I linked to Beth the blog Smart Bitches Love Trashy Novels.  She has found her kindred spirits.   So Beth has established Monday's as Smart Bitches Day.  The criteria for this is found in her blog http://sum-of-me.blogspot.com/  So the gauntlet has been thrown.  (which is good because I was looking for something to have a theme at least once a week--this works).

Now before I can sit down and analyze a truly bad book, I have to find one (I don't keep them around) and decide what I don't like about it.  (I may have to make a trip to the UBS--I have a couple in mind).  So let's begin with the good, or:

Why I would hate Laura Kinsale if she weren't such a neat person.

Kinsale's prose makes me cry, her prose lingers with me long after I've closed the book.  I rarely can quote passages out of a book, particulary a romance.  I can with Kinsale's.  She is the pinnacle to which all romance writers should aspire. 

There are lots of elements that are things of beauty in a Kinsale book.  The characterization--there's never a false step with her characters.  Sometimes they are hard to take, but their actions are always character driven, not there just to forward the plot. But to me, it is also just the beauty of the writing.

Two examples of brief descriptions illustrate just how she can define a character (whether personality or appearance) in such a short paragraph or two.

I'm sorry, I don't think I'll ever find a description of a hero any better than that of Samuel Gerard in THE SHADOW AND THE STAR (btw, this book was just reissued, so if you've never read it or worn out your copy, this is the time to get a new copy).

The room full of women went uncharacteristically silent as Mr. Gerard appeared in the door...a collective intake of feminine breath at the sight of him--a golden, slightly wind-blown Gabriel come down to earth, minus nothing but the wings.

Or how to describe the ultimate rake, Christian Langland, Duke of Jervaulx in FLOWERS FROM THE STORM:

He liked radical politics and had a fondness for chocolate.  Five years ago, the Honorable Miss Lacy-Grey had verifiably swooned on the occasion of his requesting her hand for a country dance--an example of that category of incidents which one's friends found endlessly amusing and became fond of recalling ad nauseam in their cups.  The circulating quip had been that a marriage proposal would have crippled the girl for life, and an offer of a baser sort killed her on the spot.

Since Christian lay now with his head pillowed in the smooth curve of her back, his fingers indolently sliding between her stocking and her skin just above the blue-and -yellow garter, he had to assume that his friends had been slightly out in the predictions. She seemed perfectly alive to him.  Her ankles crossed prettily, waving gently back and forth in the air above him.

That's it.  That's all you need to know.  So brief, so succinct.  So damn frigging beautiful.