tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6144798075848314516.post3778168567243355051..comments2015-06-16T08:28:49.790-04:00Comments on Cooking Up Romance: Sea Lightning, 1979 Harlequin Romance #2U5SAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18187344643700994108noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6144798075848314516.post-69421071675117628732015-06-07T11:09:09.039-04:002015-06-07T11:09:09.039-04:00"The more I read, the more I realize how litt..."The more I read, the more I realize how little I know about the history of the genre." - I feel the same way. There have been so, so many romances published that even an avid romance reader can barely scratch the surface and there's been relatively little secondary work published about them.Laura Vivancohttp://www.vivanco.me.uk/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6144798075848314516.post-73140051551565635912015-06-07T11:02:22.410-04:002015-06-07T11:02:22.410-04:00That's very interesting. I wonder if those wer...That's very interesting. I wonder if those were being marketed specifically to women yet? And if the storylines changed with the marketing? The more I read, the more I realize how little I know about the history of the genre. For instance, one of the books I found this weekend was a US-published book called "Graduate Nurse" from 1956 which has a super pulpy cover and seems to feature three guys fighting over one woman. The cover copy seems centered around her, but I'm not at all sure if it was intended as titillation for a male market or whether it's just more open-minded than later books? Guess I'll have to read it and find out.Elisabeth Lanehttp://www.cooking-up-romance.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6144798075848314516.post-3951159211046393802015-05-26T16:51:35.291-04:002015-05-26T16:51:35.291-04:00I once had an early M&B, from the 1920s or 193...I once had an early M&B, from the 1920s or 1930s, in which I think the hero got the heroine pregnant and they weren't married. She left him, taking the child with her and I think only agreed to marry him some years later, after she'd become a famous author. Unfortunately, I just skim read it and then, when it turned out I didn't need it for my book, passed it on to an academic library which was collecting popular fiction. I've got another one in which (again, I've only skim read this, but it was from the same period), the heroine ends up on the run to try to save a child from being sexually abused by its father/step-father. I don't recall either McAleer or jay Dixon's book on M&B's mentioning those storylines but, unfortunately, my memories are vague enough that I worry I'm getting something wrong.<br /><br /><br /><br />I'm not sure either were very explicit in terms of the sex scenes, but it makes me feel they covered more controversial topics than one might perhaps expect. But in the 1920s and 1930s, I don't think M&B had quite settled into specialising in what we'd now called romance, so maybe that had an effect on the kinds of storylines which were deemed acceptable then. Also, they were relatively fat books, much fatter than the later category romances.Laura Vivancohttp://www.vivanco.me.uk/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6144798075848314516.post-49657700948004469932015-05-26T08:01:37.741-04:002015-05-26T08:01:37.741-04:00Now why did I think that wasn't coming out unt...Now why did I think that wasn't coming out until later this summer? Well, I have it now. I didn't expect to want to dig into the scholarship on this, but at some point I'm going to have to. My plan of reading just the books I already have in my possession is proving unsatisfying. I want definitive answers. <br /><br /><br /><br />Anyway, very interesting about the National Geographic article and Sea Lightning. The detail about future children did seem a peculiar thing to stick in there at the end. Not out of character necessarily, just unusual and highly specific. But yes, that does seem a good explanation.Elisabeth Lanehttp://www.cooking-up-romance.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6144798075848314516.post-24147465900169855402015-05-23T16:47:29.573-04:002015-05-23T16:47:29.573-04:00"There's also an amusing discussion of po..."There's also an amusing discussion of potential future children and how <br />Jensa will continue to work while the kids are educated in a very <br />the-world-will-be-your-classroom manner."<br /><br />I did a little bit of research into <i>Sea Lightning</i> when I was writing <i>For Love and Money: The Literary Art of the Harlequin Mills & Boon Romance</i> and I concluded that Harrel must have drawn heavily on an article <i>National Geographic</i> about whales off the coast of Patagonia. The author explains how he took his whole family with him, and how great it was for the children, which I think probably explains how/why that element of the ending was created.Laura Vivancohttp://www.vivanco.me.uk/noreply@blogger.com