smuttastic.

When I write about books, they're usually of the high-brow "literature" type, the ones that get reviewed by the New Yorker, not the ones you find next to the magazines in CVS. But I am here to admit freely and of my own will that there ain't nothing wrong with a little drugstore smut.

When it comes to my smut books, I love me some Sandra Brown and Nora Roberts. Those two authors really know how to use the formula of a romance novel* over and over again in a variety of different situations . . . and actually make you feel as if each book was different. Even though it's not! My favorite Sandra Brown books are A Kiss Remembered, about a woman falling in love with her old high school teacher (hott!), and Eloquent Silence, about a teacher to the deaf falling in love with a movie star who has a deaf daughter. But Sandra Brown also writes about people as varied as ballerinas, construction workers, and astronauts, which is why I totally heart Sandra Brown. Hands down, without a doubt, my favorite Nora Roberts book (and perhaps my favorite romance novel of all time) is Lawless, which is about a sexy part-Native American man falling in love with a prim settler woman in the wild, wild west. I've probably read Lawless from cover to cover, in a single sitting, about ten times.

Danielle Steele, though, cannot write for shit. Her books are bad. Plot is tired, conversation is trite, the writing is riddled with cliche and overextended metaphor, and the sex isn't even that good. I mean, c'mon.

Generally, I like non-fantasy romance novels . . . you know, man and woman fall in love. But lately--thanks, I might add, to my wife, who also loves romance novels--I've been seeing the supernatural light. I got completely sucked into the Drake Sisters series from Christine Feehan, of which book six of the series, Turbulent Sea, is to be published this summer. Here, on her website, you can read the first chapter of book six as a sample. The Drake Sisters are all unworldly and unfairly beautiful with neato magical powers (kind of like Charmed, the TV show, they are good witches), and their men are all strapping and capable and handy with a gun. The sixth sister, Joley, is set to fall in love with a man who is not only capable, strapping, and handy with a gun but who also possesses unnatural powers. Those sex scenes are going to downright magical, if you'll forgive the weak pun.

The book that's been keeping me up the last few nights, though, is particularly unbelievable. I did not have high hopes from the cover: a tall, dark, handsome, and muscular man glowering at the reader and squaring his shoulders to protect a beautiful, feminine woman standing behind him and gazing with adoration; a full but fogged moon in the top right corner, and under it, what else but a wolf, howling; and the silvery, italicized words "The Lure of the Wolf." The summary on the back of the book did not raise my hopes much either:

"Mighty warriors sworn to protect humanity, the shape-shifters known as The Shadowmen move between two worlds. Now their dark leader has exiled himself from the spirit world, opening the door to the forces of chaos . . . and to the power of love.

Half wolf, half man, Aragon has abandoned his brethren to repay a debt of honor; he is sworn to kill a rogue Blood Hunter, though exacting revenge will doom him to a ghostly existence trapped between two worlds. But when a mortal woman unexpectedly calls him to her side, the heat of her soft flesh arouses a hunger in him that threatens to complicate his mission.

Dr. Annette Batista, a dedicated healer, is determined to find her missing sister. With the amulet found at the site of her sister's disappearance, she unwittingly summons a shadowy warrior. She wonders if she can trust this powerful male named Aragon, who claims he can vanquish her sister's captor--the very monster he's vowed to destroy. Or is Annette blinded by her shocking passion for the most alluring, mysterious man she's ever seen?"

I read that and thought, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA. And then that damn book kept me up till 4am the last two nights. Turns out that werewolves are pretty hot, and across the board, as a clan, pretty good in bed. Also, there was plenty of other action in the book: goblins, demons, mortals, mortals with Elan blood, vampires, and a renown hospital for cancer research serving as a cover for a vampire buffet-style blood-bank. SWEET.

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* Generally, the formula of a romance novel may be boiled down to the following: Man and woman meet. Hate each other instantly. But also want to jump each other's bones. For one reason or another, they are forced into each other's company on a regular basis. Eventually, they see a few redeeming qualities about each other and jump in the sack. They jump in the sack over and again that evening, but the very next day something goes horribly wrong. The man or woman learns something about the other that leaves them feeling completely betrayed. They hate each other again. Except that their hearts and loins still burn. Then, whatever had gone wrong is resolved, they both apologize profusely, and they make love, again and over again. In the final chapter, they are almost always married and the woman is pregnant. And they're still having hot sex.