanan (King) correctly details her horrible death: an historic injustice to knowledge and truth, as well as to the woman Hypatia herself. The work concludes with an allusion to strawberry blonds being the genetic result of a mixture of the Celts and the Saxons, and a ray of hope for the heroine and her hero on the sceptered isle. We know, of course, of the bloody history yet to come. It is sad that we had no further installments from King (Buchanan's) pen, for her own exploration of the romance genre and the history of England would undoubtedly have been delightful. This book is worth searching out and cherishing. By no means should one ever loan it to a friend."
Plus, Miss King (maybe the funniest woman alive) publically acknowledges writing it purely for money, as well as being drunk for the latter part of the writing effort. How can this not be the greatest read in the genre? ;)
I didn't know we had Flo King in common, Tam! She is the rockin-est chick every.
ReplyDeleteHave you read Star Money, which is on her recommended reading list? It's hilarious.
Shoot, Tam, some of your readers know and love that so- called "Failed Southern Lady".
ReplyDeleteAnd the others SHOULD.
"I didn't know we had Flo King in common, Tam!"
ReplyDelete"Shoot, Tam, some of your readers know and love that so- called "Failed Southern Lady"."
Heh.
See? Cool kids lurve Florence King. :)