#bodice rippers

[problematic-faves-appreciation]

TW: Abuse

People who think messed up dark romances these days — with their toxic men, and *clutches pearls dramatically* age gaps between adults; oh, the horror! — have "gone way too far", clearly haven't heard of bodice-rippers like The Flame and the Flower (by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss), Sweet Savage Love (by Rosemary Rogers), This Other Eden (by Marilyn Harris), The Silver Devil (by Teresa Denys), An Iron Woman (by Marilyn Harris), Stormfire (by Christine Monson), Prisoner of My Desire (by Johanna Lindsey), To Have and To Hold (by Patricia Gaffney), and so on.

To Have and To Hold, one of my favorite dark romances. The main male lead, Sebastian Verlaine, is what Rochester-haters accuse Edward Rochester of being.

And Harlequin Presents romances from the 70s/80s, where 17-year-old heroines got together with asshole heroes twice their age who would call them "little bitches", and follow that with a slap to the face.

Yeah, sure. Modern dark romance is waaaaay more problematique than stuff written in the 1980s. Sure, Jan.

[fanaticsnail]

All this picturing Benn Beckman on the cover of a bodice-ripper has reminded me that my very sweet grandma wrote some bodice-rippers of her own....

Just imagie a young gingerbread girly visting her grandma's house and looking up on the wall and seeing these wonderful posters hung up:

It was great and may have awoken all this simping over men who very much belong on these wounderful covers in me ����

I thought I would share a few of the covers for everyone's viewing pleasure!!

Have a great day/night!!

GRANDMOTHER GINGERNUT, YOU BEAUTIFUL BEAUTIFUL WOMAN.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Just picturing a small Gingernut girly skipping up the steps of her grandmother's cottage to bring baked pastries and sweets - only to find her Grandmother hunched over a writing desk and crafting smutty literature.

I am screaming Gingernut. I am actually screaming.

How special that your talent has been founded by generations of powerful women. This is spectacular lore, and I am so grateful you shared it with me.

(Beckman as the third cover, though)

@feral-artistry @i-am-vita LOOK! LOOK AT WHAT WE'VE GOT HERE. LOOOOOOOOK.

[sweetsavageflame]

Warrior’s Woman, Johanna Lindsey, Avon, June 1990 

I read this 33 years ago!

[hellokatieyoursocrazy]

Although I mostly read graphic novels, I find these book covers really beautiful. I especially love the pure ecstasy on the women's faces. Considering how women are constantly shamed for embracing there sexuality, I think these covers are great at portraying why women are drawn to bodice rippers in the first place. They prioritize women's pleasure. I think it kinda sucks with how popular booktok is, "smut readers" are shamed and mocked across the internet for enjoying books like these.

Ever since starting to publish romance novels I’ve been checking out the romance books at the thrift store specifically for the clinch covers, as a reference for what I might want to do with my own books.

As a culture we mocked these to extinction but I think we were just afraid of their power. The modern clinch revival still hasn't reached the heady heights of what they were doing in the 80s! The vintage covers can be really quite explicit. These ones in particular were steamy enough they had to be hidden on an inner flap.

[rhaenyra-the-gracious]

*SPOILERS AHEAD* if you want to read books by Nina Pennacchi and/or Ann Owen (her pen name), skip this post

I've read spoilers and still didn't notice at first, and I forget all the time, that Stephen Weymouth (Slave for Revenge) is homosexual and in love with Guy Spencer.

Realization before the end only came the second time, when I read the paperback. I was reading about the physical appearance of Guy, when I shook up: Waaait a minute, whose POV is that?! (Like I said I always forget about Steve's sexuality.) But then I was like Why is a guy giving a DETAILED description of another guy's half-naked body? Oh, yeah, because he's gay.

One of the first things Guy says to him is (ignore the harsh language, but I think that's also intentional - because, yeah, she didn't want to be too direct) - while they are, or were boxing:

Which is the case exactly. Steve wants him, because he's gay, and Guy won't reciprocate, this, at least, because he's heterosexual.

Also, I'll like to write about Nina's preference for Dull Boys(™). I mean Adam (Captain Swing) and Jacopo (The Prisoner in the Tower) are sharp as a knife. Still, Guy's and Christopher Davenport's (Lemonade) intelligence (especially their self-understanding) leaves much to be desired.

They both can't recognize love or think altogether to be other feelings. Christopher, in the end, realizes this, while Guy never does:

I lol'd so hard at this. Guy, sweety, that's not hate.

And Guy still doesn't realize this.

In Lemonade (as Nina Pennacchi), even Anna starts to suspect Christopher is in love with her, while he horribly mistreats her, and she basically still thinks he's an ogre.

Christopher is madly in love with her wife, from the get-go, but he doesn't know how to show his feelings, he just knows the language of revenge, manipulation and cruelness:

I'm not saying he didn't know how to be gentle, it is clear, that he is capable of it, but in the beginning, he doesn't recognize LOVE, just like Guy, only in the end (unlike Guy):

God... and I love Nina Pennacchi (or Ann Owen).

[discocandles]

one thing about steve harrington is that he sucks at doing nothing. like he has to be doing something with himself lest the guy waste away. this has led to him being very good at fucking around with things especially when its something relatively quiet. the loudest steve will let himself keep his hands busy while stuck idle is tossing whatever's in his hand to himself and catching it, which usually bodes well for sports practice after coach learned that just because he was moving didnt mean he wasnt paying attention(usually the opposite).

he learned how to flip a pencil around his thumb in middle school and seeing someone in one of the meetings he sat in on doing it. he'll twirl anything he can around in his hand, especially while he was working in the mall. the scoopers were perfect for it. and any way youve seen a drummer/percussionist fiddle with a drumstick, steve knew he had to replicate it.

but even with all this movement and the fact the guy was barely ever not moving, it seemed like no one noticed it ever. a fact that nearly drove eddie insane when they were in high school together. because he did have the reputation of being restless, and in a constant state of movement. and he probably fucked around with random shit less, so how did steve "the hair" harrington not end up with the same reputation? the answer was just that he was way more quiet("and sneaky" -eddie) about it. and if the teacher hated when their students fiddled and futzed he'd be sure to try and keep the movement below his desk.

but it not that he only has to keep his hands busy. no no no, if bored or stuck waiting, and that won't suffice, steve harrington will pick up anything with words just to read it. anything. outdated newspapers, ingredients lists, magazines of any topic. he just mindlessly grabs for whatever and starts fucking reading. Robin could swear under oath to a court that her best friend has read the back of every vhs in family video. hell, she's seen him reading drugstore novels, like the fucking grandma smut and books with cover art of nicely dressed ladies running from a castle. and its her jock best friend reading it, instead of some repressed suburban woman who hates her husband. yes, this information is the bane of robin buckley's exsistance because its not like anyone would believe her.

idk just give me steve being restless but doing it quietly enough that no one really picks up on it.

[awesomenightfall]

Lucanis: (finally opening up and being vulnerable, naked in bed) Would you talk to me? Your voice is a comfort.

My Rook, a troll: (pulls out a Second Edition copy of Swords & Shields) So glad you asked.

[rochenn]

Forever cursed to remember this official (?) art of Dooku and Asajj

Why r they posed like they stumbled into a May-December couple photoshoot. It's the worst thing I've ever seen yet at the same time Dooku looks so fucking uncomfortable I simply have to laugh

[swordmaid]

looking like an 80s bodice ripper love interest

[awxcoffeexno]

just got done writing the last part of the patient. going to start working on an 1800s bridgerton-esque fic with a more charming, less bogged-down by the century and a half of pain logan.

it's angsty bodice ripper, victorian!logan (james) time 🎀🫶🏽

[sky-blue-siha]

A joke in the Solas discord server might be getting out of hand LOL

[thlayli-ra]

For Anon

(Heavily influenced by this cover art)

[mumblingsage]

The first piece of writing by Octavia Butler I ever read was "Bloodchild." Followed by her author's note which - don't fully take my word for it, because I might be misremembering, but my prominent impression is that while the reader is reeling from the alien-reproduction-body-horror, Butler seems to have found this story quite pleasant and interesting (the Wikipedia article for Bloodchild and Other Stories backs me up a bit, with some whiplash between the story's background and critics' takeaways).

Then I devoured the rest of the collection, which also has some damn good stuff in it.

Anyway, if you have never read any Octavia Butler...I think you should also begin with "Bloodchild."

[nothwell]

#their valet usually helps them undress so they don't know the order of operations without help #how were they supposed to know they needed to untuck their shirts before unbuttoning them? #or that if you don't take your arms out of the sleeves it turns into a weird little shrug? - @sugarless5

My favourite historical romance trope is "men who don't know how shirts work".

[aeodonii]

Heh, yuri!!

[massivementalitynut]

My Broadway Comm of Nanami Kento from @iwanttobeaseme