I'm not a romance-novel-reading kind of guy. I think of romance novels as trashy stuff without any believability. I seem to recall, years ago, reading that the Harlequin series of romance novels had been restarted, made less overblown, less Oh Heathcliff! -- but I never considered reading one.
Nevertheless, I am currently reading one, and, to my surprise, I'm enjoying it. The novel is Foreign Tongue, by Vanina Marscot. I'm only into the first fifteen or so pages -- it's not a long book, either -- but so far, I'm finding that it lives up to the blurb on its author's website -- 'a brainy, sexy romantic comedy of letters'. I'm not a good judge of what one of those is supposed to be like, but this would be a good template. It's about a smart woman of dual US-French citizenship who bolts from Los Angeles to Paris to evade a failed love affair (I know: right? What the hell am I doing reading this when I could be perusing, oh, Revenge of the Teen Age Sex Vixens -- you know, the classics), and what happens to her while there. As I say, so far, it's not bad. I have no idea what Paris is actually like, but this makes it sound pretty appealing. And funny.
Oh, and as to why I'm reading it? They caught me with the cover blurb -- a portion of the book's dialogue is in French. And you know how I'm trying to absorb French from any possible direction. (Apparently, I'm not the only one: the library, both our small one and the larger one in the next borough over are just about tapped out on French language books.)
So that's why. It's not because I thought I might enjoy it. Perish the thought.
Although, as it happens, I am.
2 comments:
Funny that you bring this up. I don't read romance novels because of the stigma but, I wondered if there were good ones out there. I was in a used bookstore the other day where they had hundreds of romance novels but I didn't want to search through giant stacks. Might have to pick this one up if it is good.
I don't know where its going -- I really hope the author doesn't reunite the heroine with the jerk who suddenly realizes that his life of success and fame is a shallow mockery without the woman he loved -- but its interesting. I know, I KNOW, Paris isn't that great -- but still... reading the occasional French word, seeing what I can crack without the dictionary, is fun.
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