But here you go - Ma'afan - my beloved cuddle camel and the two snore-fest items:
Both CAPTIVE OF THE HAREM by Anne Herries and FLIGHT FROM THE HAREM bby Janet Edmonton where absolutely and in every way WELL RESEARCHED.
I wish they weren't.
GUYZZZZZZZ! If I want to know the history of Tangier and the Ottoman Empire I have SHELVES of history book... obsession with Islamic history OK? LOVE Islamic History. ADMIRE Islamic history... and also - Islam in itself (although I am not converting any time soon OK? My Jewish Juices are too ... juicy...still - Islam is BEAUTIFUL and INSPIRING!) so... please take it and weave a FANTASY. Give me sizzling romance and IMPOSSIBLE situation. Silly conflicts and WTF-erry galore...
none found in these books...
MEH!
And now to tales of camels and constipation - I KNOW YOU ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS!!!
So anyway - there I was this Tuesday sitting at my therapist struggling to breath begging for life to give me a break and making NO PROGRESS WHATSOEVER with my CBT and OCD management. I have seen my doctor a day before and she reccomended I would start taking double the dose of SNRI... she also gave me a SMALL amounts of those which means, for those of you who never been on anti-depressants - that she is not risking me taking too many on purpose. NOT a good sign.
On my way to the bus I pass a charity shop and there on a mouldy bed and amongs mangy teddybears sit this glorious smily camel. I run in and buy him posthaste. The old lady behind the counter doesn't have a bag big enough so off I go with it dangling under my arm all fluff and smooshiness. People stop and stare. Little children strike conversation with it. The sun is shining.
I am getting off the bus at Glastonbury Boots to hand over my prescription to New Unexciting Pharmacist. Now Sexy Alchemist has broken my heart and the hearts of Pretty Young Blond Assistant(Which Raphael wants for a wife)and the Other Pretty Blond , now looking at me in shock as I stride in with a HUGE CAMEL, things are not very... well... sexy anymore...
We stand and chat about camels and Israel and bedouines and all manner of sandy subjects and I go home.
I expect a night of puking due to double the dose of meds, but it is all pretty uneventful, blissfully, appart from the fact that my metabolism slows down even more and I don't go to the loo for a number two that day (for a twice a day girl this is uncomfortable).
The next day I am still constipated despite drinking warm water in the morning and eating loads of prunes. The Blond Pharmacy Assistant sees me on the way from Raphael's school and asks me why I am not riding a camel.
HAHAH! I AM MAKING FRIENDS!!! XD
The next day ... still no poop. I am VERY uncomfortable now, bloated, and my hemheroids are protesting when I ... errr... do my best. I give up.
I am a vain, self concious creature - I do NOT relish the thought of going to the pharmacy and asking for something to help me poop. I call my doctor for help. She tells me in kind terms that I should get over myself and ask for over the counter relief.
HEY- how bad could it be? Surely I am not the first constipated lady to ask for such thing and besides - at least Sexy Alchemist is not there anymore right?
YAY!
Off I go trembling bravely in my Friday Best Suit. At least LOOKING swish I say!
I walk in and only the two pretty blonds are there . No pharmacist, no customers. Perfect...
I creep closer nervously and whisper: "I am really constipated. HELP ME!"
Young Pretty Blond smiles and goes: "Don't worry, let me just ask the pharmacist for advice." and then she goes:
I SWEAR TO ALL GODS AND GODDESSESS IN HEAVEN AND EARTH... AND MY ARSE!!!
"FERNANDOOOOO???"
I die!
No, really - I DIE!
And by DIE I mean I take a fucking SWANDIVE beneath the counter and I glare at her angrily going: "You told me he was gone.... FOREVER!!!"
And she shrugs: "apparently he came back. We are not sure how."
In those words: THEY ARE NOT SURE HOW!!!
From the consultation room comes his angry Spanish ... OH SO SEXY voice: "What is it??" (Oh yeah - he is Spanish you see? I kinda... accused him of being a drunk Russian once... which is possibly why my plan to have hot monkey sex with him are never going to come to fruition... that and cowering under the counter being totally OBVIOUS as well... meep! ;_;)
Anyway, Pretty Young Blond goes: "ZEHAVIT is here to ask YOU about Laxatives".
So we are all on first name terms now, YEEPEE! I don't even know their names by HEY... this must mean they don't hate my guts... right?
In he struts all burgundy v neck jumper and camel tweed HOOOOOOOOOT and looks at me, now in REAL TEARS still crouching on the floor and dryly... and sexily declares: "SUPPOSITORY!"
I uncoil like someone shoved a broomstick up my arse... which is also how I feel actually... and protest: "NO WAY AM I SHOVING MY FINGER UP THERE!"
.......
CLASSY!
He is unphased. Not a good sign when people don't even react when your mouth works faster than your brain, and calmly ... AND SEXILY... he explains...
"It comes with an extention so you don't actually have to..." and he raises his finger ...
I flail at this point going: "nonononononoNO!"
And the Pretty Blond goes: "I gather Zehavit isn't too kin on the idea."
Yes, I think, And why are we all staning here discussing MY ARSE HOLE - goddess... what have I done to deserve this.
He sighs and suggest something liquid and turns back to his work and I pay and RUN AWAY LIKE SOMEONE LIT MY ARSE ON FIRE!!!
And that is yet another sad story of why my infatuation with the hottest man alive is never going to come to fruition... and I don't know if to be happy I have a lust subject again or sad because I just walked into another wall infront of him ...
Not that this one sided love wasn't already doomed in advance...
Meep ;_;.
Or could this be that love is stronger than formaldehyde and the same couple has been preserved by it ... like a pair of pickled sharks... from Regency times to modern day... wearing the same clothes... or more likely lack of clothes as befits Sheikh Swarthy and his choice blond of the day (or century).
Anyway - two different ladies in the very same gown for you today - both rather delectable, cooked in enjoyable yarn with WTF souce JUST THE WAY I LIKE IT ^_^v.
THE GOVERNESS AND THE SHEIKH by Marguerite Kaye
A regency tale of sands and smex in an imaginary Sheikhdome in the days before oil when the wealth of Arabia came from diamonds and English Slave girls... only this time there is no slave girl in it *SHOCK HORROR* It turned out Sheikhs can get their blonds from places other than the slave markets of Algeirs... waddayaknow...
This one comes swimming to Prince Jamil on the waves of scandal. She was left at the altar buy her limpid waste of space poet who ran off after some other heiress leaving pages of dreadful poetry in his wake. Her name is Cassandra or Cassie for short and she is shamed and broken hearted with delicious curves, blond tresses and a head filled with Byron and Shelly... FABULOUS! I love her to bits - she keeps flying into over the top melodramas whilst everyone stand around her rolling their eyes whilst she flapps... I love Heroines like that - SHE IS ADORABLE...
Also she is totes horny pants and I love THAT in a heroine too - blesssss <3
Jamil is the archetypal dark brooding and too busy with state affairs. He married once for duty, produced a headstrong girl, now 9 or so and then his wife died. Now he left it to his ministers to arrange another state convenient match whilst ignoring his beastly nightmare of a tantrumy daughter. After the girl more or less smashes half of the palace in a fit of attention seeking scaring yet another nanny away he decides to call his friend from across the sandy border for help.
His friend is also a Sheikh and he is married to a blond English woman as all sheikhs in the known world has done since the dawn of M&B time. She happened to have a sister - Cassandra - who is desperate to leave her shame and her father (who is intent to marrying her to some crusty nobleman of much money and crust) behind. This apparently qualifies her for putting spoiled brats in their place.
So there she is, awaiting the Sheikh arrival in a tent in the middle of the desert all hot and flustered. So she strips down to her flimsy undergarments and falls asleep on a divan... where prince Jamil finds her after riding on a rare white camel. He decided she must be fat and ugly to qualify for the post and is rather put out to find this hot piece of sexiness sprawled over the lush silk cushions all curves and flowing golden hair...
And by PUT OUT we mean he starts fondling her in front of a mirror the minute she opens her eyes until she clings to him gagging for it because he is hot and his lips are swarthy and he is sex reincarnate in opulent robes. And then he goes: "NO! You cannot be a governess for you are too sexy and I can't rule my wealthy sand dune with a perpetual boner." And she goes: "WAIT! You are the one who pounced me... I promise I will behave..." and she spews some Byron verse at him and so he is willing to give her one month to fix his daughter.
And so she sets to it. Her methods are deeply rooted in the old tradition of SCHMALTZ and PENNY PSYCHOLOGY that narrows down to: "Your daughter only seeks your love. You must go riding with her every day."
Which he agrees to do mostly because the curves of Cassie lure him into it. He has a sort of dude that serves has his aide and is mostly there to provide and outside view point by shaking his head every time Jamil gets all hot and flustered and spends too much time with her.
The daughter of course shows a great improvement so he has to keep Cassie as promised.
At some point Cassie discovered a forbidden wing of the palace which turned out to be Jamil's childhood quarters where his dad used to whip him regularly to teach him that life is hard and full of pain and he must endure it. Naturally Jamil finds her there and he is all RAGE and SEX and she is all: "Ah how horrible - no wonder you turned out so brooding and smexy and full of attractive brooding sexy ANGST!" And he forbids her from going in there again.
After several tumbles ... one which involves her getting all naked with him fingering her till she spazms in ecstasy. They decide to keep it all proffessional... She also finds out that he is intended to be married to some princess he cares nothing about...
Only he decides to cancel the wedding and marry HER instead only he doesn't tell her that...
So she goes - "NO! We shall never do the naked thang again... EVAR!!!"
Which eventually ends up with her wondering soulfully through the palace wearing very little and finally discovering the hot baths in the middle of the night...
in which of course she finds the naked Jamil after days of desert negotiations ... and amidst clouds of steam he disposes of the very little she wears and goes down on her.
Then they move to the warm bath where they are being hosed down by fountains in which SHE gives his hose a bit of the oral.
They eventually gets down to the real thing which leaves them breathless and Cassie is all poetry and I LOVE YOU and swooniness...
After that he declare they must marry because it would be all convenient financially to have ties with Englands and a new mother to his daughter and he doesn't understand why she refuses and runs off in tears.
He is full of angry wrathful rage but he goes off to cancel the wedding to the sandy princess anyway.
Whilst he trots away on his white camel words arrive in England that Cassie has been abducted and placed in Prince Jamil Harem. Her dad immediatly elicit the help of some minor politician in the Egyptian embassy who is dispatched post haste to bring her back no matter what so she can marry the crusty nobleman that was chosen for her before he hears her virginity is not intact.
The ambasador reaches Cassie's sister who informs him his sister is perfectly satisfied being a virgin governess... LOL... he insists he must return her home. So the sister quickly weans her baby daughter and rides with him to the neighbouring kingdom.
Cassie is so distraught about the emotionless marriage proposal she tells the ambassador she will be leaving with him the day after tomorrow because today she needs to wash her hair and tommorow there is a sandstorm scheduled. The ambassador goes... "Ah well... my work is done then. I shall now go back to England. No need for a cup of tea thanks BAI" And rides off on some camels. The daughter kicks a fuss upon hearing all this and rides off to the desert, Cassie rides after her where a band of rebel bandits ... OF COURSE... catches them. Cassie bites their knees a bit until the daughter escapes.
Jamil comes back home still in a bit of a hissy fit to find his daughter all in a panic about the kidnapping. So he single handedly rides off and kills the bandits but not before Cassie gets a knife to the shoulder which leaves her mortally wounded.
He then realises how much he loves Cassie and cannot live without her and remembers suddenly that there is a shrine nearby to some forbidden old gods. So he sneaks off there and takes off his royal ring and cuts himself over his heart and offers himself in return for Cassies life. Then he faints.
When he wakes up it is morning and his ring is gone. He goes back to the palace to find Cassie is suddenly healed . And magically his ring is on his finger. ALLAH BE PRAISED IT IS A MIRACLE! YES IT IS! THIS ROMANCE NOVEL SUDDENLY MAGICALLY TURNED INTO A FANTASY NOVEL WTF HOW DID THIS HAPPEN!!!
I don't care because now everyone is happy ever after and they get married and the sex is great and woo hoo, yay and HUZZAH!
The end.
A couple of centuries later....
TRADED TO THE SHEIKH by Emma Darcy
Sheikh Zageo bi Sultan al Rarrahn is lounging luxuriently in his thronelike armchair in his holiday palacial retreat on the exotic island of Zanzibar. He is relaxing before his Aftican tour of all his hotels when a greasy French lecherous drug smuggler who has DRUG SMUGGLER etched all over his greasy leacherous French forehead (wow - no racist stereotypes there at all! @_@) is brought before him by his aide who has a beard because he is a Muslim... (NO RACIAL STEREOTYPES AT ALL!).
Sheikh Zageo doesn't have a beard of course but that because he needs to be hot and one apparently cannot be hot with facial hair (Yeah - clever clotz! That puts me out of the hot list - funny! HAR HAR!)... also he looks more Spanish because I am the only person in the univers who thinks Arabs look hot apparently ... whatevs... ¬_¬
Anyway - greasy smuggling dude offers him a blond lady whome he snared by offering her to pilot his yacht to Zanzibar. She is apparently snoozing on the boat as they speak...
Only she isn't because she is Emily Ross. A plump lush Australian babe who is a diving instructor and right after they put up sail she figured something isn't Kosher in the French Fridge and totally jumped boat just off the shore of Zanzibar and swam all the way RIGHT to the shore of Zageo mansion.
She is here to meet her sister in a luxury hotel (which of course is owned by Zageo why not?) who is attempting to escape her farm in Zimbabwe with her two daughters due to all the political upheaval and wot-not.
Zageo throws French smuggler in disgust and scoops up Emilly from some swampy pond on the ground of his castle where she is swimming in her bikini...
He believes she is in cahoots with the smugglers and her tales of diving instructions fall on deaf ears because he found some belly-dancing costumes on the boat and she has curves therefore she must know how to shake that funky stuff for money... which means WHORE naturally...which means he wants to shag her so he keeps her with him leaving his aid to check up her diving credentials which he can't do because it is a long weekend and everyone in the entire world is apparently too drunk and nursing a grandmother with a broken leg...
So as his prisoner Emily is wined and dined and he is impressed and perplexed by the fact she isn't trying to seduce him even though she IS wearing the belly dance constume he forced her to wear. Instead she insists that her sister is in danger.
During their arguments it turns out that he is a bit grumpy because his Morrocan Supermodel girlfriend didn't want to come with him on his tour of Africa and she is mourning the death of her husband two years ago when he got caught in a typhoon trying to rescue and old lady's cat or something...
Sparks fly, panties are wet and all that. Eventually he takes her out diving somewhere where he concludes that since she didn't drown she must be telling the truth. And since he also sees and email from her sister telling her the escape failed and they are all under house arrest in Zimbabwe - he decides to help them... but not before he calls his supermodel girlfriend and tells her he had enough of her because he found someone who is better swimming and as promised she can keep the flat in Paris.
Said supermodel flies to Zanzibar to throw herself at his feet but he kicks her away not before she hisses at Emily that the average shelf life for one of Zageo lovers is no more than two years so she better start counting.
Only of course Zageo is already quite enamoured with Emily, enough to put in motion a rescue plan for her sister...
Emily doesn't know this and figures she has to offer herself to the Sheikh in order to get his help to rescue her sister. HEY. He is single now right? And hot, how bad could it be? So she makes this really awkward pathetic and UTTERLY SWEET attempt at playing seductress that mostly leaves him in stitches but doesn't stop him from throwing her on the bed and totally sexing the hell, heaven and maybe purgatory out of her... GODDAMN it is such a good sex he promise her he will do all in his power to get her sis out of Zimbabwe.
But she has to promise him to accompany him on his business trip until his negotiations with the Zimbabwe goverment come to fruition. So they go out on one Saffari after another and she is having the time of her life because HEY she gets smexed every night buy and uber Arab stud AND she sees plenty of Zebras (NOT a euphemism to penises or orgazms ... although it TOTALLY SHOULD BE!!! "he took het on his zebra to the zebra reserve and back... oh how she loved his zebra... WITH HER TONGUE!!!"... I will shut up now!).
The negotiations don't go so well because her sister husband wants to hang on to his farm and damn the heads of his family ... GIT! I wasn't warming up to him especially knowing that his battle to retain his possessions was a losing one and he still insists to put everyone around him at risk...
But be it as it may. Emily has a go at Zageo for not sharing his plans vis-a-vis her sister with her and threatens to withold sex from him... to which he retaliates by witholding sex from HER and they spend a couple of days cooped up in misery and their own seperate rooms being horney beyond belief having lots of cold showers that DON'T HELP. She wakes up one night to find him hovering over her - appologizes, gets her monkey sex and wakes up to find that he is gone in the morning.
Hunting down his bearded aide she finds out that since negotiations have failed he decided to pick up the first helicopter he can find and fly straight over to Zimbabwe and fish her family from there.
The aide tells her that the decision to help her also took place way before she decided to seduce him which makes her feel all smooshy and guilty and worried for his safety.
Apparently avoiding all missiles and hostile modern warfare equipment with the power of his testosterone ... so I assume... he brings back the sister, her daughter and the husband he only manage to convince by offering to compensate him finantially and showing him Emily's passport to convince him he is genuinly concerned for his wellfare.
Her sister goes all: "I bet it is temporary with you and Mr. Sheikh, I mean LOOK AT HIM... he is hot and you are an Australian diver..."
Wow! Way to be supportive of the sister who essentially whored herself for your sake SISTER! *kicks her back to Zimbabwe in the hope she will be used to feed some Jiraffes...* DO they have Jiraffes in Zimbabwe? Well... I hope they do and that they are carnivorous!
Anyhoooooo... of course Zageo is totally in love with Emily by now and so naturally he tells her that now that their bargain is done - he is dumping her. But she sobs in loneliness after telling him she loves him and he runs back ... more or less through the closed door and they make love and he asks her to accompany him for awhile longer...
Which in the epilogue turns out to be forever because he asks her to marry him on a cliff looking down on the waters of the Cape of New Hope saying something romantic about the meeting of two oceans... which I could be all nit-picky and point up that that issue is geographically disputed blah blah blah...
But that would positively put a damper on a rather pleasing little WTF-ey yarn and I don't feel like doing it.
They all live happily ever after... including the Super Model Ex Girlfriend who becomes the rich trophy wife of some uber rich international playboy... AND kept her flat in Paris...
THE END.
Now I am off to make pac-man figurines from Fimo because my chibi harling just discovered Pac-Man and yesterdays spent the whole day writing Pac-Man fanfic comics... I think he deserves a treat ^_^v.
Lamasu- reading Mills and Boon so you don't have too...
Unless you are like me and really WANT TO...
Over and Out :D:D:D
Went to the apothecary to pick up various prescriptions for various organs that fail to function as they should and was served by someone who was decidedly NOT Sexy Alchemist ... I strained my ears listening to gossip behind the no.7 shelves and from the ashen faces of the female apprentices gathered that he has moved to another province so BOO!
There goes my wet dreams out of the window...
DREAMS THAT CANNOT BE:
Rudolf Valentino as Altair in ASSASSIN SHEIK
A Mills and Boon novel I never wrote but TOTES should AND YOU KNOW IT!!!
To drown my woes and wrath at the unfairness of it all (Why did you have to get a more lucrative job Sexy Alchemist? WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DIE VALENTINO???!!!!) I bought myself a bottle of Campari.
I intend to mix myself 20 VALENTINOS and drink them all out of a bucket.
ANGST IN STYLE BABY YEAH!!!
You see - I am typing this in the desktop. A new experience for me ... well... not NEW as such but one that I haven't had for YEARS ...
My laptop packed up yesterday after my youngest refused to listen to me warning him against bouncing on the sofa whilst simultanously trying to cling to my leg ... don't try to imagine this - I was very confused myself AND I WAS THERE! ... and ended up spilling an entire cup of tea on the keyboard...
It fizzed...
I DIED!
I left it overnight to sleep on top of the radiator wrapped up cosily in a towel and this morning I dismantled it and gave it a new hairstyle with my broken hair-dryer... It is showing a few signs of life now and it definietly stopp bleeding milkey tea all over the place - SO THERE IS HOPE!
I am distraught though - the very prospect of life with no laptop rendered me unable to face the world so in a bid to be effective I have done my grocery shopping with tesco online and then promptly fell asleep on the sofa.
Not that I haven't slept last night - I pumped myself up with all my meds and snored the night away - mostly having disturbing dreams abou Sexy Alchemist ignoring me in the local apothecary... fuckit!
And that is also a thing. It turned out my Thyroid is lazy... YAY! Which resulting in hormonal deficiency and anemia which I guess accounts for some of the palpitations that are not controlled by my heart meds... oh and the excessive lethargy... we are still debating which medication to add to my coctail of anti-depressants, benzos and various beta blockers...
Wow- I am knocking on the doors of 40 and my body is TOTES packing up bit by bit.... sheesh ¬_¬
So it is with enhanced enthusiasm that I latch on to the fabulous faraway deserts regions of M&B-Land.
My adventures with Oil Wells which (as a friend described to me on the phone yesterday) each comes with its own private Sheikh, continues as I plunge into times when oil lay undisturbed beneath the dunes and camels and the untold wealth of Arabia had to come from A) Diamonds and B) SLAVE GIRLS!!!
And thus: Dun-dun DUUUUN!!!
Lamasu, What is good in life?
To scrub yourself with Nesti Dante soap, spritz yourself within an each of your life with L'Occitane cherry blossom perfume and hear the lementation of the M&B Slave Girls...
And by lementations we mean orgazmic whimpers of ecstasy!
BOUGHT FOR THE HAREM by Anne Herries
Is a tale of one Harriet, a maiden of Elizabethan origin and her blond and pliant squishy cousin. They are as we speak being auctioned in the slave markets of Algeirs... where else. They are being auctioned together even thoug the blond cousin is of extreme beauty, blond, pliant and curvaciously squishy and Harriet is mousy and MOUTHY because they will not part. They tied themselves together you see and Harriet has enough Arabic to curse people's genitals... and no one of the rough and violent riff raff and scum of the world considered like... say... cut the rope that holds them together and also Harriet's head...
Which is a good thing because mousy mouthy Harriet is actually the heroine of our tale.
In strides Kasim doing his big penis walk oozing money and testosterone in equal and liberal measures. He was once an English son of a lord which is slightly better than Son of a Bitch but not more because apparently his dad kicked him out of the mansion accusing him of rape and murder which WAS committed by his friend. He has become the world's worst pirate, being seized by Corsairs, sold to slavery and eventually wining favour with the Caliph of Istanbul after saving his life... he is now the adopted son of said Calif - being raised as a protector of the reckless crown prince.
He is here to buy said reckless crown prince and English wife. The Calif likes English girls because his wife was one and since diplomacy is so much of a hassle he rather buy the first blond bimbo and thrust her upon his son.
Well - there is blond cousin and her attached Harriet and ... also a slave boy who is kinda cute and skinny... Kadim buys them all and then put the girls in his room on his ship and sets sail for Istanbul...
On the way blond cousin developes a fever and Harriet nurses her to semblence of health with some help of a magic potion Kasim gives her.
Kasim keeps staring at HArriet with interest by the way. And she feels a twinge or two for him (READ: She needs a new supply of panties every day because ... you know the rest...)
They arrive at the Harem where blond squishy finally stopps crying after splish splashing in a pond with Harriet. The other ladies are very nice, appart from the Caliph's favourite who likes to walk around naked and stair viciously at everyone but we can mostly ignore her because she does nothing except hiss every now and again. HArriet is bored to tears she wants to ride and read and all she can do is lounge around and watch her cousin play with the pet monkeys.
Eventually Kasim arranges for her to teach the Caliph's children some English since his current first wife is heavily pregnant and Harriet reminds him of his dead English wife. Harriet makes friends with Katrina - the pregnant wife... all the women have non Arabic names - Ihave no idea if this was the case in IStanbul at the time - I AM pretty convinced though that the language spoken was probably Turkish but I am not hot on Ottoman empire history and I wouldn't nit-pick even if I was because who gives a shit in a romance novel anyway...
Meanwhile the reckless prince is watching his intended bride through peep holes and gets all horny. Yeah... not creepy at all ...
He approves of her and decides to marry her as soon as possible. One morning when Harriet is shopping in the bazaar with the first wife and KAsim she is approached by a mysterious Arab who informs her that her father and Blond Squishy's boyfriend are looking for them.
A week later another mysterious Arab waits for her outside the classroom to tell her that at dusk the little gardener gate in the rose garden will be open and they can escape...
Problem is... Blond Squishy is off to be married to prince reckless... So they pull the old switharoo trick in which scrawny totally NOT blond nor Squishy Harriet takes the place of her cousin....
A minute before she is about to be married she throws away the covering from over her head and shouts "SPRIZE!!! I AM ACTUALLY MOUSY MOUTHY HARRIET!!!" To which the Caliph goes: "you have offended my son - OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!" and she goes: "Oh Noes! I didn't mean any offence by totes making you all look like a bunc of idiotic dicks infront of the whole kingdom!" and then Kasim goes:" nooooo! don't chop her head! I LIKE her head. I want her head to give ME head plzplzplz..."
And the Sultan goes... "FINE! as long as you promise to co-rule with my son until he is less reckless because apparently I am dying all of a sudden."
And reckless son goes: "NO WAAAY! I want to rule on my own, BITCH! I will marry some other princess and kill you all." And he stomps off.
So anyway - Squishy cousin escapes on her own and Harriet goes into Kasim Harem but not before she hears rumours about Kasim ability to shag three women simultanously... I mean... how does that work... does he have three cocks or does he use his cock, his tongue and a carefully crafted dildo... or... NEVER MIND!
She is jealous and he is grumpy and then there are some marauding rebels making some noise so he and reckless prince go to kill them only they have some rocks and they drop it all on prince reckless until he is well and truly and very conveniently SQUISHED.
And his dad the Caliph goes... NOOOOO! ... first my little baby boy was stolen 9 years ago and now my oldest son is squished... oh well, I guess now there is no oposition to you Mr. Ex slave with no qualification to take the crown when I am dead.
Oh wait - says KAsim. I found this boy in the market. I bet HE is the son you lost... which turn out to be so.
Then he goes off to kill all the marauding rebels and comes back wounded and Harriet tends him back to health and they confess their love.
BUT WAIT!
There are 15 more pages!!!
Suddenly her cousin from England materialise out of nowhere and drags her back to England where the Queen is all keen to hear her sordid stories about rape in the harem... and everyone is very disapointed to hear there was no rape and that she wants to go back.
Meanwhile the Caliph dies and some othe son beams down to look after the kingdom which is good because Kasim runs off to England to fetch Harriet and they fall on each other necks and snog and rejoice and then go back to Istanbul to see if more convenient sons could somehow materialize out of nowhere....
I am sure some other things happened in between. I think there was a sandstorm at one point and there was that bit when HArriet is being punished by stiching up some Eunuchs that got whipped for helping her cousin escape and the unforgetable scene in which she saves the life of the first wife by teaching her to PANT LIKE A DOG during child birth... because apparently all the midwives in the Ottoman empire are uselss ... ¬_¬.
It was a fun book although a bit all over the place and there was not much convincing passion but it DID pass a great afternoon of sprawling on the sofa with a cup of hot chocolate whilst a storm raged outside so... thumbs up.
And now I will be off to eat some more books.
Lamasu- Reading pulp so you don't have to.
Over and Out...
....
And by CLEMENT I mean it hasn't stopped raining for 10 days now. I forgot what the sun looks like or what it feels like stepping outside without getting soaking wet despite carrying an umbrella... I think I just saw a sheep rowing a canoe past my window, although that might have been one of the local unwashed hippies... baaaaah!
So it is with great anticipation and high hopes that I picked up a Vintage Harem based M&B, this time of the MASQUERADE series, hoping it will chill my aching bones (also damn Beta Blockers making me feel the cold more acutely ...meep!).
Sadly, although mostly set in Algeirs - it failed to warm my heart. And here is the reason why:
When I want an accurate account of the olden days - I pick up a history book. When I want escapism, fantasy and a romance - I piick up a Mills and Boon book.
Mostly I sick up escapism, fantasy and romance these days... and sadly I found very little in PRISONER OF THE HAREM by Julia Herbert
Don't get me wrong - this is a GOOD book. What it is NOT is ROMANTIC. As far as the romance angle is concerned it is lean and dry and as such I found myself skipping and skeeming and losing concentration or just... obaying what might be anemia/thyroid problem and falling asleep on the sofa ...NOT a good sign when one reads a book.
Felicity is an amiable and impoverished lady who has travelled as a companion to her semi-wealthy cousin to Napels. Her uncle is digging up dead Italians somewhere near by in his capacity of an archaeologist. Her Cousin Rossana is a plain looking girl making up for her mousy black hair and plumpness by covering herself in custom jewelery from toes to tip of the head and flirting with hot Italian artists.
Into the picture walks Andre an aristocrat escaped from Madame la Guillotine which I guess place the whole story in time. He is now a naval general for England and fondler of amiable and impoverished ladies of which Felicity is the prime candidate for his hot French kisses. She apparently tries to ward him off because although he is hot and spicy he is also rather poor himself thus not a very good match.
One night he come knocking at her window warning her that her cousin is about to elope with something sizzlingly Italian and off she races to rescue her cousin from fate worth than death, still in her night gown WHEN... dun dun DUUUUN! they all get abducted by sudden pirates.
They are being put in a dingy hole whilst Andre is allowed upstairs to have fresh air. Which makes Rossana assume he is in league with the pirates. She start moaning... and DOESN'T STOP UNTILL THE END OF THE BOOK!!!!
I never came across a heroine more in need of a hearty SLAP IN THE FACE than this cousin and she goes on having no redeaming features whatsoever.
The captain of the corssair although Italian himself preffers not to believe them when they claim to be English ladies and intend to keep felicity for himself and sell Rossana as a slave... or a wet blanket if no one wants her.
Andre manages to steal a moment with Felicity in which they almost shag before he is hauled off for damaging the merchendise.
when they arrive at Algeirs where all slave markets in History are naturally located. Andre manages to bargain his services as a supreme military machine of hotstuff and hotness with the Dey of Algeirs convincing him that the girls ARE English and rich and worth ransoming.
So they are placed in the Harem. Which is actually a really cool place were they indulge in the Hammam, get lush clothes, fabulous food, expensive perfumes and on the whole treated fairly.
This part would be interesting as a study of cutural attitude and differences. As Felicity, scared though she is settles for the long wait as letters are sent to Rossana's uncle, she gets down into learning the language and talking to the other concubines, wives and slaves. The conversations are INTERESTING and the cultural gap is well represented and fair to the Algerian side. Felicity claim that she is a free woman in her own country is questioned to the full by some of the other women who think her life is just as confined but in a different way... and I LIKED that aknowledgement because it is too easy to portray a Muslim concubine as a suffering victim and a Regency lady as a free and frivolous soul... both would be wrong because both were restrained and both had their benefits.
But these argument went on and on as well as the endless descriptions of clothes and fabrics and perfumes and massages. There are also diplomatic negotiations and worst of all - Rossana's endless BIGGOTED AND SPOILED WHINING.
NAturally the women of the Harem assume Felicity is the rich lady and Rosanssana is her companion. They get to like Felicity and avoid Rossana as much as possible at which Rossana moans and grumbles about how barbaric everyone is and how Felicity neglects her.
Andre is put to service training the Dey's band of useless rif-raf into a semblence of an army. Felicity takes to watching him from a little enclosed balcony over an alley he passes through every day. She waved a little handkerchief at him through a viewing crack in the wall.
At some point the Turkish ambassador comes for a visit and demand to be entertained with a blond slave. The closest thing they have to a blond slave is Roassana and so in an attmept to save her annoying cousin from being deflowered by a ruthless turk, Felicity disguise herself as a servant and runs out into the streets...
... which beggs the question why she didn't do something similar before since no one stops her or asks her any questions....
But we don't care because one of the only exciting moments of this book happens when a drunken band of Andre's soldiers mistake her for a whore and abduct her to the barracks to have some fun with her.
Luckily Andre is there and he intends to be all gentlemanly with her but ends up fondling her until she is on fire and almost forgets about her cousin... but then she remembers and they rush back and convince the Dey that Rossana is actually an UGLY HOE and thus unsuitable to sexually entertain Turkish VIPs... HUZZAH!
Eventually the ransom arrives but since many bribes needed to be paid on the way - it is only sufficient to release one. The Dey decree it should be the lady's attendant and since everyone assume that mopy horrid Rossana cannot possibly be the daughter of a rich man on account of her constant whining and general stupidity they let her go.
Felicity is tempted to correct their mistake but Rossana begs her to let her go and promise to get her dad to ransom her as soon as pos.
Naturally once Rossana is back in England she writes a letter to Felicity telling her that her reputation is ruin because everyone assumes she was gang banged by pirates and the whole of the Casbah and that she doesn't feel like spending her money on rescuing her cousin now because her cousin clearly feels fine amongst Arabs and also - she doesn't really care kthxbai.
Good riddens for bad character I say.
Andre eventually manages to convince the Dey to sell Felicity to HIM in exchange for his help in making two superbly crafted cannons.
And here comes the moment of WTF I was eagerly awaited for the entire book.
They make a hasty escape during the presentation of said cannons, trying to sail randomly in the vague direction of Spain ... in a dingy of some sort. Apprently the Cannons are made of cardboard of something and will explode in the face of the Dey so they have to leg it... ANYWHERE!
Anywhere happen to be stranded in a tea-cup in the middle of the sea where they are conveniently rescued by a Napoleonic vessel because HEY - the French Revolution is suddenly over and France is at war with England and everyone want Andre to go home because he was Bonaparte's best buddy at school... WOO HOO!
Felicity decides she wants to be French now so she agrees to marry Andre and they smooch and go lovey dovey over each other and live happily ever after even after Nelson makes mincemeat of a French armada or two ...
THE END.
So ... yeah... well written and digestable but not the most enticing of naratives...
I am now in a mood for some Sheikh-ey Historicals of which I have a couple of more recently written which I hope would prove more of a distraction than this one.
Lamasu- reading pulp so you don't have to.
Over and Out!
The last thing I bought from them was a large smiley cute apple... I would say KAWAII but I still had alergy to that word from my days of over-gorging on it as a rabid fangirl. Everyone always mistake it for a tomato so I called it BANDORA and it sits there on the armchair in the lounge suffering both identity crisis and the squeashes of strangers who can't resist its smooshy face XD
Here it is with my latest afternoon M&B snack. I need to spew my thoughts about this book because as my FaceBook followers already noticed, I somehow managed to not stab it through the heart with a rusty spork.
BLUE JASMINE by Violet Winspear manages to avoid being a direct copy of THE SHEIKH by E.M. Hull but only marginally and for all the wrong politically correct reason which somehow in the end make a turn into a bit of that racist shit in which a blond heroine cannot possibly have a Muslim cock inside her. Something which more recent Mills and Boon instalments disposed of - thanks Allah - we are allowed to get wet over Muslims these days... I know I am thankyou!
I know, I know, I said it a million times before and I will continue sayig it because it is a sore spot and it hit a nerve and I can't help it,kay?
So let me count the many ways the first half of the book was almost ANOTHER BOOK.
Our story starts in a garden of a hotel at the edge of a desert and just like in THE SHEIK the heroine is self confessed frigid English woman. She confesses this as she wards off the advances of a mild mannered young man and just like in THE SHEIK she is captivated by music. Here it is a reed flute , in SHEIK it was male singing. She is also warned against going into the desert on her own and think she knows best. The only difference is her appearance. Here she is not short haired, flat chested redhead but a lustrous and slim yet curvacious long haired blond.
THE SHEIK had the nerve to play free with the fantasy. The man of the title stalks her and arranges her abduction in advance making him and utter creep of course if he was REAL but in Fantasy-Land his obsession is that ardent alpha behaviour which makes him more exciting.
The heroine of this book loses her horse by an oasis and is first abducted by an oportunistic smelly horse theif and then rescued when the horse owner takes chase, flogs the smelly theif and uppon seeing her platinum blond tresses decides to keep her. He takes her to his encampment where he ensconces her in a tent which is IDENTICAL IN EVERY WAY to E.M. Hull's description. The opulence of the East, the luxury of western furniture, the shelves of French books.
Although whilst his looks ARE Arab in the original it is stressed over and over here that he looks DIFFERENT to all the people he rules, albeit rather sun burned brown.
They banter and where in the original the night falls and he throws her on the divan tears her clothes off and has his way with her saying: "must I be a valet as well as a lover" in here he simply takes her boots off and say : "You do not need a valet to do the rest" leaving her with virginity intact FOR THE REST OF THE FUCKING BOOK!
There follow a scene in which he subdues a wild horse whilst she watches him break its spirit and her admiration and love for him blossoms IDENTICALLY to the way it was done in SHEIK... One of my favourite lines from THE SHEIK (of which there are many) was: "His first loyalty is to his horse, then to his men and only then to Allah" . Thankfully the book didn't openly plagarised anything and under the law can more or less follow the plot directly as long as it doesn't copy and paste and can still be considered HOMAGE to the original.
And you know... I could probably live with it... GRUMPILY but it is done and rarely does a copy surpass the original which is totally true in this case.
Whilst the SHEIK crossed every acceptable line of behaviour with surprisingly TAME on detail scenes of subjugation exploring to the full every aspect of female bondage fantasy (of which I confess to be indulging regularly... yes guys with my hand down my panties - thank you for sniggering)... this book simply didn't dare. Oh it is well written enough - Violet Winspear is an able writer, her language is flowery and delicious I would give her that. But her heroine never knelt, never sbmitted and always responded with shap tongue. Her love did not grow through the very thing that put so many feminists up in arms - it didn't grow out of the abandonment of the ego and in a way the book just didn't have the zest and tang of the original.
At the point when the heroine escaped into the desert I swore I will call the book WHORE if she is abducted by a rival tribe, if the hero almost dies as he rescues her and if he realises he loves her enough to let her go at which point she refuse attempting to kill herself with his gun...
Thankfully this is exactly when the book abandoned the plot of THE SHEIK and headed off in its own, not MASSIVELY original, way. Sadly this is also when it turn utterly limpid and uninteresting.
She get caught in a sandstorm, he rescues her. They go to visit his ill father. He forces her to marry him. She is overjoyed, they confess their love and they live happily ever after.
He also tells her at this point that the Emir is not really his dad and he is the love-child of an affair his Spanish mum had with a French anthropologist... fair enough - the Hero of SHEIK was half Spanish half English but at least the book stressed he LOOKED completely Arab.
There are many other points of similarities and I KNOW that SHEIK is a problematic book to read in this age of emancipation and rights ... well... if you take it for more than a masturbation fodder which quite honestly I do. It is my benchmark of women's erotica that proves to me that SEXY does not necessarily comes from explicit sex scenes... not that I object to explicit sex scenes. HOT DAMN Mills and Boon I bless your heart DAILY for BLAZE ROMANCE :D:D:D.
But this entry has been far too serious to my normal snark and I am simply going to live it at that and not nit-pick anymore.
Do I shout PLAGIARISM? No, not really. I shout PALE COPY and I don't know if I am disapointed or relieved that it didn't follow THE SHEIK more closely.
I think I would like more Sheikh romances to follow it IN SPIRIT which oddly - I find is done more in Gay instalments from Japan... YAOI - BLESS YOUR FILTHY HEART.
I didn't like seing some descriptions lifted and altered just enough to avoid a law suit. And whilst I see the legacy of SHEIK in many M&Bs with a Sheikh-ey theme I never felt that they are in anyway copying the way I felt with this book...
Well... I feel the need to shut up now or I will be here moaning and granting and being all annoying and entitled and a freaking pain in the arse until kingdoms come...
Lamasu - reading pulp for your delectations or sniggeration... depends on your taste and viewpoin...
Over and Out.
What am I supposed to read into this and should I be flattered?
The point is... I am still gagging for it so I might very well be reading too much into situations. Like the way man with fine butt keeps calling from B&Q to make appointments for my kitchen rescue... seriously guys... the ceiling caved in on me the other day. I stood there covered in more plaster than I usually apply to my face ... and all I could think was... "HEEEY! good reason to go and see that bloke with the nice arse... " ¬_¬.
No hope for the sexually frustrated I tell ya! ^^;;.
So anyway. My mum came up with this wonderful idea that maybe she can replace and actual bed activity (not involving sleep... of wanking - I SAW YOU SNIGGERING!!!) with something to snuggle and bought me two fuzzy monsters.
Who joined the million and one fuzzy things (which mostly originated from Japan... and Korea... still looking for a Lee Jun Ki plush yes?). I guess that proves that cuddly toys do NOT in anyway make good cock substitutes unless they are a pink bunny... BADUM TISH!!! ... I'll get me hat ¬_¬...
I strayed as I always do... back to latest two fuzzy instalments.
Here they are with the M&Bs we shall briefly discuss today (mostly because there is nothing much to say as, in a typical cookie-cutting 60s style - nothing much happens in them) .
I named then Majnun and Mastul... YES MY ARABIC DOES INDEED EXTEND TO INSULTS MOSTLY!!!...the chibi has a green one which I called Ma'afan... he calls him GREENY (Original name is ORIGINAL) but Ma'afan suits him better... I shall probably make him presnt the next instalment because his name represent mostly what I think of the book ...sorry ;_;.
So what can we say about not-quite-sheikh romances of the 60s? We can say they amble along pleasantly. Nothing drastic happens but they fill a few cosy moments nestling a cup of de-caf (boo!) snuggled on the sofa on a rainy-rainy April day.
Time refines writting style the way it does wine I guess. They feel better written. The language is a bit more formal, flowery and flowing. There are a lot of BEAUTIFUL description of exotic lands, a lot of pondering on the matching of accessories to gowns.
Oh and people SMOKE!
It is quite sexy to be honest, the way it is entirely NOT in real life. There you have it - the strength of literature to make bad habbits attractive. I LIKE THAT TREND BECAUSE I AM A STRONG INDEPENDANT WOMAN WHO KNOWS THAT WHAT SHE WANTS IN LIFE IS DIFFERENT THAT WHAT SHE LIKES TO MASTURBATE TO KTHX!!!.
I have to mention that on regular intervals because I openly admit that I like ATTRACTIVE chain smoking rapists in the stories I escape to , and trust me... IRL ...if you smoked next to me you had zero chance of getting laid and if you even laid a finger on one of my hairs (no, no pupic ones - that would be a DEATH WISH SWEETY!!!)without my permision I would Krav-Maga your arse to the next fucking A&E and you would thank me for not stabbing you in the balls...
But HEY, literature and life are not always two different beasts for everyone and I respect that. This is why I read this glorious shit so you don't have to...
SOOOOO....
BRIDE OF THE RIF by Mrgaret Rome starts with an intriguing premise. An old proffessional gambler and his granddaughter are on a luxury cruise, fleecing the decadently rich of their coins. They pretend to be richer than they are. She has been orphaned at a young age and spent her entire childhood in foster homes whilst he left India, a soldier short of a war and fell into gambling. Eventually he finds her and together they hussle and con their way around the world. She has a case of designer clothes which descriptions made me drool and dribble - I wasn't complaining you see, I actually felt it made the story come alive.
A young Spanish aristocrat is being so fiddled by them when she notices his cousin all tall, broad and increadably dark in an Arab way. He glares at them for days on end and eventually finds them out. He rats to the captain and have them dropped unceremoniously in Tangier where the old man runs off to gamble all their remaining cash in a dingy hole of a club where he has a heart attack and dies.
Thankfully the dingy hole is co-managed by a man with a golden heart who gives out heroine a job at a gambling table. And then - as he is French, he goes back to France... which would be a problem if not for spoiled Spanish Aristo walking in offering her a job pretending to be his bride so he can weasle his way out of marriage to a gorgeous and kind and quite frankly - LOVELY childhood friend.
Naturally his cousin is angry. He blames her for being a charletan and blackmails her emotionally to keep the fake-engagement a secret from the spoiled brat mother for she has a weak heart.
Then of course he abducts her to the rif mountains where his Arab ancesstors live and there amongst the local beduoins - he forces her to marry him.
WHY? I DO NOT KNOW NOR CARE!!!
She fumbles in the dark one night to fall into the arms of a husky dusky, face covered in sexy shaddows Arab. She naturally goes all wet in the panties for him and years for him dearly.
He turns out to be her cousin of course and she freaks and sobs and there is mega angst galore until he confess that he loves her even though he knows he should and he shall drink her every day of their lives even if she poisons him.
And naturally she realises she loved him from the very begining and there is much rejoicing and everyone lives happily ever after wearing designer clothes in the desert AMEN!
Or something like that more or less...
Then we must delve into DESERT DOCTOR by Violet Winspear.
I was looking forward to reading a bit of Vilet Winspear ever since I read a book about the history of Mills and Boon. Apparently she wrote 100+++ of these bite-size romances and was quite famous for her beautiful descriptions even though she never really left England.
I confess - her descriptions are LUSH. The modern writting-class graduate might call it purple prose but I LOVE it. Moroco comes to life through her pen, you can smell the spices, you can feel the dry heat of the desert, you can see the garments of the people and hear the sounds of the Souk. Hat off, BEAUTIFUL writting in my opinion and was thus and easy and delicious read.
Even though, seriously, HARDLY ANYTHING HAPPENED!
The leading lady came to Moroco to help an American philantropist write an autobiography on her dead husband who was an archaeologist. She comes across a French doctor who made it his life mission to help the local nomads. He is an eye surgeoun who is widely respected and revered by the locals.
There is also the son of the philantropist who is a gorgeous playboy with a penchant for our blond (naturally) English rose and his cousin who is a money grabbing bitch who is vicious in a way only romance novels in the 60s allow a villainess to be... nowadays they have to have a HUMAN side and a reason to be an utter shit-head... this one doesn't have a reason. She is elegant, brutal and manipulative... I LOVE HER!!! >:D.
She has her eyes of French Doctor because he would one day inherit a title and a big estate...
He is a misoginist bastard who chainsmokes like a victorian chimney but HEY - he is hot smex on smexy legs and he rescues injured foxes from nasty little bedouin children so THERE!
The story developes slowly. Evil bitch spits and hiss, Doctor shows signs of interest in Blondie, Blondie slowly comes to realise she loves him, Playboy is maturing and takes a job in journalism and eventually loves blossom amongst the clouds of sexy smoke from Turkish cigars...
Not... really much you see and I can't really explain why I enjoyed this book so much but I can heartily say I DID.
So there you have it...
Now I have a couple of re-prints of more classics to eat and I am very much looking forward to.
ON with my mission to read every Sheikh Mills and Boon to ever walk the land! ONWARDS AND UPWARDS I SAY!
And so I sign off
Lamasu - always finding pleasure in the books you would probably hate...
Over and Out ^_^v.
Anyway - like many a Penny Jordan this was filled with glorious purple prose and delicious WTF moments. It is also written in the 80s just before the politically correct movement hit romance with full force and rape-fantasy became this No-No thing one can only indulge in via Elora's Cave e-books ....So we have some proper "forceful seduction" scenes like the appologetic like to call them, which for me are very much part and parcel of the whole Sheikh fantasy...
Sooooooo....
Danielle is a waif of a girl with flaming hair and emerald eyes. When she was 10 her mother married Hassan, a deposed sheikh who married her against his family wishes and who cannot bear children of his own. He dotes upon Danielle as if she is his own daughter.
Which apparently means that once she turns 21 he arranges for her to marry his favourite nephew Jourdan. It is supposed to be a marriage of convenience because the oil company he owns cannot pass to a daughter and to stop a great family dispute after his death he wants it to pass to the nephew he loves as a son despite the fact that THAT very nephew was the strongest to object to his marriage to an Englishwoman.
Not making much sense?
Don't worry - IT ISN'T GOING TO MAKE SENSE AT ANY POINT IN THE BOOK!
Anyway - Danielle flatly refuse. Her slimy French gambling friend who totally wants into her pants told her Jourdan is an arrogant user of women and her friends in London told her that their bimbo of a friend has slept with him for a diamond bracelet which is enough to condemn the man in her eyes.
She accept an invitation to the small kingdom of her step-dad tucked away between Kuwait and Saudi-Arabia upon the promise that the afformentioned Jourdan will be away from there on business.
Upon her arrival the Sheikha dotes upon her with silks and pearls and gifts upon luxurious gift and sumptuous food. The palace is enormous and on her first night she loses her way to the women's quarters and naturally ends up in Jourdan's room...
.....
WHERE HE IS STANDING HALF NAKED HOW ELSE!!!
It is dark but somehow she notices his eyes are dark gray and his chest is covered in hair that is both crisp and silky... Riiiiight.
Before she knows it he has his tongue down her throat and she responds to him like a responding things that knows nothing like RESPONDING!
He compares her to a frightened gazzel for the first of many many MANY times and she accuse him of being a beast before running off...
The Sheikha subjects her to hours of silk choosing and coffee drinking over the next few days and eventually decrees that Danielle earned a ride in the luxury car along the seaside...
Only Jourdan is also in the car and they are heading to his desert palace where she is forced to marry him in a catholic ceremony because of course - his mother was French and he was raised a christian - Allah forbid Danielle would get a Muslim cock inside her....
And a cock she gets the Gazzel like virgin and that cock gives her pain and then pleasure and then some more pleasure.
Jourdan then keeps her in the palace but she manage to steal a horse... she can ride you see because when she was 10 she once sat on a pony. YAY! She rides the horse right into the desert hoping to hit civilization if she just wished the sun and sand away hard enough.
Thankfully the horse is not THAT stupid and leads her back to a nearby oasis where Jourdan is waiting somewhat amused by the whole stupid affair. He seduces her properly this time and they spend a night of passion beneath the stars and she realises she actually loves him.
Upon their smoochy return to the palace she discovered her Slimy French friend is there and he brought his SISTER.
They plot together. Slimy Sis needs to marry Jourdan so she can have her life of luxury and Slimy Bro needs to marry Danielle to allow him to continue gambling all her money away. So they set to drive a wedge between them with lies and manipulations.
They manage to convince Danielle that Jourdan is in love with Slimy Sis and she agrees to run away with Slimy Bro in his rickety Land Rover... which naturally packs up in the middle of the desert and when they continues on foot Danielle faints and he leaves her to die...
Jourdan finds her. Takes her back to the palace to recover whilst kicking Slimy Bro out of the country. He also asks Slimy Sis to leave and she tells Danielle it is temporary and she will come back to Jourdan.
Jourdan agrees to let Danielle have her divorce and when she comes to his room to pick up a bottle of sleeping pills she finds him secretly gazing at a photograph of herself as a 14 year old. Apparently he was in love with her since then ....
¬_¬
NOT CREEPY AT ALL!!!!
So she falls on his neck and swears her undying love to him and he burst into Omar Khayyam mode and they make love and live happily ever after...
WOO HOO!
Priceless book was priceless and indeed I lurved it so ^_^v.
And now I am off to demolish few more vintage M&B.
Until next time...
Lamasu - reading M&Bs so you don't have to.
Over and out.
It just happened that I had the Easter all to myself, the children were away with their ex for 4 days and I felt bereft and lonely. I had Skyrim and alcohol and a lot of chocolate to keep me on the brink of sanity but my M&Bs didn't rise to expectation.
At some point I needed to take a break from Skyrim where I took to cover my nakedness with the amulet of Mara hoping to snare something boobacious and attractive ... although it had the undesired effect of attracting the wrong kind of attention. Seriously - you take a break from murder and mayhem to help and old lady across the road and before you know it she drags you behind a bush and tries to rape you (maybe I SHOULD wear more than a thin chain around my neck and avoid flapping my cock in the wind and snow)... anyway - was going on the main quest which mostly saw me squealing around in circled chased by a dragon with my arse on fire...
I had to sigh. Switch the computer off and make myself a cup of tea... by which I mean the kind of tea made of Burboun, weet vermouth with two marachino cherries in it - OH YEAH! And went to tidy up my Yaoi shelves.
Naturally a big chunk of them involves Gay Sheikhs - WADAYAKNOW! What a surprise... so... here is a small portion of my Sheikh Yaoi Collection with two not very inspiring Sheikh M&Bs.
THE DESERT PRINCE'S MISTRESS by Sharon Kendrick is one of those NOT REALLY sheikh novels in which the Hero is actually an Englishman called DARIAN who finds out he is the ilegitemate son of a dead Sheikh.
The leading lady is a hip model and actress by the name of LARA whose friend is married to a Sheikh so you know she will also marry a Sheikh because sheiks like marrying best friends. Well... all I can say is that at least she isn't BLOND. In fact she is very VERY dark haired... which is probably why she appeals to a NOT REALLY sheikh.
She happens to work in an embassy of some oil rich dune when she snoops around their mail on her last day on the job - I mean HEY! she can't be sacked in her last hour of work right? She comes across a letter from some random dead these past two years woman who claims her son is the illegitimate son of that oil rich dune...
Which naturally happen to be the dune ruled by her best friend husband.
So she steals the letter and goes spying on said illegitemate sheikh. Which is easy because he is a TYCOON! of course - what else. Running some sort of a swish phone company and currently looking for a model to represent them. HEY - she is a model yes? She goes and auditions and her mouthy rude disposition gets her the job.
It also gets her on the sofa naked but for some fuck-me boots with her legs around his neck. YAY!
Now they are in love but they are both comitmentphobes so they act all chilly and not call each other. Until she spills the whole thing to her best friend's husband who wants to meet this half brother of his.
So she arranges a meeting and he gets all horneypants and shows up only to find out the truth. He agrees to go visit the oil rich dune as long as the foul temptress who USED HIS BODY ...he feels so cheap... can come with him so he can shag her a lot more and get her out of his system.
She agrees to come along. There are a lot of horse riding lessons in which she teaches him to ride because he is a self made rich boy from a poor neighbourhood and she grew on a farm . At some point in one of the lesson he dismisses the servants, wanks her through her jodspurs until she noisily scares all the horses away with her orgasm then takes his clothes off, reclines on a hay stack and commands her: "RIDE ME LARA!"
Which is funny because the only time I ever said those EXACT words was when I was playing Tomb Raider and wanted to have a cock for Ms. Croft ok?
So anyway they have explosive sex but they can't confess their love and stuff so she goes back to England as he eases into a life of oil dune politics.
But then one winter day on her parents family farm in a middle of a snow storm he knocks on the door and asks her to marry him and she says yes...
Yeah... it was all a bit anti-climaxy like that... but happy ending in the snow and sand I guess - I can't complain.
The next one was VERY different:
THE SHEIKH'S CHOSEN WIFE by Michelle Reid actually had interesting characters although they could have been ANYTHING not specifically an English red head married to a dark handsome Sheikh.
It was also an interesting story, well paced and well written but a bit gloomy for my taste.
The heroine was living away from her husband the sheikh because she was apparently very unlikely to bear him any heirs and her self of depressing duty drove her away. He on his side is utterly and TOTALLY in love with her. He wants no other woman and will NOT buckle to the pressure to take a second wife... although she wants him to although she knows it will destroy her.
I got to say - she is fairly broken already. The situation is mind boggelingly frustrating because he KNOWS what he wants and he want HER but she is too mentaly fregile to cope with the political situation. She is broken when she is WITH him and when away from him.
Although the situation itself is far removed from ANYTHING I ever was in (fertile like bloody hell and doesn't REALLY fall in love with all my heart to the point it breaks me) I identify with the illogical mental illness state of mind she is in and it felt uncomfortable becaucause I read my fiction to RUN AWAY from myself not to find echoes of myself in it.
The story was good - he conspire with her father to abduct her to his floating city of a yacht to protect her from his enemies and convince her he wants no one else.
Eventually politics catch up with him even on the boat because everyone in his kingdome joins them. They have a lot of sex, they have a lot of angst and they fight and make up and weep in the bath and throw up and fall off stairs and have boating accidents and faint and swoon and break down mentally in every conceivable way.
Eventually he does what he should have done to begin with and tells all the political parties that he isn't going to take any other wife and if they don't shut up he abdicates and they all panic because if he abdicate political anarchy will reign and they will all lose tons of cash so they back up but she is still depressed because she can't concieve.
although of course she IS pregnant by then but no one can figure out why coffee makes her hurl and why her breast are tender...
It all ends up happily in the end of course but the melancholic tone of the whole story was sitting heavily on me....
All in All - if this was Yaoi I could have digested it better especially since it would have then had the added extra WTF element of MPREG >:D.
But it was not and now I am shelving it and going to delve yet again into a world of Vintage romances which are mostly not QUITE Sheikhey but at least have funky covers made of cheese and schmeeze...
And that is all from me today
Lamasu - reading M&Bs so you don't have to
Over and Out!
Here they are with a week old bottle of Shiraz... I love me some Australian wine and when my mood is down I punish myself with it in its more vinegarish form... this wasn't pleasant but it enhanced the goth within (Goth add a bit of glamour to general feelings of MEH-I-BE-LONELEH) on this Easter weekend when the children are away with their dad leaving me to FUS RO DAH my woes in Skyrim... preferably whilst slightly drunk...
OK so here we are :
The first of these books that I ate was :
The Sheikh's Convenient Virgin by Trish Moray
Yes... ahem... thank you Mills and Boon for those fabulous years of utterly idiotic titles...actually I miss the idiotic "lets pull words out of a hat and see if they make a title" can we have it back plz?
This book starts on an Australian late spring day in the get-away plush home of one Arabian Sheikh who goes by the name of Tajik... incidentally do they ALL have to start with an A sylable followed by I ... Hamid, Tajik, Malik, Hakim... etc... they use other formulas for names in the Arab world... BUT NOT IN THIS BOOK ... OR ANY OTHER M&B!!!
Tajik ... or Taj as he likes his swooning army of lady-lovers to call him... also his mum... but I assume mostly lady-lovers... is a pragmatic ruler of yet another fictional Oil emirate. Pragmatic he may be but he is taking a vacation away from his annoying evil uncle (natually IT IS ALWAYS THE UNCLE!!!) ...
His uncle, however, is NOT taking a holiday. He is stirring things up as Taj's secretary Kamil informs him. He sets things up so the whole country DEMANDS that Taj must get married post-haste and none other more suitable woman there is than evil-uncle's pretty doe-eyed 15 year old daughter.
Taj snorts "AS IF..." he isn't about to fall for that one but since the law of the land dictate that his bride must be a virgin he decides to find one in Australia.
"IN AUSTRALIA???" wibbles Kamil the able secretary, "Are you mad, your highness? Have you been outside? There ARE no virgins in Australia - THEY ARE ALL BIKINI WEARING BIMBOS!!!"
Tajik ignores the hysterics of his secretary, glance out of the window and spies the blond and demure companion of his mum. She was hired for a couple of weeks to keep the widow company because her usual companion fell off a cliff or some-such...
"Perfect!" bellows the prince, "She is wearing a shirt... WITH BUTTONS ON IT! She must be a virgin I will marry HER!"
Then he goes off to introduce himself and before everyone has any time to register the sparks that fly when the two come within an inch of each other... WOOOSH they are all whisked away to a private jet ... which is naturally piloted by Taj because all Sheikhs can fly airplanes as well as virgins to heaven and back...
Anyway - The blond in question is Morgan, once betrothed for two years to a man who was using her to hide his momosexuality. So naturally there was no sex involved and she was too virginal to wonder why her betrothed hump the leg of the best man on regular basis... anyway she is apparently confused by the sudden departure and the way she seem to suddenly have a high paid full time job as the companion to a widow who seem to want her all over her son... I am guessing this is why she feel she must go to sleep in one of the airplane bedrooms.
ON OF THE AIRPLANE BEDROOMS!!!
It also has a lounge and a dining room and maybe a billiard room and a brothel... I dunno... nice life if you can have it.
SO - there she is having a nightmare about the time she was in a bus in Peru which fell off a cliff and almost cost her a leg... she now has an ugly scar and a limp - which in my opinion makes her more sexy but I am a bit strange like that... She is having this nightmare in Taj bed which his mum suggested she'd take ... because he is flying the plane and she doesn't have to worry about him disturbing her...
Only he left the plane on auto-pilot and went to have a shower... as he walk out naked and dripping he finds her snoring in his bed and then she start screaming in her sleep too so he hugs her... and ...errr... takes her shirt off...because like... it has buttons on it and she needs to breath...
She wakes up in his arms not freaked at all for some reason to find herself all semi naked and mauled by a muscular, naked and WET man ... although she is slightly disturbed by how much she want to shag him... they don't actually shag because he needs to go back and land the plane...
WHEN they land his evil uncle is all - "HEY, here is my daughter - MARRY HER!" and Taj is like: "Sorry dear evil-uncle - I found this random blond on the beach and now she is my wife." which is the first Morgan ever heard of it but she doesn't have much time to protest because the law of the land decrees that once the king calls someone his wife they are married THE END.
"But you need their parents consent." Morgan remembers she read in a book somewhere. "DO you have parents?" he asks... "errr... not anymore." she admits... "No parents- No human rights!" announce Taj and that is that!
Evil-uncle then invoke the law demanding a virgin and Taj announces that he ran his own tests...
Which involve sexing Morgan so much she gags for it... Taj is a bit more sophisticated than the average sheikh you see, he doesn't need to test her with his cock... one finger in her sleek velvet passage and he can tell she is too tight to be a bikini wearing bimbo...
Of course Morgan is a bit... does he love me? Does he not? What if he doesn't love me? what if he does?
So they are off to celebrate the wedding in the desert and THERE under the stars and the palm trees and the camels - they finally have some crazy-arse monkey-sex and presumably fall in love as a result... but Mr. Sheikh cannot confess that yet oh no!
First he has to accuse her of stealing some necklace he gave her... errr... how does that work... and pay with it for an escape out of the country. Her claims that she loves him fall on deaf and stupid ears. How can anyone fall in love so fast after all... clearly he never read an M&B in his life .... seriously guys, they already know each other for two weeks - that is a LIFETIME in an M&B - they should be heading for their grave with an army of great-gand children in their wake...
Back to our tale:
Evil uncle then slither in Morgan's direction as she sobs by the proverbial foutain by the fragrant citrus tree and tells her that his daughter stole the necklace and can she forgive a teenager for such a terrible crime... in return, he promise, he will help her run away... because he saw how terrible Taj treats her...
SOOOOOO... off she runs with some random guide on a camel who leads her to some mountain in the desert where he should kill her... only of course, A CONVENIENT SAND STORM COMES OUT OF NOWHERE... the guide runs off and stumbles over his camel and then the camel sits on him and he is dead, leaving morgan to hide under a rock...
When Taj who suddenly remembered he once had a wife who died in the desert realises he loves Morgan and goes off in the storm to turn every rock in the Sahara or some-such identical desert... eventually finding Morgan and bringing her back home where he confesses his love to her.
And then everything is fun and all live happily ever after... appart from the Uncle I guess although I can't remember what happened to him... ZE END.
I did love this one a lot - it was frivolous and vivacious and sexy and walk-into-walls unbelievable at points. Good read.
But better still:
Desert Prince, Defiant Virgin by Kim Lawrence
It is dinner time at a desert kingdom and Tair is visiting his cousins Khalid and Tariq from the neighbouring oil wealthy dune... He is watching cousin Tariq closely and ANGRILY. Tariq is married to the gorgoues Beatrice, an English hot-stuff now heavily pregnant with their first child. Tariq cannot take his eyes from Beatrice's mousy looking, bespectacled BROUNETTE (OMIGODDESS!!! AN HONEST TO GODS BROUNETTE!!!)... he seems to be dribbling and drooling in equal measures and Tair is full of RAGE! How dare his cousin behaves this way, and why does his wife smiles warmly at him when he is clearly hiding a ... a BONER for this friend of hers...
Later at night Tariq is sitting in Molly's room, for this is her name, and they are talking avidly about the family history... you see, it turns out that Molly is NOT really Beatrice friend, THAT was just a cover-up. In fact she is Tariq and Khalid half sister. Their mother ran off back to England and re-married and had Molly then died. She too has two half sisters and a father who is awaiting a heart bypass. She was always the ugly duckling but everyone loved her because she is a bit of a genius and making them all proud ... awwwww... lovely family is LUFFLY <3
Tariq asks her to keep their relationship a secret as to not embarass their dad publically. Tariq and Khalid dad has Arab pride and apparently they shatter when the world know they weren't good enough in bed and their ex wife made a baby with a different man... fair enough ... errr... anyhoooo... Molly promises she would keep her mouth shut. Then Tariq leaves her room giving her a good brotherly squeeze...
... which Tair happens to see and naturally he gets COMPLETELY the wrong idea.
So he decides to do the honorable thing and ABDUCT MOLLY. The next day he has the perfect opportunity when Tariq asks him to tell Molly he can't see her for lunch because Beatrice is not feeling well. Tair can't muster enough logic to actually ask: "By the way, who is this Molly and why did you hug her last night?" oh no, he goes off to the green house where she is sitting painting orchids (she is a bottany teacher apparently).
He tells her she has no talent. She is rather unphased by this... good girl. Although she has to admit that despite his rotten personality she has a case of the horney pants for him. He is dark and has unusual blue eyes and when he touches her hand passing her the sketch book they both fly to opposite sides of the glass house because ZAP! Electricity is generated... woo hoo.
He tells himself she is ugly but he can't stop looking at her mouth and her swan-like neck.
And then he tells her Beatrice is in hospital and offers to drive her there. She does't want to go with him on account that he is a bit of a git but he is a FORCEFULL git and it is easier to do what he asks than make him shut up. They argue on the way and it is HILARIOUS because she really doesn't give ground and she answers him sharply.
He gives her some excuse of having to go via the desert to pick his underwear or something... which he left in a random airplane... so they go on the plane and he takes off and she can't jump off because ... well.... they are miles in the air.
He accuses her of being a temptress. She tells him he is mad. But she can't explain why Tariq was in her room because... well... she promised to hide their secret... which is fine because they keep fightling all the way to the desert landing... where a couple of camels are waiting for them...
He forces her to ride the camel for a few hours during which she is delirious with thirst so she confess the family conection and tells him about her dad's heart condition. He tells her to pull the other one... and can she drink more of the water he gave her please? She sticks her tongue at him.
Eventually they arrive at the Oasis where she screams at him and kicks him in the crotch (I SWEAR!) before fainting.
She wakes up in a lavish tent with a splitting headache and Tair is there, they argue some more and ... it is brilliant... the entire friction between these two is DELICIOUS. You just want them to start having angry sex already.
And then once she had a bath and some food and enough water in her Molly thinks, "HEY. I can do worse than lose my virginity to this arse-hole. HE IS SEX ON LEGS. There is no TV here ... I might as well..."
So when he comes out with the bright idea to seduce her away from his cousin, she goes along with the plan.... by the way - there is an Ode in there for the beauty of small breasts... as a small breasted woman who was always mocked (By my then husband ... oh sex was so fun...) about it... I HIGHLY APPROVE OF THIS VARIATION...
Anyway - she is bespectacled (by choice - to make herself look older), likes wearing beige, dark haired and small breasted... TOTES new on all fronts.
AND the sex is explosive... and goes on all night... and well into the day...
And then BAM! Tair's Sheik Daddy show up with Tariq and Khalid and they are all FURIOUS with him for deflowering their baby virgin sister and he is all: "shit, yeah I did! I MUST MARRY HER!" "YES YOU MUST MARRY HER!" echo her brothers and his father repeats: "YES! MARRY HER TO APEASE HER HONOUR!!!"
And then ... and this is one of the reason I love this book...Molly turns around, SLAP ALL OF THEM IN THE FACE and goes: "you bunch of medieval gorillas! how DARE you stand around deciding my future as if I am not here. I am not going to marry some JERK just because I fancied some hanky-panky... yes. I WANTED SOME HOT SEX WITH HIM BECAUSE HE IS HOT! But he is also a pain in the arse and there is no way in hell I will marry him kthxBAI!"
Then she storms off into the tent and Tair runs after her like a puppy and goes: "why won't you marry me whyyyyyy?" and she goes: "well to start with you don't love me do you? but the sex is fabulous so how about I become your MISTRESS!!!"
I almost died laughing although it was also a very touching scene because Tair turned around with an ultimatum, she marries him or no sexytimez EVER and she goes... BAHBAI sexytime ----> and he silently leaves the tent... but seriously MY FOPS, ONION AND MINIONS! this is the first heroine of a sheikh romance who PROPERLY thinks like a modern western woman...FROM THE VERY START.
Anyway - two months later Molly is back in England and PREGNANT. Her dad had his bypass curtesy of some generous annonymous benefactor who we know is Tair but Molly can't figure that out yet.
Then there is a party in London and Beatrice invites her. She now has a cup C curtesy of pregnancy (by the by that is SO true - by the end of my pregnancy I was cup D and the first few months of breast feeding I was DD and NO one spoke to my face... my boobs suddenly became the focus of EVERYONE attention XD)... so she is literally falling out of her dress ... which is why stereotipical lecivious French bloke can't leave her alone and he points out some beautiful curvacious hottie who is apparently going to marry Tair...
Upon hearing this Molly fumes and SCREAMS - in the middle of the ballrooms - "HOW DARE HE!!!" which is probably how Tair spots her. He drags her into a room and they start fighting...
Only THIS argument is ADORABLE because they are both fumbling for words and embarrasses and SO walk-into-walls out of touch with their emotions as in: "well... congratualtion on your impending marriage..." "Right... thanks... I am not getting married though..." "Oh really... Yes! well... watever... yay! I mean good. Perfect." "Unless you... I mean... how are you... you look... healthy." "yes I am fine... good. perfect." "you... you said that?" " I did? Oh. Good...I mean... perfect... I mean... I AM PREGNANT!"
At which point Tair just explodes with happiness. It is SO CUTE! He actually doesn't know what to do with himself and can't figure out how to confess his love.
So... and this was GLORIOUS!!!
Molly PROPOSES TO HIM!
MOLLY... PROPOSES... TO HIM!!!
I died of the happy there and then.
The confession of love that followed actually managed to avoid being cheesy - it was just one of those little perfect books.
And they would have probably have sex there and then if Tariq didn't knock on the door.
And then the ending just gets happier and happier when the king aknowledges Molly in Public. Tair announces their ingagement. The king is all: "Really? are you sure? You could do better. You DO realise what a pain in the arse he is?"
And maybe they would respond but they are too busy snogging the life out of each other in public...
THE END.
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE <3
And that is it. I am off to lounge uselessly on the sofa for the rest of the weekend, reading few more of these, hopefully few more gems will crop up...
Lamasu
Reading M&Bs so you don't have to...
Over and out...
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