Bookish Matters

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.

—Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

Friday, April 8, 2011

In Which Breasts Play a Not-Insignificant Role

I started reading the next novel in my Great and Brilliant Romance Project last night: Duchess by Night by Eloisa James. I chose it because the cover is striking. OK, it's my favorite color (the picture below does not do the shade of green justice). I used to pass this book in the grocery store (good ol' Sammish Haggen!) and stop to laugh at the romances with titles like The Italian Millionaire's Virgin Wife.


I read the prologue and first three chapters of Duchess last night, and may I say I am so far quite excited and pleased? For one thing, the second chapter has the subtitle "Another chapter in Which Breasts Play a Not-insignificant Role." Points for humor. The second thing that makes me super excited is that it involves cross-dressing. The protagonist disguises herself as a man to sneak into scandalous Lord Strange's abode.

You may not know this about me: I love books with cross-dressing. There are so many erotic possibilities, so many sites for sexual tension. My two favorite manga in high school and college were Hana-Kimi, in which a girl disguises herself as a boy to join an all-boys' school, and Kaze Hikaru, in which a girl disguises herself as a boy in order to join a group of samurai.

Conclusion: I'm excited for Duchess by Night, and will let you know how it goes.

2 comments:

  1. I like this cover. I think this might be an oil painting O_o. Hard to tell with such a small pic.
    I bet it would be hard to get out of a dress like this.
    Be like 20 min later "Hold on honey just 5 more skirts..." "ZZzzzz" "Honey? Oh darn it!"
    Clothing designers should invent a sort of night dress where if you pull on like a certain ribbon it would fall off you in one swoop O_o. How impressive would that be?

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  2. As you know, I finished "The Sherlockian," which contained an entertaining episode in which Bram Stoker and Sir ACD don corsets, bonnets, skirts and other womanish regalia to infiltrate a suffragette meeting. Unfortunately, it does not result in sexiness. Of course, "The Sherlockian" is assuredly NOT a bodice-ripper of any kind.

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