Saturday, November 19, 2005

Is it just me?

Harlequin Presents are notorious for their horrendous titles. Now is it just me or do others find them not only bad but downright offensive? Here is just a sample of actual titles of some of their upcoming books:


  • Baby of Shame
  • The Married Mistress
  • The Sicilian's Defian Mistress
  • Taken by the Highest Bidder
  • Pregnancy of Revenge
  • The Greek's Bought Wife
  • The Disobedient Virgin

I could find more but frankly, just these few are enough to make me most annoyed. To me they are very condesending and insulting to women in general. I know this line is one of Harlequins most popular. I don't understand why any romance reader would actually take these to the check out and pay money for them - but each to their own I suppose, but I do believe with many of them, the titles cross the line from just a bad joke to tasteless and ignorant.

Anyway, I'm feeling bitchy and that is my rant for the day.

'til later

8 comments:

erika said...

It's me too! I despise the titles but then again never judge a book by its godawful sucky stupid annoying silly title.
I rant about the sucky titles everytime I post about harlequin presents which I get every month by their subscription services. The dumbed down titles are here to stay I suppose:(

Wendy said...

Pregnancy of Revenge and Baby of Shame have got to be all-time lows for titles - even for the HP line!

Most readers I know who love HP love them for one of two reasons:

1) They're guilty pleasures. Pure and simple. Since I keep reading Thea Devine I can't really argue with this reason :)

2) They cut their romance reading teeth on HP and they feel nostaglic for the line. Since I keep reading gawd-a$$ awful Lilian Jackson Braun "mysteries," I can't really argue with this reason either.

We all have our foibles....

CindyS said...

I have to agree about Pregnancy of Revenge and Baby of Shame. Okay, Baby of Shame is just horrible. No baby is shameful. Crap, now I'm going to start a rant ;)

Did you see the Smart Bitches HP title contest where you were to pick out the title that was NOT real. It was shocking to say the least.

I remember the first time I bought a book with the word Virgin in the title (I think it was a SIM by Joan Johnston - a one time auto-buy). I hid that puppy like no other and I was like 28! I haven't bought one with such a title again.

CindyS

Tara Marie said...

I think Harlequin is doing it on purpose, the titles are so campy they can't be taken seriously.

Gabrielle said...

Hmmm, it may be their most popular, but how do you explain the GH traditional category being cancelled because there were less than 25 entries? If someone called my book Pregnancy of Shame, I'd hunt them down!

Anonymous said...

I always thought the Harlequin titles were really dumb but I when I attended the Romance Writers' of Australia conference in Melbourne Lucy Monroe (who's published in both single title and category) said that she loved the titles because they told her exactly what she was getting. So I guess that's the appeal.

Although I don't who the Pregnancy of Revenge and Baby of Shame would appeal to since they sound distinctly unappealing.

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