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Book Club Goes Bang

*If you’re just tuning in, my best friend, Kelsey, and I are in the process of reading the Fated Mates’ ‘Books That Blooded Us’ with podcast hosts Jen and Sarah*

 

Everybody remembers where they were when he was shot.

I was in a student bedsit in Bristol, sprawled on a strange foam sofa that stuck halfway into the kitchenette. It was probably raining, and I was doubtless wearing sweats. Far more glamorously, the shooter wore a bloodred dress and a black lace mantilla. She threw back the veil and pointed the pistol straight at her lover’s black heart. ‘Say your prayers, Dain.’

Bang.

And, just like that, Loretta Chase exploded the romance world. I’m not the only reader who practically dropped Lord of Scoundrels in shock at this point. Wait, she’s shot him? She has! But… but… the heroine can’t shoot the hero! But she has. So… apparently she can… so… so all bets are off. Whether you read this scene in 1995 when it was released or a decade later, the experience was unforgettable. As Kelsey put it in our ecstatic text exchange: ‘mantilla murder blowing shit up in the genre!’ Quite. In this re-read, it became clear to us that the mantilla-wearing, hero-shooting heroine Jessica Trent is a bridge between Old School Romances and today.

We’ve covered Phase 1 of my romance reading history in the last Book Club – ie Fabio dressed as a pirate – but Lord of Scoundrels was a Phase 2 romance read for me, an active acquisition rather than a paperback that just materialized by my bed. It was probably the first romance I read after reading a review. It was the mid-oughts and I was on the lookout for romance. I’d just moved to the UK and, despite the organized grad school socialising, I still had a hefty hunk of alone time on my hands. Fortunately, I also had Mrs Giggles.

Dain and Jessica’s romance was on reviewer Mrs Giggles keeper shelf, a very rare 5-star book. For the most part, she used her website to slag off romance novels – see, I was learning the local lingo – and I read these ruthless evaluations with surprised delight. It was the first time it occurred to me that romance novels could be seriously reviewed. Analysis was for real books. But no, of course, authors were making important choices about women and agency in particular. Top among Mrs. Giggles pet hates was ‘stripping for daddy’, the plot where the heroine sacrifices her virginity to save her wastrel father. Lady, I thought, we’re on the same page.

Scoundrels still has plenty of the classic romance tropes, right down to the magical birthmark on Dain’s butt. And what a fine view that is, what with his gladiators’ physique and roman emperor’s face. Unfortunately, Dain is also a full-on Alphahole. But Loretta Chase has two secret weapons to neutralise this in her writing arsenal: her pistol-toting heroine and one hell of a prologue.

As Jen and Sarah point out in their Scoundrels episode, starting the book with a heartrending recital of the hero’s horrible childhood is essential. We start the action weighted in Dain’s favour and so excuse his complete boorishness when he collides with Jessica. Also, he talks to her in Italian while stripping her glove off in a tea shop – so that’s in his favour. And just when our tolerance starts to run out for this ‘outrageously hot man child’, Jessica shoots him.

It really was a joy re-reading this one after many years. I remembered my favourite scenes almost line for line: the antiques shop meeting (‘I love his heart sweats’, swoons Kelsey), the teashop encounter, and the lightening lamppost kiss. Unlike an Old School Romance heroine who has only the haziest idea of her own sexuality, Jessica quickly realizes she’s head-over-heels in lust with this emotional dunce. And her emotional articulacy balances Dain’s anvil-headedness perfectly.

But it does bother me that she’s not allowed to have emotional baggage of her own. Both Jessica’s parents were killed in a carriage accident when she was a child. Both! But Dain’s childhood trauma comes first again and again. And, I agreed with Jen and Sarah, this is why we need his actual child to appear. So it should come as no surprise that my real favourite scene is at the end where Jess takes Dain to the moors and lays it down for him. ‘He needs to level up’ says Kelsey. ‘And he does! And not just because he got the girl.’

And that, readers, is a Christmas miracle.