Bodice Ripper Readers Anonymous discussion

I am dying to interact with peeps who love the books I do but the last post in here was made ages ago. 😭 Are all y'all gone?!

Jericho wrote: "I am dying to interact with peeps who love the books I do but the last post in here was made ages ago. 😭 Are all y'all gone?!"

Hi Jericho,

I've been busy writing and tending to my blog, but I'm still around.

I have made some bodice ripper reviews which I've been posting here and on the blog. I started Lemonade, but got caught up with a lot of academic writing about the history of the romance genre in general so I haven't finished it yet.

If you have any questions or want to talk trashy books, I'll be around. 😉

Wendy, Lady Evelyn Quince

I sometimes check in here! But I usually just lurk like a creep :')

I'm here all the time! Always ready to discuss!

I read Lemonade for another group as the bodice ripper and thought it was so good. I ended up with such mixed feelings over the book in total especially the main character. I wish there has been a follow up series.

The ending of Lemonade was abrupt and not the typical HEA we expect with romances. I would have loved an epilogue.

@Eliza I totally agree with you.

HUZZAH!!!

People are here!!!

🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳

@Wendy I follow you and love your reviews! I'm so glad you exist! 🤩

@caro I totally relate. Lurking is one of my favorite past times.

@eliza thank goodness! I didn't know how the forum worked and all the posts I saw were a few years old, I thought the forum expired. 😳

@merry I haven't read Lemonade yet, I've thought about it. But an abrupt ending with no epilog or follow up sounds. 👎🏽

It is not your typical bodice ripper. I gave it 5*

Actually it’s my favorite book and the ending doesn’t spoil the book. It’s realistic and not fluff. Love every minute of it! You should give it a try!

@eliza Your favorite?! Wow! Okay so this is heading into *spoiler* territory (for those who haven't read it) but I "suffer" from severe depression *pulls out tiny violin* and if a book doesn't have a HEA it sends me spiraling. Soooo, does it end happy? Even if it's anticlimactic or doesn't feel like enough, it's fine, I just need that closure otherwise 👉😵.

Yes, anticlimactic is good word for it. It’s a dark book though, so you might skip this one if you’re triggered easily. The MCs take us on a very dark and sad road, BUT, yes by the end of it they have some understanding of one another** and I choose to believe they loved HEA.

Have**

@eliza Alright it's on my TBR list! I'm usually okay with dark (I loved Stormfire) I just hate when it's dark all the way through and then the end is all Les Misérables, ya know?

Oh I agree! I have very strict guidelines for my books- it can be dark BUT I have to have a HEA

@eliza YAASS! 🙌🏽

Jericho wrote: "HUZZAH!!!

People are here!!!

🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳

@Wendy I follow you and love your reviews! I'm so glad you exist! 🤩

Happy to make you happy!😊

@caro I totally relate. Lurking is one of my favorite past times.

@eliza thank goodn..."

Jericho wrote: "I am dying to interact with peeps who love the books I do but the last post in here was made ages ago. 😭 Are all y'all gone?!"

I lurk as well haha.

If you're ever interested to do a buddy read, let me know! I have Constance Conant's Fallen Star, the rare paperback bodice ripper I bought after hearing reviews of its alpha female lead...Also open to w/e that can be accessible online :)

Merry Jewelhound wrote: "It is not your typical bodice ripper. I gave it 5*"

I'll get back to Lemonade soon. I can understand why you gave it five stars, as the writing captivates one instantly. I like what I've read so far but had to put it down because it's similar to something I'm working on, and don't want to be influenced by it. It's not a bodice ripper per see, but the sexual dynamics, the power play, is all there.

Now I really want to finish it!

Eliza wrote: "Actually it’s my favorite book and the ending doesn’t spoil the book. It’s realistic and not fluff. Love every minute of it! You should give it a try!"

A lot of the older rippers had vague, happy-for-now endings (I'm thinking of one I recently reviewed The Frost and the Flame, and the more intense the story, the more I'm ok with that. In some romances, a happy epilogue with babies fits; in others, I can trust the love and bond is there to last beyond the last page.

Irene wrote:
I lurk as well haha.

If you're ever interested to d..."

Weeelllllll... now that you mention it. 😁 I just picked up Lemonade by Nina Pennacchi and was planning on cracking it open tomorrow. I could for sure use a buddy to read it with!

Falling Star by Constance Conant sounds EPIC! But I'm yet to find it in epub form on the app I use. 😔

Wendy, Lady Evelyn Quince wrote:

Hi Jericho,

I've been busy writing and tending to m..."

I'm always looking for people to chill with who don't shy away from uh... awesome reading material! The book world has grown very sensitive and that's wonderful! But it's made it difficult for authors like me to get published, and even more difficult to find an audience as advertising non-sensitive material is a social(media) death sentence. It's refreshing to find a group of individuals who still like old school books and unapologetic writing! 😊🤩

Merry Jewelhound wrote: "I read Lemonade for another group as the bodice ripper and thought it was so good. I ended up with such mixed feelings over the book in total especially the main character. I wish there has been a ..."

Which group? I'd love to read comments on this fascinating book, if it's not a private group.

@mark, I first read about the book on a thread on this site. I think it was on modern day bodice rippers. The group I read the book for is a romance readers site where we have topics each month and choose our own books for it. LIke WWl, Regency ect. I picked Lemonade after reading about it on this site. I have not seen any discussion groups on the book only reviews.

maybe we need a BR and Neo BR book club, with a new buddy read and discussion thread every two months or so.

Caro ♡ Hot Mess Sommelière wrote: "maybe we need a BR and Neo BR book club, with a new buddy read and discussion thread every two months or so."

I would like a group where we could also discuss the themes that we would like to see in books. If someone knows of a book that has those themes they can recommended it, or someone could write it :) I assume we could discuss those themes without fear of being shamed, or reported by PC police :)

I was hoping this group would be like my other group. We nominate and vote on a book each month with a theme. Best part in our group I wouldn't have to worry about being pc. Only problem would be finding the books.

Morena wrote: "Caro ♡ Hot Mess Sommelière wrote: "maybe we need a BR and Neo BR book club, with a new buddy read and discussion thread every two months or so."

I would like a group where we could also discuss th..."


I love this idea! Other forums are big on shaming...

I'm sometimes not sure which groups to look at for a specific recommendation as it's neither here or there really haha.

This group would probably be your best bet if you're looking for books written like >20 years ago and featuring stories from up until the early 1900s at most.

The ones that have modern or futuristic settings are either mostly BDSM-centric or won't even go near anything that might even hint at "questionable" consent and you'll most likely have to defend every life choice you've ever made if you ask for a story that contains physical or psychological violence.

I wish there was a group that covered a wider section of types. Most important feature: "Don't shame" haha

Some days I feel like reading something set hundreds of years ago and other days I'd like to take that space ship with cyborgs on a cruise. :D

I agree with Rose 100%

You will have the hardest time finding any current authors willing to write a traditional BR...but you are going to be overwhelmed with BDSM and/or stockholm syndrome/bully romances. Hey, if that's what you want to read, go ahead, but PLEASE do not come for my BR books because I will fight you! lol!

The hypocrisy of those new adult books flying off the shelves and being defended while BR are destroyed REALLY pisses me off.

I think it's not even necessarily authors unwilling to write new stories rather than publishers and and sales platforms banning them.

But a lot of reader groups don't make it any easier to find new interesting stories either as the recommendations are too one sided.

I'm in a dark erotica group that has interesting stories now and then but the longer I browse the recommendations, the harder it actually becomes to find something that doesn't revolve around BDSM or is more in the line of a suspense/thriller book with a touch of sex at the side. No, the spirit of BRs I'm looking for in modern books as well is not BDSM but I can't exactly put my finger on what to call it. I just know that this N/A lit illusion that being a jerk means being a dom whipping his sub/the heroine with a belt a little too hard is not it.

One of the problems with BR is not only authors aren't writing them but readers are concerned about leaving comments on them. Someone I follow left a mild comment about a BR they enjoyed. I don't even remember the book. The usual comments and likes followed. Until out of the blue an author (3 unknown books) who writes SyFy blasts and psychoanalyzes the reviewer in a rather mean way. Often I feel like we are reliving the Victorian Era (which is one of my favs to read about) but really stifles speech.

I posted a topic "Are we hurting feminism" on the historical romance group page and the answers were wide ranging and very interesting. I bring this up because I've always been made to feel like I'm a bad feminist because I like these books and men that read them must enjoy hurting woman IRl. None of that is true of course, but it's a frustrating debate.

I cringe so hard when I read a BR review that gives the book 1 star and starts off by saying how disgusting the book is because it has rape. kidnapping etc...that's so unfair to authors.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

@eliza started reading the thread. Really good! Also I agree about the 1* if you haven't read the book.
@Rose it does seem many books have gone to 50 Shades blueprint.
I read mainly Historical but even there the same themes are being done over and over.

On the topic of authors no longer writing content such as rape/dubious consent/violence against women/abuse from the hero/kidnapping etc. and readers reading those ....


The genre "Dark Romance" basically stole all those tropes from historical romance/bodice rippers. And let me tell you, while historical romances get more streamlined toward 300-page tomes that have happy characters living there lives in a way that does not offend 21st century feminist ideals (despite the setting still being 1860), Dark Romance has been getting more and more extreme.

This year, I read The Paper Swan by Leylah Attar. It's not a good book and it's contemporary, so readers in this group might not enjoy it. It features: kidnapping, battery (hero slaps and beats the heroine), captivity, amputation (hero cuts heroine's finger off), dubious consent (rape in my book because she was still kidnapped and he had cut her finger off before that).

Yeah, that book was a trainwreck. The thing is, if a hero from a bodice ripper had done any of the stuff written above, the author would have had to shell out serious motive/backstory and a helping of grovelling at the end. The Paper Swan is classic dark romance though: despite the beginning paragraphs being about how no rapist's sob story is ever worth anything, the hero is very much shoved down reader's throats (I had no sympathy for him, and worse, I wasn't even intrigued about his motives) and all the violence seems to be there for shock value. Because atone, he does not.

And readers love Dark Romances! There is a huge market out there for books that are like Fifty Shades, except way more stalking and kidnapping and raping and battery. Some of the things I read, which included sex slavery, were absolutely nauseating. BR are really tame compared to that.

So yeah, people still read these non-PC elements. Only it's in the wrong genre (not historical) and often the violence seems wanton (without context or appropriate atonement) and extreme.

I'd like to see era-appropriate characters and norms in Historical Romance, as well as less happy people and more violence. Hell, heroines back in the day used to give as good as they got! It wasn't unusual for a heroine to shoot or stab her raping hero a few times as payback, while the mewling puppy-faced heroines of dark romances these days try to be as invisible and as doormatty as they can possibly be.

@Caro you have such a good point that a lot of the books plotted revenge for whatever happened to them. Half the fun was reading about strong heroines who may have had bad things happen to them. But they plotted and planned.

Caro ♡ Hot Mess Sommelière wrote: "On the topic of authors no longer writing content such as rape/dubious consent/violence against women/abuse from the hero/kidnapping etc. and readers reading those ....


The genre "Dark Romance" b..." I have picked up some taboo dark romances but if I remember correctly, they were self-published, and usually poorly written. No bigger publisher would touch those and some of these books cannot be even sold on Amazon. So technically if someone wants to write BR with age-gap, kidnapping and rape they can, but they just have to self-pub. The only issue is when one of those self-righteous assholes who love to use words like "problematic" and "misogynist" and "toxic" decide to make the author's life hell, they can. And that is terrible. There is so much I cannot stand about YA, and the HR romances written today, but I don't go trolling the authors, or the readers who love that boring crap.
I also wish that readers who spew nonsense like this "The unfortunate truth is that historically men have been misogynistic and treated women like chattel," would only stick to Julia Quinn and her ilk, because they know nothing about history and psychology, they demonstrate an empathy of a two-year-old incapable to comprehend a zeitgeist of another era where people behaved exactly as they should to survive, but alas these Betty Crackers are out there and they will give low rating to a well written and well-researched book because some historical facet, or "toxicity" of a male character offended them and the heroine didn't share their own 21st century values.

@Morena

You're right, many are badly written and most are self-published. However the genre is not niche; the most popular ones (such as CJ Roberts' Dark Duet) are huge bestsellers. It is probably a matter of time before publishers will pick this trend up.

Problematic heroes are already a thing in YA (stalking, emotional abuse and blackmailing are so common there) and New Adult (some of the heroes are pretty much cavemen, but with worse manners).

The question is; why does historical romance these days have to be more politically correct, more streamlined and more clichéd and kitschy than all the other genres? All the things that have been tabooed in historical romances (misogyny, abuse and cheating just to name a few) are very common in other genres.

Historical Romance in publishing these days seems to be a uniquely tight corset compared to other genres. And I really wish authors were just allowed the freedom to write controversial stories and people. Not just for the heroes, either. I also want more nasty, unlikeable heroines.

Caro ♡ Hot Mess Sommelière wrote: "@Morena

You're right, many are badly written and most are self-published. However the genre is not niche; the most popular ones (such as CJ Roberts' Dark Duet) are huge bestsellers. It is probably..."
I think, it's because these self-righteous people who hate BR, don't read dark mafia romances, they read historical romances, and they want "their" genre to be clean and in line with their sensibilities. They are sadly in majority. The big following that some of the N/A dark romances get is made up mostly of people who don't read historical romances, otherwise these readers would demand more gritty, subversive themes in HR and some writers would accommodate that.
If there was a BR published now, and lets say it was well written and history was captured as accurately as possible, and there were thousands of us who loved it, perhaps things would change.

Rose wrote: "I think it's not even necessarily authors unwilling to write new stories rather than publishers and and sales platforms banning them.

But a lot of reader groups don't make it any easier to find n..."

So I'm not advertising my own book, I'm just agreeing with you that NO!!! Publishers will NOT take books with non-politically correct heroes. It's VERY hard to get published right now if your novel doesn't fit the mold. But! If you haven't read this book:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...

I highly recommend it. I don't remember there being any BDSM vibes. I want to know how the author got published (aside from just being amazing). Her book doesn't even have any trigger warnings (that I noticed) and according to goodreads standards, it "should."

My unpublished novel is here:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...

I almost got picked up by an agent but she wanted me to make my anti-hero "softer" and less abusive. I kinda just said no... 🤷🏼‍♀️

Caro ♡ Hot Mess Sommelière wrote: "@Morena

You're right, many are badly written and most are self-published. However the genre is not niche; the most popular ones (such as CJ Roberts' Dark Duet) are huge bestsellers. It is probably..."


I am so happy reading this thread, I'm smiling like an idiot. I love seeing all the things I think written out by other people. 😁

ditto! I gave 4 stars to LK "Where Passion Leads" . I had someone say I should be ashamed to give a book with rape 4 stars. That I should admit that I'm aroused by rape and I'm the problem with women. Luckily, a friend kindly explained about BR for me. Much appreciated!

The woman actually writes horror books and reads erotica. Apparently, murder/violence and spankings are okay. Talk about hypocritical!

I like some modern hr but I so enjoy a good BR. I hate being judged for it. I like a realistic hr. I'm a history lover and like more realistic books sometimes. History is not pc. Don't judge history through modern eyes.
Men raped and women were property.

I'm not saying anything different then what another member hasn't said. But it feels good to rant.

Lauren wrote: "I was hoping this group would be like my other group. We nominate and vote on a book each month with a theme. Best part in our group I wouldn't have to worry about being pc. Only problem would be f..."

Down for this!! And yes... it would require some creative thinking for copies...

Lauren wrote: "ditto! I gave 4 stars to LK "Where Passion Leads" . I had someone say I should be ashamed to give a book with rape 4 stars. That I should admit that I'm aroused by rape and I'm the problem with wom..."

I agree with you 100%!

@Lauren I liked your review and that is where I saw the author just go off on a wild rant. I am glad the other reviewer wrote a nice rebuttal.

Yay Becky!! Whoever you are!!

Thank you! Becky handled it perfectly.

Jericho wrote: "(...) I want to know how the author got published (aside from just being amazing). (...)"

I think the reason she got published is that Milla Vane is another pen name for Meljean Brook. So by getting published under the latter name, she got her foot in enough to maybe find someone willing to take a chance with her. But that's just sad to be honest.

Your own book sounds like it would be in line with what many fans of BRs and dark romance are looking for and I'm sorry to hear that you were denied the right to keep your characters as you want them to be by that agent. I feel like this kind of behavior is robbing readers of a diverse selection of books.

Romance books have become dull and overly repetitive lately. More so than ever before in my opinion. I used to enjoy the odd Harlequin romance too but in my desperation to find new books I've read hundreds of new HQ synopses and they just screamed mediocre bore-fest to me.

The direct or indirect censuring by publishers is wild right now. Another example: Try finding books with a black hero and white heroine. Very hard! Now try finding the same constellation but with an anti-hero type. Yeah... not gonna happen because the harpies would be all over it screaming "racism!".

I'd argue that this is primarily a (western) female problem though. Sexism, racism and violence is well alive in male-targeted books (just look at GOT and see them all go crazy with praise).

Rose wrote: "Jericho wrote: "(...) I want to know how the author got published (aside from just being amazing). (...)"

I think the reason she got published is that Milla Vane is another pen name for Meljean Br..."

Oh! Yes!!! It's why I made up a male pen name, I honestly didn’t get bites from agents until I did! Then, the agent loved my book until they spoke with me on the phone. I have no proof that being female changed her opinion of my book and the characters, but I can't help but feel there was some slight bearing.

It's frustrating as a reader because, like everyone here, I have diverse tastes that don't fit into the cookie cutter romance molds you were talking about (so repetitive!) I miss the old school diversity of novels written before my time and think we're missing out on so many good books that are being overlooked for ridiculous reasons. I love that publishers are intentionally looking for specific voices to be represented, but it would be nice if they didn’t turn down other books and limit what's being published. That isn't what real diversity is about, real diversity would cater to everyone's tastes. Not just the preferences of a few specific groups.

*sigh*

I didn’t know that about Milla Vane! Very interesting, thank you for sharing!