Thursday, February 10, 2011

What I Read #14


Montana Man by Barbara Delinsky: I have read other Delinsky novels and this was not what I thought it was going to be. I hate to even admit I wasted my time reading it. It was chick-lit at it's finest, I guess. I didn't know Delinsky wrote this kind of fluff.
Lily and her five week old daughter are snowbound in a cabin in the woods with Quist (we never learn his last name.) They fall madly in love in three days time, but it takes 200+ pages for them to admit it to each other.
Again, this was an early work by Delinsky, sort of a beating hearts/heaving bosoms type novel, that didn't close the bedroom door and left little or nothing to the imagination. How do people write this stuff? Oh well, it's over and done with. Now, on to something more exciting; like a slasher, murder/thriller.

Duped, but still happily reading,

JE

3 comments:

Curley said...

I think I have only read one Delinsky book and it was "chick-lit" which is ok since I am one. Chick that is. I like chick-lit but also like the slasher/murder/thriller/mystery.

Mellodee said...

The "romance" genre audience has a voracious appetite! Lots of opportunities for new writers just starting out, because of the vast audience for romance. Romance novels have a definite formula that publishers pretty much agree on and that makes it a good way of learning how to write a novel. (By the way, a "romance" doesn't have to be a "bodice ripper" historical story. Those exist, but there are many contemporary romances which can be quite funny or touching. There is a huge market for them....women like to read them and dream! Sometimes that "fluff" is all that gets you through the day!

Many writers started out writing romance (often under a pseudonym)and then once established move slowly into more mainstream novels using their own name. Two that come immediately to mind are Sandra Brown and Nora Roberts, both big names in fiction, they now have huge followings.

Barbara Delinsky did exactly that. Her more recent books have a much wider audience, but those who read her romances have stayed loyal and now she is as successful and well-known as Brown and Roberts!

The romances aren't written to appeal to men....and they usually don't!!

It's kind of like action thriller movies that men like. Women don't "get" them either. :)

Jimmie Earl said...

I have read Delinsky's later works and like them. This one just "caught me off guard." It was published in 1989, and released again. I even found it in the newer book section.
Thanks Mel for the genre update! Didn't mean to cause an uproar.

To each his own. And, I don't like historical fiction, but I like all of Nora Roberts' recent stuff. Now, Sandra Brown.....yeppers! I like her style.
So see, I can like what you gals like a little bit.