Romancing the romance novel

I have been quite the reader during my lifetime. I am also a collector of any number of hard-bound books. I have so many books, in fact, that I have actually run out of space in my two huge bookcases. (If you came to my house, you would probably think I am one of those poor obsessive-compulsive souls who hoard weird things; in my case, it's books. The girl can't help it. No wonder Books-a-Million gave me a discount card of my very own.)

The types of books I love to own and read run the gamut from Stephen King novels to historical tomes. The one genre that I have never really gotten into, however, is Women's Romance Novels where the women are all young and beautiful with no blemishes or cellulite and the men are tall, tan, muscular, with bulges in just the right places, with beautiful hair, and no blemishes or cellulite. The only thing on their minds is obviously, by the look of the book covers, kissing and hugging. You can use your imagination on what comes next.

Now, we have a friend who has been trying to get published in the women's romance novel arena. She is quite a talented writer and has worked at writing for most of her adult life. Within the last year or so, she quit her paying job as a writer on a magazine to stay at home and write full time with the hopes of getting published very soon.

I thought of our friend this morning when my husband pointed me to a blog that is on his favorites list. He insisted that it was very funny. I finally relented and tripped over to Franny's Fables. One of Franny's posts pointed me to the World of Longmire

This site's author has found his niche in taking women's romance novel book covers and remaking them into parodies of their former selves. Not to denigrate the efforts of the publishing companies that work so hard to publish and market these books, I couldn't help but laugh until I almost peed my pants and the tears were streaming down my face. The following will give you a taste of what you can expect if you enter this site.

I trust our friend who's a hopeful women's romance novel writer (and any others who enjoy this type of reading) doesn't take offense at this site if she visits it. I'm not making fun of the genre, just enjoying the parodies.

So, if you need a good pick-me-up today, or if you really, really like women's romance novels, do yourself a favor and jump over to Longmire's site. I guarantee that you will like what you see. They say that good laughter is the best medicine next to good sex. I've had my dose (laughter) this morning and it did wonders for me.

NOTE: For those unfamiliar with links, place your mouse pointer over the underlined words "World of Longmire" and click. This will take you directly to the linked site.