The Loinfire Club reads.... Covert Conception

Covert Conception, by Delores Fossen

Natalie Sinclair was stunned to discover she'd been drugged -- and impregnated. Even more shocking was the identity of her baby's father: Rick Gravari, her sworn enemy. Now the only way to uncover the truth and reveal the mastermind behind their mysterious one night together was to join forces with the one man who was completely off-limits.

As the peril around them intensified, Natalie realized the dangerous men on their trail were nothing compared to the tender emotions provoked by her baby's father. But could she trust her once formidable foe's determination in his role as hard-nosed defender?

One year is an awfully long time. Enough to read an awfully large number of very bad novels, but the Chronicler had other things to write about. Excuses can take up another post, for the moment, she will again take up the metaphorical pen and tell you of the Loinfire Club's exploits reading this particular book...

Almost Jesus read out the blurbs for the possible books we could read and Pillywiggin mimed out the version for the hard of hearing. Whilst very amusing, this largely visual gag does not translate well to the writeup, so suffice to say it happened.

For various reasons, the conversation derailed to methods to sabotage the Baker's funeral. He has apparently promised his life's fortune to the one who best manages it and even with such meagre incentive, his friends were happy to oblige. The current favourites in terms of plan is to sneak into the funeral home and wrap the deceased in tin foil and rosemary. The Seamstress was then to show up at funeral in a bridal gown with a shotgun, demanding to be married to the deceased.

There are very many books. And there is consequently, much discussion. The news that the blog has come to the attention of Lucinda Betts, author of Moon Shadow and that she even left us a comment.

The Loinfire Club decided upon Irish Moonlight, mostly to inflict pain on the Pillywiggin (it, after all, being her homeland) but the unfortunate volume has apparently disappeared.

The Club was then torn between the Desert King's Pregnant Bride and Covert Conception.

Big L: "I haven't had one with a Desert King in it yet. I feel like I'm missing something."

In the name of Moon Shadow, one of our new members has stuck the label of "Brown Worm" onto one of the bottles. From this he gains the nickname of Ginger Worm and all is well.

Other additions to the Club are the Seamstress, the Frenchman and Boundless Rage (who would have been Impotent Rage but the Pedant is in a forgiving mood.)

Almost Jesus reads (and for some reason, chooses to begin with the author's biography):

Imagine a family tree that includes Texas cowboys, Choctaw and Cherokee Indians, a Louisiana pirate and a Scottish rebel who battled side by side with William Wallace.

The Chronicler: "Then you're thinking of a fictional family tree."

With ancestors like that, it's easy to understand why Texas author and former US Air Force captain Delores Fossen feels as if she's genetically predisposed to writing romances. Along the way to fulfilling her DNA destiny...

Almost Jesus: "Would any of the biologists in the room like to question that?"

...Delores married an air force top gun who just happens to be of Viking descent.

(The Chronicler wonders if this is just a funny way of putting "has an ancestor who came from Scandinavia.")

Pillywiggin explains the concept of standard categories to the uninitiated. The Chronicler attempts to explain the origins of the game on the inimitable Mrs Giggles' romance novel review website (sadly no longer there).

There follows here an anecdote about Almost Jesus' deviant past. Mostly about the time he almost got thrown out of a gay bar.

Almost Jesus reads out the cast of characters, as appearing in the front of the book.

Natalie Sinclair – Someone drugged her and her nemesis, Rick Gravari, so they'd have sex. Now, pregnant with Rick's child, someone wants them both dead and Rick is her only hope. Can they overcome a bitter past and work together tos save their child?

Rick Gravari...

Almost Jesus: "That surname is unusually difficult to pronounce."

Big L: "It was clearly meant to be Ricky Gervais."

The Pillywiggin shudders in horror.

Dr Claude Benjamin – Creator of the Cyrene Project, a plan to produce genetically superior babies.

Ginger Worm: "Does that plot itself count by itself as a Medical Complication?"

Dr Isabella Henderson – She also worked on the Cyrene Project...

Big L: "She's a woman who's not the heroine. We don't care."

...but now vehemently objects to it.

Seamstress: "I assume that to create these babies they have to rape women"

The Baker: "Because if they consent, it taints the DNA."

Almost Jesus: "Because genetically superior people are frequently not attracted to each other. Inconsiderate beings."

Boundless Rage: "If you're working on some sort of genetics project, can't you build some sort of pheromone system into it?"

Troy Jackson – A product of the Cyrene Project, he holds a grudge against Rick and Natalie.

The Balance: "This is not just a genetically modified baby... it's a Cyrene Project genetically modified baby."

Brandon Steven – He has the answers that Rick and Natalie need...

Azrael: "And two first names!"

Almost Jesus expresses his frustration at such first-name abundant people since it throws his name recognition skills.

And then the book begins...

Chapter One.

San Antonio, Texas.

"You're Pregnant, Natalie."

Pillywiggin: "Direct and right to the core."

(Little did she know how incredibly repetitive the book will get after this point.)

Natalie Sinclair blinked, stared at her sister, Kitt and then waited because she was certain that Kitt was about to deliver the punch line of a silly joke....

..."I haven't had sex in over a year," Natalie admitted.

Pillywiggin: "Not a slut!"

Though her sister no doubt already knew that.

Big L: "Due to her many secret security cameras planted throughout the house."

Pulling in her breath, Natalie set her teacup aside, the delicate bone china rattling against the saucer. Some of the Irish blend splashed onto a pair of entwined hand-painted yellow roses.

Pillywiggin cringes: "What is Irish blend? An Irishman has chewed some tealeaves and spit it back out again?"

"Dr. Benjamin did the pregnancy test," Kit continued...

Big L: "What and then gave it to her sister?"

"He called when you were in the meeting with the antique broker and when I pressed him about what was wrong with you, he finally told me...

Almost Jesus: "In flagrant disregard of doctor patient confidentiality."

In fact nothing about Kitt's ultra-solemn expression changed.

Frenchman: "So, sort of like hyper-solemn?"

Azrael: "So solem you can't even see it."

Natalie shook her head. "The test is wrong."

Big L: "This scene has continued for too long."

Kitt did some head-shaking of her own. "The doctor used your blood and urine samples to repeat it. Not once. But twice. And he repeated it again at my request. All three times, the tests were positive. Based on the physical he gave you and those test results, Dr. Benjamin thinks you're about four weeks pregnant."

Pillywiggin: "I don't care. That's a medical complication, I need a drink."

The Pedant: "It's complicated medicine."

"You remember a couple of months ago I hade surveillance cameras installed throughout the house?"

"Of course, I remember. Some items were missing, and we thought someone on the staff might be stealing from us."

The Chronicler notes this piece of clunky exposition. Of course, I remember, sister, which is why I'm going to tell you about the thing that both you and I remember, just to remind anyone who happens to be listening in...

"I didn't have the cameras removed after the problem was resolved... After I finished my conversation with Dr. Benjamin, I went through the surveillance tapes for the past four weeks."

The Loinfire Club bursts out laughing. Especially given Big L's previous joke about Kitt spying on Natalie with surveillance cameras.

The Chronicler: "Why would you do that?"

Big L: "Well, she had too much time on her hands... and is an obsessive stalker."

Almost Jesus: "That must have been one very long meeting with the antique broker if Kitt can have all those tests done and go through four weeks worth of tapes during it."

"...I found something..."

Oh.

Almost Jesus: "You mean you were watching me all this time?!"

That nearly stopped Natalie's heart.

Pillywiggin: "Medical complication."

The Club drinks.

"Explain something," Natalie insisted.

Almost Jesus: "Well, the internal combustion engine..."

Kitt typed a code on the keyboard, and Natalie instantly recognized the video feed that appeared on the screen. Nearly a month earlier.

Almost Jesus: "But not quite a month, since you're only four weeks pregnant."

The night of her surprise twenty-ninth birthday party.

Almost Jesus: "Was she surprised that she was twenty nine?"

Pillywiggin: "Because it's secretly your 40th birthday!"

She'd arrived back in San Antonio from a week-long antique-buying trip in Ireland...

Pillywiggin twitches: "It's a shit place to buy antiques. I'm starting a new category: abuse of my homeland."

The Balance (referring to the book Irish Moonlight, which mysteriously had vanished): "So this was the second secret Irish option."

The doctor had done some lab tests and given her prescription meds... Only instead of bed, she'd discovered that her mother had assembled three dozen or so of her close and not-so-close friends for a surprise birthday celebration.

"Are you saying this is when the so-called pregnancy happened? ... because, trust me, I would have remembered something as monumental as having sex with one of the guests."

Almost Jesus: "Or with a passing tramp."

Seamstress: "She's not a slut because she remembers when she had sex."

...that some of the night was a complete blur. She blamed the big blur on the prescription meds. Of course, the fatigue from the business trip hadn't helped, either... She'd felt like a zombie throughout the entire party.

The Pedant: "Medical complication."

"Even with Kitt fast-forwarding the event..."

Big L: "Kit's already seen the good bits."

Rick Gravari.

Almost Jesus: "It's really difficult to say."

Big L: "Just call him Gervais."

Rick had a way of monopolizing space as well... wearing jeans and a white shirt, he appeared to be his usual self. Aloof. Surly.

The Frenchman: "Who wears jeans and white shirts to parties?"

Azrael: "Someone who's aloof and surly."

Her mother had no doubt invited him...

The Pedant: "I know what, I'll invite some twats to your party!"

...but he definitely fell into the unwanted guest category.

Ginger Worm: "There's a whole category of unwanted guests?"

Almost Jesus: "Over there, yet another unwanted guest."

Natalie dismissed her surly, jeans-wearing nemesis...

Big L: "Her surly, jeans-wearing nemesis may well have to go down as a quote."

As the guests idled by the front door, she managed to locate herself.

Big L: "Holy Crap! I found myself!"

She definitely wasn't in the throes of having wild sex.

The Pedant: "We're glad she's that observant."

"Something went wrong with the surveillance equipment at this point... I'm not sure what. But that's not the only camera we had in operation that night. The lighting isn't very good, but here's some footage taken from the hall outside your bedroom."

Pillywiggin: "And when that failed, we have hired a small boy to watch you."

The Pedant: "This is just a PowerPoint presentation she's pre-made."

The hall was indeed poorly lit. And empty.

Ginger Worm: "Plot twist! You were impregnated by an empty room!"

"There's no camera in your bedroom so this is all we have," Kitt explained.

Pillywiggin: "That's what she says now."

She latched onto her Texas A&M coffee mug...

The Pedant: "There's some kind of crockery porn moment..."

The Chronicler: "She is an antiques dealer..."

The Baker: "She's speculating, it'll be valuable by the time she's dead."

Seamstress: "I thought she was drinking tea a moment ago."

The Pedant: "No, it was the other one who was drinking tea."

...took a long drink of the heavily scented espresso, and that's when Natalie noticed that her sister's hand was trembling.

Big L: "Maybe you should stop drinking espresso."

The Baker: "It gives her extra time to watch the surveillance footage of her sister."

Natalie couldn't see the faces of the couple, and without audio, she couldn't tell who was approaching her bedroom door...

Almost Jesus: "What an oversight."

She had absolutely no recollection of being in the hallway that night though she was certainly aware it'd happened. After all, she had woken up in bed the following morning.

Almost Jesus: "That would be a good indication."

The Balance: "Dammit! I wanted to teleport!"

Still, hadn't she had a feeling that something was wrong?

Almost Jesus: "I remember all of my intimate feelings from four weeks ago."

There follows a debate about whether or not one would notice feeling different in the morning after a sexual encounter. That Natalie doesn't feel different at all results in speculation that perhaps there wasn't sex and, in fact, only a syringe was involved.

During the course of this conversation, it is revealed that Almost Jesus knows too much about the Pedant's sex life.

Natalie moved to the edge of her seat, closer to the monitor. And she studied every inch of the screen...

Pillywiggin: "Windows task bar... windows task bar... bottom of image..."

The person walking beside her had his arm looped around her waist... It was definitely a man.

Almost Jesus: "That would help to explain the pregnancy."

A whole turkey-baster problem is brought up again by the Balance.

When she reached the door, she staggered forward and her arm rammed into the wall.

Pillywiggin: "It's almost stop-motion..."

Sweet heaven, she acted drunk.

Almost Jesus: "Sweet heaven! She's acting drunk in her own birthday party."

But she knew for a fact that she'd consumed no alcohol that night.

The Pedant: "Well, I suppose she was on meds."

Big L: "But surprise party. Thrown by her mother."

Almost Jesus: "If I was shattered and attending a surprise party thrown by my mother which my nemesis gatecrashed... I'd definitely want a drink."

The only thing she'd had to drink was a glass of sparkling fruit juice that someone on the catering staff had gotten for her after she arrived home.

Seamstress: "It sounds like a plot point?"

Almost Jesus: "Sparkling fruit juice. Well known for hiding rohypnol."

Kitt froze the image. Not that Natalie needed a second look to know who he was.

Boundless Rage: "She's clearing been fapping to this if she's got this frame perfect."

The man taking her into her bedroom was the one person on earth she considered her enemy. Rick Gravari.

Almost Jesus: "A note for life. If there is only one person on life you hate, is it really that difficult to tell your mother not to invite him to your birthday party?"

Seamstress: "Well, clearly she's one of these experiments, genetically programmed to fuck this other guy. Part of the Arian supremacy program."

To be continued...

The Great Grand List

It's been a little while and I've been neglecting this blog (but then the Club hasn't exactly been having dozens of meetings since the last update), but I was reading Let Them Eat and was having a good rummage around my brain as to why romance novels annoyed me so much and I though I'd have it out once and for all, before the individual nit-picking overtook any sensible discussion of why I'm continuously disappointed in the genre:

1) I want it to show the diversity of love.

I want cultural differences. I want to be shown all the different sorts of relationships build across time and space (and all those fantasy lands). I want to see people conducting relationships in a way different from my own.

But instead, it only shows the same Perfect relationship in all times, in all places, in all settings. Instead of showing me cultural and personal variation, the audience is shown that all cultures and all Perfect Couples conduct their relationship more-or-less the same way and the setting is only wallpaper.

2) I want it to revel in imperfect love.

It's what always warms my heart. A relationship in all its little, bittersweet (but mostly sweet) imperfections. It's the little irritations that make it seem real and solid and human.

But instead, it only shows me more-or-less the same flawless relationship, where the Perfect Couple are simply telepathically perfect in bed, flawlessly work together and never, ever disagree trivially. True Love is shown to be completely effortless. For example, the hero, once he's found the heroine, is incapable of finding anyone (male or female) attractive ever again.

3) I want them to be honest.

The rhetoric around romance novels annoys me. The way the novel is discussed, reviewed, presented. It's the way the novel is presented as an examplar of Perfect Love as opposed to simply an instance of love, however flawed but true. It's not even presented as a fantasy, as something that is decidedly undesirable in reality. Kresley Cole's A Hunger Like No Other begins with what is essentially a rape fantasy. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having one and writing one, but it would be nice if she and the readers showed some self-awareness when it comes to discussing it. Perhaps I'm very used to the rhetoric of "safe, sane and consentual", but the framing of the relationship as desirable, as "true love" and the hero's actions as justified all repel me.

I am quite capable of saying that I like reading about imperfect, functioning but really-fucked-up relationships. Time Traveller's Wife is probably a prime example in which the narrative itself admits how really rather messed up the whole thing is. Though, to be fair, I'm not going to go read any reviews; It'll probably just annoy me.

4) I want the setting to do something more than just prop up and excuse the audience's desires for the same old configurations and the same old prejudices.

I want it to be well thought-out. I want it to not be built around the author's desire to write about a string of Alpha men in a series. And I really don't want to hear the same old about the Importance of Virginity.

Opinions, perceptions and manifestations of love and desire differ throughout the ages. I want to read about it. Really ties back into point-number-one.

But this feeds into a larger point about how work is gendered and the sheer invisibility of women in fantasy fiction doing anything else other than generically rebelling, being housewives or being "ladies." Though that said, this is slowly, slowly changing.

5) It seems to deny that people can have a complex sexuality.

It seems to deny that people can have quite a different sexuality than their regular selves. It seems to deny that nice, quiet people can be dominant in bed (or vice versa). The Hero's extreme Alpha personality is a sign of how dominant he is in bed. Less alpha men are shown to be less sexually capable and less dominant in the bedroom.

Perhaps I'm just rather too aware of how geeky the kinky community can be (being a regular reader of Mistress Matisse and Twisted Monk), but it irks me that as opposed to showing the complexities of human sexuality and how surprising it can be, romance novels are wont to confirm first impressions, as though we all wore our "bedroom face" on our sleeves. Equally, the paired trope in which the sexual self is seen as the True Self is highly problematic.

The Loinfire Club doesn't read... About that Night

About that Night, by Jeanie London

The plan is simple. Julienne Blake will use self-hypnosis until she's discovered the sexy woman inside, then she'll seduce Nick Fairfax during an unforgettable night. And with a tantalizing performance for an audience of one, she does just that. But her sensual plan seems to have worked just a little too well, because Nick is begging for a return engagement.

Nick has never met a woman who could capture his attention so completely as Julienne has. Her risqué moves have him pursuing her all over sultry Savannah just to be alone with her. But he's not a long-term kind of guy, so his desire to extend this passionate affair has him completely baffled. Somehow he has to convince her there's more than that night between them....

 

The Chronicler will get back to the joys of My Fair Viking, no doubt, but first just a brief summary of the horrors of About that Night.

The Chronicler admits the use of the word "horror" is largely unjustified; the book was by and large quite s quite dull. The sex scenes were tepid, the choice of words routine (pebbled, check; turgid, check; suckled, check; use of sex to mean cunt, check) and really, even at less than two hundred pages, the London is distinctly running thin of ideas. The book smacks of the sort of three-year-old naughtiness, back when it's edgy to say "damn" when no one's looking.

But a reader who buys a book marketed containing hot, steamy sex (it is a "Blaze," after all) should really be less easily shocked.

(Or perhaps this all speaks of the youth of today being rubbish. Who knows? But Description Inflation is always a problem that haunts us all...)

London is far too fond of the word "naughty." It comes across as childish, especially from a woman who is three decades in age. Admittedly, that's her theme, but the words "naughty boy" elicits not a the mental image of some unrepentant playboy, it reminds me only of bad governess fantasies and that scene in Child in Time. Really. There is nothing remotely sexy about "naughty boys."

Jules (or Julienne) self-hypnotises. Yes. She repeats uninspiring phrases to herself repeatedly to condition herself to be more "naughty", and the reader has to suffer with her as London threads these phrases in italics throughout the narrative.

Naughty girls feel good about being naughty.

The Anthropologist thought this was a novel about a really sexually repressed woman discovering herself, fighting the expectations of a sexually conservative (probably quite religious, this being set in Savannah, Georgia) society around her. But there is no evidence of this. If anything, the heroine (or the author) has so completely internalised her "nice girl" attitudes that there are not expectations for her to defy and confound besides that of her Uncle Thad (but we'll come to that.) No one even raises an eyebrow over Risqué Theatre, a building allegedly festooned in plaster phallus-wielding cherubs (also an unsexy image, seraphim maybe, but not cherubs. I'm not sure any world of politicians capitalising on the fundamental interest humanity has in sex can really justify government funding for this. Is there no one who thinks its tasteless and pornographic in all of Savannah? In a society so comfortable with its own sexuality, why is Jules so very uptight about hers?

The Chronicler also categorically state here, dear reader, that there is nothing remotely sexy about winged children with erections.)

Where is she getting her "good girl" ideas from? Maybe it's just Uncle Thad and she really has no other friends, thus giving him plenty of space to instil his ideas of womanhood into her. Jules doesn't need to escape the judgement and hypocrisy of the tag "good girl", there simply isn't the chorus of condemnation needed to create that atmosphere. Jules' friends and students and colleges all cheer her on and even the scandal that looms towards the end of the book over her sleeping with Nick is really rather tame. Hardly anyone is scandalised by it; instead the campus coos over how sweet and wonderful it all is. I suppose London has to construct and environment that Jules can later be comfortable in, but it results in creating a heroine with seemingly completely groundless neuroses.

Naughty girls feel naughty.

Jules is, frankly, stupid, when it comes to trying to self-hypnotise herself into self-confidence. For starters, she decides to unleash her inner sex kitten on one man and only man – Nick Fairfax, the man she has stalked for years (technically she's only obsessively read all his articles, books, theses and know about all his projects). This plan is ever so doomed to trample on her poor, poor ego if this book was set anywhere other than RomanceNovelLand. After all, whilst he has a "naughty boy" reputation, he might not be into her type. He might be having a bad night. He might have already made plans. Who knows? But the point is, it opens her up to the very real possibility of rejection and rejection for reasons that have nothing to with her. Hanging all her hopes of self-confidence and self-discovery on Nick flirting back seems unwise, to say the least.

Naughty girls talk the talk.

She is naive to the point of oblivious, especially since she allegedly regularly visits the Risqué (for architectural appreciation, I'll have you know) and has a saucy-speaking stylist. She is ridiculously surprised that phone sex involves masturbation:

"Touch yourself, Jules." [...]

Julienne lost her fragile hold on her growing confidence. Poof. [...] She supposed she should have seen it coming. After all, she was playing naughty with a man who'd honed the concept to a science.

Phone sex really isn't that scandalous. The whole business of Jules running into something and getting entangled deeper than she expected is tedious and rather insulting. I suppose it boils down to "nice girls don't ask for sex", but this never played with in the novel. It really just reinforces the ideas, if anything. "I dress in really provocative clothing and then flirt with a man with a reputation, after a sex show might lead to him trying to get me in bed? I couldn't have guessed." "You mean trying to arouse someone by talking sexy to them on the phone might lead to masturbation? I'm so surprised I get shocked out of my self-hypnosis!"

"I don't see what can be accomplished by making our relationship public? What's the point?"

"To broadcast we like kinky sex."

Dear reader, you misled by the above throwaway line that there is anything other than vanilla sex between the protagonists. There is talk of exploring fantasies about halfway and the Chronicler thought we might dabble in... no, just no. There isn't. London has no idea what she's writing. Maybe she thinks "kinky" means "really hot." The closest they get is the use of a sex swing, which whilst unconventional doesn't qualify as "kinky."

Nick wonders about women-who-you-marry and women-who-you-shag-and-leave. Whilst I'm really not that keen on secret-identity plots this book could actually have benefited from one, because his wondering over the woman is silly when he knows, frankly, both Jules (the naughty girl) and Julienne (the unsexy professor). He knows both of them and sees them work in their capacity, both inside the bedroom and out. 

Most of the self-agonising comes from Jules wondering about how to reconcile the fact that she's now self-hypnotising herself to be with Nick. She thinks that it's a Deception and it makes her an evil woman. Equally she's lying to Uncle Thad as he disapproves of any possible relationship between Nick and herself (EVIL!)... but the argument that self-hypnosis is an external force that obscures the "true self" is somewhat odd. As the Anthropologist pointed out, that makes sentences like this possible: "Oh, I started going to Yoga class and then I met this guy. But he doesn't know the real me, the pre-Yoga me that isn't as calm and flexible. I'm deceiving him!" or the more extreme: "I'm bipolar and I take mood-stabilisers, but I shall never know True Love and no one can possibly know the Real Me that I'm suppressing!"

Incidentally, these neuroses over her own are cured by Nick telling her (talking to her ex, who's the a professor of hypnotherapy) that hypnosis can't make you do anything that isn't "in you" already.

Seriously. It's at the beginning of every book of the subject. A big warning sign to all who think they can use hypnosis to convince a stranger to kill their enemies for them. It's all about giving the control back the patient, not taking it away, accessing inner selves and resources and all that. How can she miss it?

And having sex. Which proves she's actually a passionate woman, deep down. The Anthropologist thinks she's really just a very lazy woman and blames the whole nice/naughty dichotomy for her failure to quite a dull five-year relationship and actually do anything worthwhile with her time.

There are minor wtf?! moments that reminds the reader that this book isn't set anywhere near reality. This is a world that takes active tabloid-sprawling interest in the love lives of its preservation  architects. This is a world where it's unusual for graduate students to be used as a source of cheap labour (seriously, ever spoken to an archaeologist? A biologist?) and instead they hire random, seemingly untrained, locals. This is a world where a radio play called Hush Hush Honeys about an illicit, yet idyllic, love affair is the most popular thing on a student radio station named "Rebel Radio." This is a world where nepotism is perfectly acceptable and normal. This is world where snogging behind the bleachers qualifies as a naughty high school fantasy, where no one complains about students being made to work in a cock-studded theatre (seriously, it's America. Land of Abstinence Education. Surely some interest group will pick up on it.) This is a world without standardised data sheets (yes, this surprises us). This is a world where your professor's uncle can hijack the lecture and tell instead a random unrelated, but cute anecdote about your professor as a child (without anyone complaining that they'd really rather things went back on track. Like really. It might be useful.)

But really, what gets me the most the Great Plot Revelation: the hero and heroine conduct their super secret torrid affair, really rather badly. There is then the radio sensation that is Hush-Hush Honeys, about a pair of illicit lovers named Darling and My Love that seems eerily akin to their affair.

"Damn. That sounds like a guided tour of our weekend. We should check our clothes for surveillance equipment."

Who would go to such efforts to tacitly expose (or threaten exposure) their rather sedate sexual escapades? Is it the desperate debt-worn student who runs Rebel Radio and can benefit from the programme's phenomenal success? Is it Jules' bitter ex who wants to tear apart the couple by threatening exposure and thus shaming the hussy into getting together with him again?

No, it's Uncle Thad. The man who raised Jules himself. His source was listening to their phone conversations which he taped. He didn't just listen to some idle chatter and suggestive weekend plans. He was spying on their phone sex. And he didn't just end up listening to them out of a morbid and masochistic curiosity, a sort of inability to press the stop button when realised what the voice mail accidentally picked up. He listens to all their conversations, repeatedly to write the scripts of Hush Hush Honeys.

And instead of being horrified and saying something along the lines of "I understand you did this because you care. I love you, but I really don't think I can face you right now. And I'm moving out," Jules swiftly reconciled herself (after a brief bout of shame and mortification) with Uncle Thad and is understanding of his motives. He made her fling all about him and his relationship with her (as though everything in her life was about him) and then claims that he's actually letting her go.

His admission filled the ensuing silence with such richness of emotion that Nick had never before seen the like. Jules seemed to melt before his very eyes, her gaze suddenly bright with tears. She lifted trembling fingers to her mouth and blew her uncle a kiss. With a wink, he pretended to catch it in some private game. A charming little girl and her devoted uncle.

The whole confrontation scene is riddled with unintentional creepiness.

...as long as his dating Julienne hadn't harmed her relationship with her uncle...

No, Nick. Your dating Julienne doesn't and shouldn't harm her relationship with her uncle. His listening to the two of you having phone sex repeatedly, however, is a different matter altogether.

I can't really explain as well as Uncle Thad himself why he did it:

"I didn't write the serial to throw you to the wolves. I wrote it because I couldn't see another way of getting you both to wise up. You seemed quite content to treat your relationship with very little respect, like you were conducting some sort of sordid affair. I hoped if other people vied it with an equal lack of respect you might just come your senses."

And at the end of the day, the book doesn't celebrate "naughtiness," all it does is tell us what we all know already. Good little heroines are allowed to have good sex with the hero, but they must buckle down, get serious and get married at the end of the day. And it's not an affair coming maturity (forgetting to end, even) so much as showing how very damaging the assumption of no-strings-sex can be and that a Conscious Decision must be made before a relationship can be truly considered "serious."

 

Afterthought: Why is it that heroines are almost inevitably in the careers of their fathers/mothers/uncles? There's a creepy little bonding moment between Nick and Uncle Thad as Nick tells him that he'd always admired and been inspired by the veritable Titan of preservation  architecture that was Uncle Thad, even from a young age. And Uncle Thad confesses that he greatly admired Nick even though he disapprove of his personal life. Now, Uncle Thad alo has a protégé in Jules, who admires and is inspired by Nick... There is something to be said for male bonding through an exchange of women.

Not to mention he plans her future life and job with Uncle Thad before he consults her about it.

"As much as I enjoy our sexy phone conversations, I want to be with you, which is why I spent the afternoon talking to your uncle about a solution."

Unsure whether to smile or cringe when she imagined Nick and Uncle Thad with their heads together over a drafting table, Julienne braced herself for the worst.

Seriously, if you're searching for a solution as to how to best avoid a long distance relationship with the woman you love, shouldn't you talk to her instead of anyone else? Even if he is her respected and revered uncle who spies on your phone sex?