First, before I get into what this post is about, I want to make a Public Service Announcement. Grimspace releases in six days (officially), although it’s already out in some stores. There are a number of sites running promos, doing interviews with me, and/or giving away copies of the book. Lauren Dane, Carrie Lofty, and May, are all giving away free loot, so you’ll want to check that out. Look at my Appearances page to see where else you can find more goodness.
Moving on. Today, I’m starting a post series, which will stretch over a number of weeks. See, I got to feeling nostalgic about some of the authors I used to love when I was pretty dang young. In college, years after they came out, I glommed Kay Hooper and Fayrene Preston Loveswept novels like they were crack.
So I hunted up an online used bookstore and ordered a batch of old Fayrene Preston titles. I was curious how their awesomeness would stand up to my fond memories of them — and how an old school romance would compare to the ones we have coming out today. What would’ve changed? Would an alpha from ‘88 be different than an alpha in 2008?
Well, that’s what I’ll be talking about today.
First, let’s take a look at the cover art. (My husband was kind enough to scan the book for me. Thanks, honey!)
We have a classic clinch. Long “Dynasty” hair on the heroine; the dress looks 80s to me, especially the fabric. I think I had something like that for Homecoming in high school! Hero man has wickedly feathered hair, and he looks terribly serious about planting one on the heroine, who may have fainted at the idea of his tongue.
Great title, though. It directly references the color of the hero’s eyes.
In terms of art style, though, it’s not as dated as some covers I’ve seen. In fact, it immediately brings to mind this more modern cover; the couple has just been updated a bit.
In the Kresley Cole cover, we get grunge hair on the hero as opposed to super-feathered coif. The woman is wearing a backless dress instead of an itchy 80’s lace and lamé creation.
Interestingly enough, I do recall the gold dress on the cover from a scene in the book. So props to the Loveswept art department for paying attention to detail.
Enough about the the external, though, right? Let’s get to the meat of the book! Sapphire Lightning had a particularly unreal air, as compared to modern category romances (except possibly the Presents line, but I don’t read many of those). I think category romances today try to keep things more accessible to the everyday woman, more relatable as opposed to pure escapism.
In Sapphire Lightning, the hero is the CEO of a huge corporation, and he’s filthy rich. He comes from a prominent family, and his bitchy old grandmother is the social arbiter of all things upper-crust in the town where they live. Sounds like a Presents plot waiting to happen, right? Now all we need is a feisty, impoverished single mother to turn his world on its ear.
Well, we get a heroine who is a mother, yes. But she’s not single. She was married to his cousin, who hated his stiff and proper relatives in the States, so he ran away to Ibiza to learn to be an artist, where he met the heroine and married her. Yes, that’s the twist. She’s not poor or feisty. Her father is a renowned artist. Her husband (who died like a rock star in a plane crash) studied with dear old Dad. Her mother is a Pulitzer prize winner novelist.
The heroine herself is accomplished in every possible regard: so perfect, graceful, funny, witty, a tender, loving mother… and she’s also a famous artist in her own regard, but nobody knows her true identity because she wanted to make it on her own, not trading off the reputation of her parents. Naturally, the hero cannot help but be overwhelmed, for he has never been confronted with such a feminine paragon before.
The plot is quite delightfully over the top. Nobody in this backward little town seems to have a clue how they got on before Toni showed up to teach them the error of their ways. She makes people’s lives better just by coming into a room and smiling with her glorious topaz eyes. She organizes a carnival for impoverished and/or sick kids instead of the stuffy old ball they’ve always had before. The ladies of the town social club come to her house and she gets them drunk, so their husbands come to pick them up and everyone is happy because they all have drunken sex and the tight-hipped bitchy women are suddenly easy-going and satisfied. Thank god for liquor!
Toni only came to town to sell off her husband’s house and then she intends to head back to sun-drenched Ibiza to rear their son. The baby is more like a doorstop than an actual child; he serves to show how awesome and selfless Toni is. She’s never tired or irritable or covered in spit.
For his part, Linc makes up his mind to have Toni in a stalker-style way. He sees her on the beach and WHAM. This formerly iron-willed, self-controlled CEO is a yammering fool with sweaty palms and a stiffie that won’t quit. Since he knows everyone in the small town, he calls the realtor Toni has asked to sell her house (Linc has slept with the realtor!) and he bribes her not to list or show the house. That high-handed move immediately put my back up.
But after a while, Toni’s attraction to Linc makes her rethink selling the house. So she calls the realtor and asks her not to show the house, proving our alpha did, indeed, know the little woman better than she knew herself. I sighed.
Toni’s interactions with the hero are delightfully hilarious. I have no doubt that at 16, I would’ve found this book the height of yumminess, but now, many years later, I find it has a high cheese factor as well, all the absurd delight of a soap opera. See, the hero and heroine (Linc and Toni) go back and forth like so:
“I’ve wanted you from the first moment I saw you. Your grace, your charm, your feminine mystique. I must have you!” (Hard punishing kiss)
“No, no, no, no, no! My husband hated you! I was a bad wife to him, and I didn’t love him as I should but I’ll be a good widow, I swear. I cannot make the beast with two backs with the one man he–mmf. Mmmmmm…” (oooh, swoon! Lightning bolts in my girlie parts…)
Then there was some silly melodrama about how Linc had supposedly burned down the shed where her dead husband used to paint in secret. Kyle, the dead husband, was making a portrait of the bitchy old grandmother to win her love, but Linc spoiled all of that. Toni found a letter written by Kyle in his old papers and she couldn’t believe she had gotten down with a man who could do such a cruel thing, so she started avoiding Linc, which broke his sensitive alpha heart.
Later, Toni’s house catches on fire during the carnival (not sure why because they were up on top of a Ferris Wheel, nearly having sex), and Linc runs in to save her artwork because “nothing beautiful should ever be destroyed” and she’s like, “ZOMG, he couldn’t have burned Kyle’s paintings! He values art and beauty! He would never do that! OHNOES, what have I done?! He’ll never forgive me.”
Which I thought was sort of backward thinking. I mean, if Linc really hated Kyle, maybe he wouldn’t give a shit about his paintings. Or maybe Linc was just trying to impress the chick he wanted to keep boning until they were old and gray? So she goes to Linc and tells him about her epiphany, and he’s like, “Hmf, it’s too little, too late!” And stalks off, despite the fact he had been Hoovering her hooters up on a Ferris Wheel ten minutes before.
Anyway, it turns out that the bitchy old grandma burned down the shed because she was mad Kyle wouldn’t go to business school, and she thought if she destroyed his work, he’d get over his artsy fartsy phase.
A lot of stuff didn’t add up or make sense, but it was a fun book in a totally “Dynasty” way. They finally got together when she groveled for doubting him and proposed marriage, after turning him down numerous times. Would I say it holds up to modern romance novels? Probably not. But it was a fun trip to the past nonetheless.
What about you guys? What old favorites have you re-read that made you go, I liked this?!
In 
I’ve been busy this week. I finished the proposal for Jax books three and four. I was writing book three, Doubleblind, until my editor slid revisions for Corine Solomon #1 my way. I hope to have a title for that soon!
