...!!

Because I am incredibly lucky and Ms ForgetGutenberg is actually IN MY HOUSE and sitting on my couch, I just spent the last hour looking up potential books for the Fictional Hockey League and dramatically reading the the blurbs at FG.

I have discovered a book that is clearly brilliant. So brilliant that I was literally speechless and couldn't make words-- not even to read out loud-- for a moment. FG took my phone away from me to prove to herself that I wasn't making this stuff up...

Taken by the Weremoose

Rescued from a car accident by a moose on the loose, Jennifer's surprised her rescuer isn't an ordinary animal but a weremoose.
Cursed for the greatest of Canadian sins (besides hating hockey), Brandon was forced to remain a moose until he learned to be polite. Now able to switch to his human form after decades of celibacy, he is ready to make up for lost time.
After seeing the rugged muscled lumberjack, Jennifer is eager to show appreciation to her weremoose rescuer. Anything else would be impolite and that's not very Canadian.

I don't think there's actually much hockey in this short, but I miiiiight need to read it all the same...

The Virgin’s Secret Marriage: Post 18

Chapter 14: We Made It to the End!

(Posts for the foreseeable future may be a bit brief and slapdash. Proofreading? Revision? What are those!? Sincere apologies—it’s been a heck of a few months and the Commissioner is digging her way out of them.)

Well, here we are! The end of the novel, where we must get our heroes together for their Happily Ever After. So, naturally, we open with Emma at the Wedding Inn (writing up her bill for the Subplot Wedding that Wasn’t) when who should appear…? Why, the Subplot Groom! He’s plead guilty and thus been allowed out and about, and expects to get a fine and community service rather than jail time, including being a spokesperson to the youth on how easy it is to end up doing crime, and he’s at the Inn because he plans to apologize to everyone he hurt.

The one he hurt the most, however, specifically the Subplot Bride, won’t see him. In fact, her family took out a restraining order against him. I guess I’ll handwave that as the family having a judge in their pockets or something, because I don’t think you can legally take out a restraining order on someone who has never been violent to you or threatened you or has a criminal background of violence. Two minutes of google-fu tell me, however, that there are allegations of restraining order abuse—meaning that it’s actually very easy to get a restraining order because judges err on the side of the one asking for an order because it’s very bad publicity to deny a restraining order and then have the asker end up dead. It also apparently can happen in as little as a day, so I guess the Subplot Bride’s family really could have done this, but it’s still super underhanded, would require lying to the court and judge, and is not what a restraining order is for.

The Subplot Groom has given up on his bride because “[s]he fell in love with a marketing whiz, an up-a-comer. Now that [he’s] no longer that person—well, let’s just say there’s no chance for reconciliation there, either” (192). As little as I care about this subplot, I included that quote because that is diametrically opposed to what Mama Hart said to Joe and to what this main couple will decide about sticking through it all and loving each other no matter what and not giving up. So while the Subplot Thief and Heiress aren’t the main duo in this novel, their story does take up quite a few pages and seem to totally undercut the message of the main pairing.

And yet, the Subplot Groom’s final words to Emma, that if your life is going the wrong way, “U-turns are allow” (194) are “prophetic” and enough to convince her that she needs to make a change and figure things out with Joe.

Her marriage had crumbled because she hadn’t possessed the courage to ignore the evidence to the contrary and believe in Joe. Because she had been afraid to tell Joe how she really felt, how deeply she was in love with him (194, comma splice error original).

Do real live people think this way? Like, ever? I mean, I can see waiting for the significant other to explain the situation before jumping to conclusions, but A) Embroidered monogram thongs, as ridiculous as that is, don’t just appear in people’s bedrooms magically and B) they didn’t have a marriage to crumble! Saying the words in front of a justice of the peace gives you the legal bindings of a marriage, which mostly constitute how you pay your taxes and who is now your next of kin, but it doesn’t magically make the relationship that is a marriage. (In other words, I’m defining marriage in two different ways, two separate entities. Joe and Emma had a legal marriage, unbeknownst to them, for the past seven years…. Which means I’m pretty sure they’ve been filing their taxes wrong. But that’s all it means. The relationship on which their marriage ideally should have been built wasn’t there. I don’t care how long they dated when they were nineteen, it’s seven years later now and they’re different people. Think about how much changes in seven years.

But this novel has been conflating the two relationships and insisting that if you have the one (the legal one, at least once you’re aware of its existence), then you have to strive for the relationship one. And sure, again, ideally you would. Frankly, ideally you’d go the other way ‘round, starting with the relationship and then signing the piece of paper that has you jointly filing your taxes. But the relationship can’t be forced and isn’t instantaneously created by signing that paper.

If it were, there’d be a lot fewer divorces after spontaneous Las Vegas weddings.

But now we’re down to just a few pages of novel, so let’s get to them.

Joe’s four brothers (did you know he had four? I’d forgotten about the sportscaster one, if I ever knew he existed) show up to take Emma to a surprise location.

It was one thing to be led around by Joe—he was her husband, after all. But by all the men in the Hart clan was something else indeed! (195)

I’m deeply concerned that it’s okay for a husband to grab his wife’s elbow and lead her around wherever he wants, if the two of them haven’t actually okayed that as part of their relationship. In other words, I’d be peeved if my significant other did that to me, particularly on a regular basis.

Emma asks what happens if she doesn’t want to go, and the brother say they’ll convince her. To her question about what happens if she isn’t convinced, they just grin and she sighs, understanding that like or not, she’s going.

I find this creepy.

They get to the Storm’s practice rink and head for the locker room where Joe is waiting. (Joe has also shaved off his beard.) The brothers are joined by Emma’s parents, the coach, and “sports attorney Ross Dempsey” (196). (Every time this man is mentioned in the novel, he’s “sports attorney Ross Dempsey”, as if it’s super important for readers to recall who he is… only he doesn’t do anything of use, ever.)

Apparently this locker room has a television, because Joe turns it on and tells everyone to watch it. If this were their actual arena, I’d say they ought to be in the players’ lounge, but the text does specify practice. And while I am a nosy person who had more access to the Arizona Coyotes than most people do to their local NHL teams, I do not actually know what the practice rink’s locker rooms look like (for the NHL—I know what the regular locker rooms look like, having used them) or whether they’d have a tv in them.

Joe leaves and goes to the weight room. (Another shrug from me here. I know that the Yotes don’t have a weight room at their practice rink but that they do sometimes work out in the fitness center that’s in the same rink. They have a weight/training room at their actual arena, though.) After “about ten reps” on “one of the weight machines” (could you vague that up a bit for me, text?) Tiffany Lamour shows up.

Dressed as beautifully as always, in a form-fitting red sheath and high heels, she looked like a tomcat on the prowl (197).

There’s something about the tomcat imagery that seems off, even though I know what the text is going for and I applaud the text/author for not entirely slut shaming Tiffany.

Tiffany says the weight room is a strange place to meet and from this Joe admits that Emma left him over the thong. He says Tiffany’s ploy was clever and she agrees, but that Emma’s leaving is ironic since he and Tiffany hadn’t done anything.

Tiffany ends up admitting that the entire thing was payback because Joe wouldn’t “seduce” her (197) when she gave him multiple opportunities. Joe calls it blackmail.

Tiffany tries again to seduce him, saying that he’s not the first or last, and if he takes her to bed, she’ll “be good to [him] from here on out” (198).

I’m trying to fathom the psychology that is Tiffany Lamour. I presume she finds some sort of sexual thrill not only in the sex (since she could get that in other ways) with athletes (which she could still get) but in the power she sees herself as having over them thanks to her news show? And I guess I can buy that, since people are weird, but people are rarely so knowledgeable about themselves to baldly point out that that’s what they do and that the person they’re trying to seduce in that moment isn’t the first or last.

But Joe says he will be the last, in fact, since Tiffany’s been on camera this whole time.

Tiffany threatens to sue, and “sports attorney Ross Dempsey” says then they’ll counter-sue. Mac-the-Sheriff says he’d have to arrest Tiffany for blackmail and extortion.

Tiffany defiantly asks what they want of her and does “a double take” (198) when told she has to apologize to Emma and Joe. That … seems like the least of what they’d want of her, so I’m weirded out by how surprised she is at the stipulation. She capitulates with a fake apology and a demand of the tape, but everyone says no, that it’s insurance, including Saul (team owner, Emma’s dad) who says if he hears of Tiffany ever doing anything similar again, he’ll release it to the media. So I guess that’s Saul taken care of and now in Joe’s corner.

Speaking of Joe, he kicks everyone out except Emma at this point, and she apologizes for not believing in him.  And we find out that the problem, why she couldn’t trust him, had nothing to do with their utterly absurd excuse for a relationship and all the things I’ve been pointing out. Oh no. Instead…

“Deep down, I guess I didn’t think I could hold on to you” (200).

Nope, it’s all about the woman’s insecurities. She continues on, saying “I’m still foolish sometimes” and Joe’s response is that they’ll work on that (201). Asshat.

Then they admit to each other that they love each other and want to stay married, as long as there’s “no more walking out when the going gets rough” (202).

“I promise… I’ll never doubt you—or us—again” (202).

Because that’s totally how these things work.

Then they kiss and go home. The end.

WOW. That was a lot of work to get through, although in part because of my weird travel schedule and in part because my tablet died-ish. But part of it was the utter insanity of what went on in this book. Sure, there weren’t any traditional fantasy elements (no wherehyenas!) but when I stopped to think about what passed for “normal” in this book, I just had to comment on it and poke at it and try to figure out what the heck.

I think if an average reader—myself included—just sat down to read this book without expecting to critique it like I do for the FHL, a lot of what was utterly bizarre about it would have just been accepted. (Marriage is about trust? Okay! I buy that!... waitaminute… this marriage is founded on lies and a hiatus of seven years… maybe I should reconsider what the groundwork of this marriage means for the expectations therein…) I think if I had read it that way, I still wouldn’t have liked the book (I didn’t like either character, for example, and everyone non-main-couple was a caricature) but I wouldn’t have had quite so many problems with it.

At any rate, I don’t recommend this book and I don’t have any intention whatsoever looking for other books by the same author.

Next up? We’re moving away from the Harlequins and finding out what knitting and hockey have in common…other than the fact that they’re both hobbies of mine.

(Not, like, at the same time. I have never sat on the bench between shifts working on a scarf or something. But I have frequently watched games, both on tv and rec-league in person games, while knitting various things. In fact, funny story—one of the teams I played on was called the Predators. But rather than use the Nashville logo, our logo was based on the alien from the movies. So our team had a tradition that whoever played particularly well each game, the sort of ‘start of the game’, would get a small predator figure to carry around for the week and return the following. I got him early in the season, and I crocheted him a helmet and a pair of hockey pants. Okay, so it wasn’t knitting, but when I work in 3D, I prefer crocheting. I prefer knitting for all other yarn crafts.) Anyway, Preddy (as he was affectionately called) was well dressed for the rest of the season.

Right. Join me again soon for the next text…

The Virgin’s Secret Marriage: Post 17

Chapter 13: Seriously, who monograms their thongs?

(Posts for the foreseeable future may be a bit brief and slapdash. Sincere apologies—it’s been a heck of a few months and the Commissioner is digging her way out of them.)

We’re in the home stretch—this is the second-to-last chapter in The Virgin’s Secret Marriage—which means, of course, that while obviously Emma and Joe will have their Happily Ever After, something terrible has to happen first. As you might guess, it’s all, frankly, less exciting than a climax—of any sort—should be.

Chapter thirteen opens on the Subplot Marriage, and the Subplot Bride is deeply concerned that something bad is going to happen, and while Emma doesn’t agree out loud, she is worried too. Readers, of course, know that with only two chapters left and novels’ penchant for bad things happening at the worst possible time, that it’s likely that the Subplot Groom will be arrested for STEALING ALL THE THINGS. 

… which is exactly what happens when Mac-the-Sheriff shows up. The Subplot Groom saves everyone a great deal of time and confesses almost immediately (Miranda rights be damned).

So… naturally… the Subplot (Ex)Bride’s incredibly irritating mother blames Emma for allowing the sheriff to enter the Wedding Inn and arrest the Subplot Groom, then threatens to sue the Inn and Emma and refuses to pay for anything, until the Subplot (Ex)Bride’s father points out that actually it’s a good thing that their daughter isn’t marrying a criminal.

The cancellation of the marriage ceremony means that Emma goes home early, albeit after feeding many of the wedding guests in what must have been one of the most awkward non-weddings ever. When she arrives home, she finds Joe looking guilty, “as if he’d just been caught in the act of she didn’t know what” (180). Again, readers know that he was setting up his Grand Seduction (the one he planned with his sister in the previous chapter), but because this couple’s marriage is based on LIES and propaganda, Emma finds the fact that he’s stripping the bed to be suspicious. Joe confesses to (now underprepared) Grand Seduction and Emma fills him on Aborted Wedding/Arrest, then they decide to be romantic. Joe goes off to prepare her a bath, and Emma decides to change into sexy lingerie.

Except! What’s this?! Gasp! Horror!

And that was when she looked down and saw the hint of leopard-print satin and black frothy lace peeking out from beneath Joe’s pile of clothes (182).

Oh, but it gets worse. Not only is this not Emma’s thong, but it’s quickly obvious whose it is.

Front and center of the lingerie was an embroidered black heart with the initials T.F.  The only T.F. Joe knew was Tiffany Lamour (182).

So, Lamour is her stage name? I don’t remember that ever being specified in the book, but I’m willing to admit that this could be my fault as opposed to the writing.

My first reaction is “Who monograms their underwear?!” However, now that I’ve moved to the south, I have learned that monogramming is very popular. I cannot speak to the popularity of monogramming thongs, however.  A VERY quick Google search suggests that once you get past the kind of iron-on CafePress personalized thongs, the next step is getting your thong personalized for wearing under your wedding dress. Other than bridal lingerie, the search turned up options via Etsy (the art/craft sales site) and of course many sites for personalizing what Americans call flipflops but Australians call thongs.

This 30 second Google search did not turn up anything like what’s described in the book, but I will not say that it’s impossible or even necessarily unlikely because I just don’t know and don’t want to spend more time googling it.

My second reaction was, “Gee, Tiffany, don’t you think going with the embroidered pair is overdoing it?” I mean, it’s so on-the-nose as to seem suspicious. But then I remembered what I was reading.

So Emma accuses Joe of sleeping with Tiffany in order for her to go easy on him in the interview. Joe tells her that he didn’t. He does NOT however explain about Tiffany asking to use the bathroom and disappearing into their house the previous day. In fact, I don’t think he’d ever told Emma about Tiffany’s visit. Despite not providing a logical explanation, such as the truth that the readers are privy to, Joe just gives up.

I have a whole bunch of things highlighted in this section because I just don’t understand the direction this goes. Joe feels hurt because of Emma’s “lack of faith” (183). Then he realizes that the ruse “had pointed out a glaring lack in his relationship with his bride” (184), meaning that she doesn’t trust him.

He glared at Emma, frustrated that he hadn’t let himself see this coming, when he had known as along, that she was more of a good time gal and fair-weather friend than a devoted wife who would endure anything to be with him (184, comma error original).

What. The. Hell.

First, I do not think “good-time gal” means what you think it means. I was under the impression it meant someone who is particularly interested in, well, having a good time, but specifically sex. I looked it up online and it apparently does mean that, connotatively, and denotatively means what it sounds like— a woman more interested in pleasure than work. However, neither of those meanings makes any sense for Emma. She’s not the former, since she’s the novel’s titular virgin, and she’s not the latter since she has worked very hard for her career (when she could have just been pampered by her parents’ fortune.) I think the text is using it more as a synonym for “fair-weather friend,” someone who is only a companion during the good times and not the hard.

Second, vocabulary, outdated slang, and comma errors aside, why the hell should either of them trust each other? Their marriage is built on lies—granted lies to the rest of the world, but still. And they NEVER talked about making this a “real” marriage—as far as they’ve conveyed to each other, the expectation was that they’d get divorced in two years. So why would Emma be a “devoted wife”?

Third, “devoted wife who would endure anything to be with him”??? That smacks of such antiquated sexism. I assume the writer didn’t mean it that way and that Joe thinks he’d be there through thick and thin because of his love for Emma, but that’s not how it comes across. Not to mention, since he doesn’t even try to explain what he knows happened, it doesn’t really suggest he’s being there for her, either.

Emma’s reasoning for believing that Joe would have slept with Tiffany is that Joe put his career ahead of Emma in the past. Now, if we take that at face value, fine, okay, that makes (some) sense. But if you recall, back in chapter 9, Emma calls Joe’s choice to annul (albeit unsuccessfully) their marriage “noble”, and that he could have actually leveraged their marriage into a spot on the Storm, thus improving his career prospects. If we’re to believe this reading of their history, then he has, in fact, not put his career ahead of Emma.

Since what happened seven years before and how these two characters view it is fundamental to the entire rest of this book, I just really wish that the text was clear as to those events and the characters’ motivations and interpretations.

This scene drags on. Next Joe feels sorry for himself because Emma doubts him, just like everyone else in his life has always doubted him, from his mother to his coaches to sports columnists. Poor baby, playing successfully in the NHL.

Emma declares that Joe has destroyed what trust they’d had, and Joe’s response is to just fold in on himself and say that he’ll have his lawyer call hers. (I wonder if his sports lawyer takes care of divorces? He’s not very good at lawyering in general, though.)

The next day, Joe’s mother asks him to do yardwork at the Wedding Inn as a thinly-veiled excuse to question him as to what’s going on. (She’d seen Joe’s car at his sister’s house overnight and discovered that Emma had slept in her office.) Joe spills all, declaring that this sort of thing happens to athletes and if Emma can’t handle it, then that’s her problem.

(I’m not sure if the text means that athletes get propositioned a lot or that athletes get accused of sex they didn’t have a lot. The former I believe, but also believe Emma could get over, in time. The latter seems less likely to be a consistent and recurring problem.)

Joe’s mother accuses him of quitting, even if Emma let him down. Joe points out that if Emma loved him, he’d be willing to work things out but that this experience proves she doesn’t. Joe’s mama uses his hockey career and work ethic against him, pointing out that he worked his ass off and put his mind to it to get a successful professional career against the odds, because he knew it was the right thing to do.

“Like you knew when you were only nineteen that Emma was the only woman for you,” Helen said (190).

Uh, what? First off, Helen wasn’t around for any of Joe’s relationship with Emma seven years before. It took place in Rhode Island and the text explicitly said that the Hart family was unaware of it. That means that Helen would have found out that Joe “just knew” some time in the last week or so, while the two have been (re)married. But when would have that have happened? Joe’s only conversation with his mother about Emma was when she gave him the (now stolen and recovered) hockey memorabilia as an excuse to tell him that he has to treat Emma right.

Soooooo, Joe’s mother is a psychic. Or is just making stuff up—because the text has never even had JOE HIMSELF say that at nineteen he knew that Emma was the one. Yeah, he’s been unable to forget her and yeah, seeing her again has rekindled his love, but again the text has not indicated that he’s been unable to find someone new because Emma was the one. (The text has indicated this obliquely about Emma, saying that she unfavorably compared anyone who approached her to Joe.)

This magic speech, which makes zero sense once you think about it further, does the trick for Joe. He learns that he must devote himself to his marriage, just like he devoted himself to his career, and stick with her.

Ugh.

Well, stick with the Fictional Hockey League, since there’s just one more chapter of The Virgin’s Secret Marriage to go.