The inconsistent, contradictory ramblings of Scarlett the Harlot

“She’s wounded, man. You can’t show her the killer face and expect her to trust you.”
Micah turned to look at him now. “The killer face?” he asked evenly.
“Yeah, that icy Mossad façade you’re wearing right now,” he growled.

(Emphasis mine)

First of all--Mossad facade. Seriously?! That's supposed to be serious?! 

Second, could you say that line in all seriousness? And whilst growling? I thought not.

Example Two: When the characters are making the luuuuvs the main female character is always screaming. The main male character is always growling. That is some serious fuckage. Can't they break it up a bit? Maybe some whimpering, moaning, cries of ecstasy next time? Now don't get me wrong, I know women can scream during sex (I watch porn) and I've even engaged in a few vocal emmissions myself, but honestly if I screamed all the damn time I'd start to seriously reconsider what was going on with the sex. Because...yeah. I have neighbors who like to sleep through the night uninterrupted, just sayin'.

Example Tre: There are PLENTY of euphemisms for the penis. Likewise the vagina. However, Lora Leigh seems to be under the impresison that the only ones that work are "cock" and "dripping wet pussy". These words are serviceable, but after reading the same descriptor eight times in one paragraph I start to want to mix it up a little bit. "Dick", say, or "Alabama kingsnake" even, or hey, I'll even settle for the funniest euphemism in the history of euphemisms "horn of power"--I shit not, gentle reader. 

9. Abandon all hope, all ye who expect fluid exposition.

There were numerous times in this book (during the sex scenes) where I had to stop reading to figure out exactly what they were doing. I mean, I knew what the author said they were doing, but it was unclear as to what position they were doing it in. Or, how they got from the door to the bed because the book never farking SAID. No joke, one scene in particular I practically had to draw myself a diagram to figure out what was going on and even then I was a little confused.

If your readers start wondering if you've ever actually had sex when you're writing teh seks, you've got a problem, lady. Also, I'll thank you to quit making references to anal. If your main characters ain't gonna do it, then quit making it sound like the best way to show everlasting love is with butt seks. It's cool and it's fun for all involved but nobody likes a cock tease.

8. Know your fucking characters. 

If you say your character's background is Mossad, fine, he's Mossad. Who am I to quibble, I'm not writing the book. HOWEVER I suggest you do a little research into Mossad as an organization other than an episode or two of NCIS (not that I don't love that show--marry me, Mark Harmon!) and the understanding that Mossad agents are "the best agents in the world" and "tough as nails". Yeah. They're tough. They're taught to withstand a lot of shit. It's an awesome intelligence agency (all of which I gleaned from watching NCIS, fuck off) but there's more to it than that I'm sure. Actually I can tell just by skimming the wikipedia entry.

And for God's sake if you're going to set up the plot so that the Elite Ops team can't marry or have relationships or whatever, then the least you could do is keep it fucking consistant and refrain from having EVERY CHARACTER CLOSELY ASSOCIATED with the Elite Ops team married to The Best Woman Alive Who Isn't the Main Character. It gets confusing. Especially when you don't differienciate between those characters and your so called Elite Ops characters. I don't know who's who. But I know somebody can't be with somebody else even though half the main characters are married but there's no problem there. Contrived conflict isn't cool, yo, it's just contrived you jive turkey.

7. BELIEVABILITY IS KEY

I cannot stress this enough. Apparently Maverick is the last in a series. I didn't know this when I bought the book. And that's fine. But in order to establish plot, the writer did NOT need to have every starring character in all the other books show up at the club on the night that the two main characters were to come together like Peter Pan and his motherfucking shadow. It made no sense. Why was everyone conveniently in one location? Was it part of the Op? If it was then why the fuck were they putting their wives in danger? Why are the wives bestest buddies with the main female character? This last was never really explained well enough for me. Apparently the Elite Ops guys rescued the main squeeze (twice?) and they took pity on her six years ago and ever since have been encouraging her to hang out with teh womenz for...why exactly? We never know.

And when you're writing two villians for GOD SAKE make them easily distinguishable. In the first chapter we're introduced to Orion (dumbest villian name ever) who's a contract killer/CIA Agent who killed Maverick's mother six years ago (convenient time frame, ain't it). Well now he's out to kill the Main Squeeze (Risa) because his Employer (Villian #2) wants her dead. Okay, everything's hunky dory. Only when the Elite Ops guys start talking about Orion, his elusive Employer, and Risa the Main Squeeze and how they all relate it gets really confuzzeled and I spent about three quarters of the book trying to figure out if it was Orion that fucked Risa up or his Employer and who Risa was having nightmares about.

Which brings us to--

6. Rape as a plot device = Not Fucking Cool

I understand that rape happens. I understand that it happens so often it's used as a political tool. I believe that to exclude it from all media, movies, books, talk shows, etc is to deny it's existence and lull the general public into a weird limbo where it exists but it doesn't exist. In short, I acknowledge that because it exists in life, it must also exist in art.

However, I take supreme issue with anyone--and I mean anyone-- who uses rape simply as a plot device. That is- they throw it out there as something that happens, or something that is integral to a character's makeup, and then does nothing with it.

Risa the Main Squeeze was raped before she was a Main Squeeze. According to our author she was brutalized in the worst possible ways. And she consistently brings it up, has Risa have night mares, makes Risa have all the trauma symptoms, etc. But somehow all her trauma disappears when her Tru Wuv walks in the room. It's like there's a switch in her head so she goes from "God, I'll never be able to get that awful moment out of my head, he shoved me face down and ripped into my body while my dad laughed" to "wow you're gorgeous, let's do anal and I'll cry out in passionate ecstasy."

I have a serious problem with that.

5. Do not make your Main Character to much of a hero, sugar tits.

I get the romance novel trope that all heros are over the top. They're Fabio and Rhett Butler and John Wayne and Mark Wahlberg all rolled into one neat package. Oh, and their package is packed. But a hero can be too much. This one feeds directly into my "know your characters" gripe.

Take our Ex-Mossad Main Character, Micah. He's a badass ex-Mossad agent. He's a member of a Very Very Special Elite Ops Unit. He's gorgeous. Of course he's gorgeous, he's the lead in a romance novel, duh. He takes one look at the Main Squeeze and realizes he cannot live without her (which he fights because he's all macho--much as it pains him), just the thought of her makes him hard and aching, he cannot be in the room with her without touching her, he likes to antagonize her because even though she's had a troubled background he knows her shrink is wrong and she's not a wilting flower at all--she just needs someone to throw her against a wall and force her to face her demons, no really that's all true. It IS!

And while we're on the subject, how can a guy be Rock Hard all the time? Isn't that a sign of a serious illness? I mean, the viagra commericals say if an erection lasts more than four hours to seek medical attention. So, if he like, spends the night his dick'll go gangrenous? Seriously, I have to know!

Also, if you're going to be that much of a hard core badass you can't fucking cry. Sure, it's sensitive and shit, but you're not sensitive, you're a hardcore bad ass. You're heart can swell at your girlfriend's bravery all you want it to, you can run your fingers through her hair and marvel at her self control and strength and blabbity blah, but for Christ's sake keep it to yourself. That kind of emo nonsense is out of your realm. And it's most assuredly NOT going to be the reason why you choose to CRY in her PRESENCE. That's like rule number one in the Badass Hero Handbook (just above "wear tight jeans and carry a gun"): Thou shalt not fucking cry unless your main squeeze is fucking dead and you weren't there because you were raising cain three states away with your gun that you keep tucked in your tight jeans because it makes your previously breathing Main Squeeze all hot and bothered.

4. Don't make your heroine so much of a fucking victim that her coming together (biblically) with the Hero is out of the realm of the conceivable.

For serious, folks. Lora Leigh pulled out every possible bad thing that could have ever possibly happened to Miss Risa (with the exception MAYBE of her dog dying in front of her). Risa's mom died when she was ten. Her father was a monster who married a bitch who absconded with her mother's shit when her father was killed. Risa's father used her as a guinea pig in a very dangerous drug experiment that was basically a daterape drug that made the victim sexualy aroused and didn't leave your system fully until years after the fact so every time the victim was aroused it was made exponentially stronger because of the drug. Her father was emotionally abusive before he did the previous. He paid tohave her and two of her friends kidnapped for these experiments. He had her raped in front of him and he told her he had to pay the guy to do it because she was so ugly. He convinced her she was ugly. He had her shipped off to an asylum after she was rescued where he continued to perform illegal experiements on her. Now that her daddy's dead, the doctor who worked with him has taken out a contract on her life because she's starting to remember who he is and she's a liability. She hasn't had a date, or wanted to, since the incident six years ago but she suddenly decides to take her life back and start fucking something.

Everyone in the book comments on how she's not very pretty. Bordering on plain. The hitman, her father, and the good doctor, her friends, Micah the throbbing Hero, and Risa herself all talk at length about how ugly she is.

But our Hero is so aroused by her very presence that just the thought of her makes him have to readjust his shorts.

What. The. Fuck.

You can't have it both ways. Either the heroine is attractive or she's not. If she's not then why is the hero initially attracted to her at all? Because if you've never met a person your first attraction is always sexual. And talking about romance fiction as escapism for a second, what reader wants to read about a heroine that's not pretty? Especially when the heroine herself hides behind that ideology.

Then there's all the other stuff. Risa is supremely fucked up. She can't work outside her home. She rarely leaves her house unless she has to. She's fucking traumatized. But suddenly she's agreeing to play bait to catch the guy who's being paid by the guy who originally brutalized her and has her so scared she can't even meet a person's gaze head on? 

But she's totally willing to fuck the life out of Mister Mossad because there's just this attraction. This is what I was talking about, about the bad fanfiction. I was waiting to find out Risa was a cutter.

3. Don't make your villains a Chinese menu of crazy.

Orion (stupidest name ever--I had to say that a second time) is apparently a freak. He's not just an elite assasin/ CIA Agent, he's also a sadistic fuck who enjoys recreated his mother's suicide in his female victims killings and jacking off in their faces while they die. We learn this in the Prologue.

And the Employer is also a creep who likes little girls and runs "scientific experiments' that would have made a Nazi Concentration Camp doctor blush and go "ew, sick man!" 

Seriously, when your characters have so much going on that each individual detail is fighting for screen time, it's time to get rid of some stuff. Why not make the Employer the sadistic fuck and Orion the cold, calculating killer/CIA Agent you know he should be? Because apparently Orion also likes experiments and young girls.

2. Dangling plot bits.

If something is important enough to be in the fucking book, it's important enough to fuel the plot.

Risa is almost kidnapped, Risa scratches the shit out of Orion. The Ops team gets DNA. Only we never hear about it again.

The doorman to Risa's building is an important enough secondary character to be named and to be a benign older gent. I kept expecting him to be a villian. But was he? No. Because Lora Leigh had to contrive a way to throw the real villians at Risa in the last three chapters that only makes sense if you're okay with the group reunion from Chapter One.

The key to the case ends up being close to Micah. She's questioned by Micah (because he's all Mossad and their questioning techniques are legendary, remember) but he treats her like he's Johnny Carson and she's some random celebrity he has to drool over. The fuck. And then she disappears and we never hear from her again.

It's innuended that Micah might possibly get drunk and screw because he misses his Tru Wuv (you know, Risa) but that never fucking goes anywhere either.

In the author's note at the beginning of the book, Lora Leigh makes a point to talk about how much research she did into Micah's character and how much respect she now has for Judiasm, Hebrew, Israel, and Israelis in general. But then she never mentions Judiasm again accept to make a Magen David important, she uses the CHEESIEST Hebrew phrases in the history of the printed word, the only thing she knows about Israel is that it's got a desert (it's actually a quite diverse country--it's even got forests, dude, and cities that aren't Jerusalem and Tel Aviv) and she implies that Micah is indicative of Israelis everywhere when in fact he's like a bland cliff notes facsimile--like The Osmond family is the poster family for Mormonism.

1. Cliches, cliches, cliches.

Sure, romance novels are rife with them. But avoid them at all costs. Things like breaking a mirror because one is SO OVERCOME with GRIEF, for example.

Or giving your super-top-secret miltary bugaboos the absolute DUMBEST nicknames ever. Maverick. Black Jack. Live Wire. Hell Raiser. Wild Card. Heat Seeker

Likewise giving your CHARACTERS the dumbest names ever. Raven. Kell (that's a guy). Reno. Morganna (only works in middle ages/fantasy). Kira. Clive. Heinrick. ORION. 

I'll grant you, on their own none of those names are particularly horrendous ('cept maybe Raven) but combined with the dumb nicknames and the rest of the piece it's just so over-the-top it's to be unbelievable.

When Micah is ripped away from Risa (as we knew he would be--the hero is ALWAYS pulled away from his love, momentarily) Lora Leigh pulls the ultimate fucking duh in plot twists to make it more poignant. And of course when the book ends it's supposed to make the happy ending that much more happier.

Only it doesn't. Why? Because cliches are annoying because they're over done. The mark of a good writer is a writer than can write a decent piece without having to rely on tired bullshit to jerk her audience around by their dripping tear ducts. Or whatever other dripping things they happen to have.