Dates & Other Nuts

Look, nobody is going to even try and defend Harlequin romance novels, alright? Least of all me. They're the literary equivalent of romantic comedies, but not even the romantic comedies that at least had some care put into them. They're Hallmark Channel romantic comedies at best, and at worst they're...well, they're still Hallmark Channel romantic comedies, just, I don't know. After a bad day of your job working in a sewage treatment plant, I guess. And while I highly doubt there's any number of heterosexual women on this planet not lusting after Dale Cooper wannabes, and while this entire image carries with it the eternal stink of 90s retroism, and while that tagline on the front is more or less a half finished sentence from your 8th grade english class assignment, I don't wanna shit on these books too much because even I, literature snob that I am, can recognize there's an audience for stuff like this. I'm not saying it's an audience that deserves its own genre, just that I recognize there at least is one.

So where did this thing come from? I'm guessing from the title at the top that it's from a series called "Love & Laughter" which is an extremely generic name for a book series, but again, nobody who reads these is looking for quality or originality, so maybe that just bothers me. Frankly, I think the 99 cent sticker price is too much even for this, so I dare shudder to think what it must've cost back when it was first published. I get the feeling even then it wasn't going for much, as these were the types of things you'd often see in the check out line at your local drug store next to the VHS rentals. But, once again, it appears I have been foiled, as after doing a quick bit of research of the author, I've come to discover she's yet ANOTHER christian writer. Why does this KEEP HAPPENING to me.

Again, there's nothing inherently wrong with writing, what she calls, "clean and wholesome books", and it does appear that she's decided to return to, what she calls, "the secular market". Good for her for challenging herself like that, and I've got nothing wrong with people who want clean wholesome content. I'm for both of these things. I'm not going to be one of those dirty bitches who attacks someone solely for their success. Her about section says she's won numerous awards, has millions of fans and has even been inducted into the Missouri Writers Hall Of Fame. Good for her!

HOWEVER, upon looking at her blog, which hasn't been updated since summer of 2016, I quickly ran across a poem she'd posted to it, which I will share a screencap of now.

This poem, titled "Got Your Back", seems, at first glance, to be about being part of a relationship of some kind and loving someone unabashedly, which is all fine and dandy. And then you come to the stanza is question, and you're suddenly thrown into a whole new world of questions that you never anticipated you'd ever have to ask. Now, could this just be a screw up? Certainly. As I said, the blog hasn't been updated since summer 2016, so it's fairly likely some bot might've gotten access to it and linked what appear to be, and I know because I hovered over them to see the address in my browser, scam sites for Viagra and Cialis. I highly doubt the author of this piece just suddenly got the urge to throw in, quite frankly, a very goddamned funny and well time boner pill joke. My bot theory became all the more a reality when I scrolled a bit more and saw these. The first is right underneath the poem, and the second is the title of the next blog post.

So yeah, I'm basically 100% certain that some bot has gained access to her website and is defacing it. The fact that this is a woman who wrote religious romance novels is only made all the more funny by this dick medicine vandalism. And let's not even BEGIN to talk about how fucking hilarious it is that the title of this book is "Dates & Other Nuts", once again linking it to this whole Viagra fiasco. This is a match made in heaven, honestly. Which I'm sure, being a religious author, she's totally understanding of. I sadly took no photos of the back cover, but it's also certainly possible there WAS no back cover and it was just the same teal that the front is smothered in, so. Either way, I don't think a description of that book is going to help anybody after reading this post.

Perhaps I should find out what her e-mail address is and inform her that her website has been overtaken by the Banksy of Viagra product placement. Then again, this whole situation is rather hilarious and maybe I should just leave well enough alone. Let it stand as a testament to people who don't keep watch over their online spaces. You see? You see what happens, senior authors, when you stop using the internet as a tool for your career? It gets absorbed into the ever growing MLM of crotch aide.

That'll learn you.