Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches' Guide to Romance Novels

The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name...

We do it in the dark. Under the sheets. With a penlight. We wear sunglasses and a baseball hat at the bookstore. We have a "special place" where we store them. Let's face it: Not many folks are willing to publicly admit they love romance novels. Meanwhile, romance continues to be the bestselling fiction genre. Ever. So what's with all the shame?

Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan—the creators of the wildly popular blog Smart Bitches, Trashy Books—have no shame! They look at the good, the bad, and the ugly in the world of romance novels and tackle the hard issues and questions:

-The heroine's irresistible Magic Hoo Hoo and the hero's untamable Wang of Mighty Lovin'

-Sexual trends. Simultaneous orgasms. Hymens. And is anal really the new oral?

-Romance novel cover requirements: man titty, camel toe, flowers, long hair, animals, and the O-face

-Are romance novels really candy-coated porn or vehicles by which we understand our sexual and gender politics?

With insider advice for writing romances, fun games to discover your inner Viking warrior, and interviews with famous romance authors, Beyond Heaving Bosoms shows that while some romance novels are silly—maybe even tawdry—they can also be intelligent, savvy, feminist, and fabulous, just like their readers!

Sarah Wendell is a transplanted Pittsburgher currently living in the New York metropolitan area with her husband and two children. By day she works as an executive assistant in Manhattan. By evening, she becomes Smart Bitch Sarah of the "Smart Bitches Trashy Books" blog. The site specializes in reviewing romance novels, examining the history and future of the genre, and bemoaning the enormous prevalence of bodacious pectorals adorning male cover models. She has a B.A. in English and Spanish from Columbia College of South Carolina, is a member of the Romance Writers of America, and is a big fan of Fabio.

Candy Tan grew up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and is co-founder of the blog "Smart Bitches, Trashy Books." She is a first-year law student at Lewis and Clark Law School and a part-time computer lab assistant at the law school. By night she, too, obsessively analyzes romance novels for the site. She and her husband live in Portland, Oregon.