Veer, I do believe lazycatfish could write a better book! That was a very entertaining review.

I have considered reading "L" a couple of times but all the references to bad writing kept me from it, for which I am grateful.

Vee, I went on the Amazon site and read quite a few of the reviews - some * and some ***** to get information on this book.

As far as disguising the title goes, the reason Ii did it was that I had, as you know, a really bad time on this site in the days of you-know-who - still can't bring myself to mention its name! So I play extra careful now; and I know how narrow-minded some can be in any case.

A woman I was talking to whom I didn't know very well, not a reader, when I asked her 'why?', said it turned her on. So maybe the answer it as simple as that. A friend, this time an avid reader, said she went into a bookshop and saw a long queue of women and thought, 'must be good. I'll get that.' So she did..... When she got it home and looked, she was horrified, she said. But did she give in and read it....? I have yet to find out.

In any case, II thought this phenomenon needed airing on such a reading site as this. We should not ignore it.

Dido, thank you for the explanation for the disguise. I don't recall the event you are referring to but I have received an occasional shock from posters who have usually misunderstood what I have said. I try not to be controversial but some people can get unnecessarily sharp and hurtful.
Yes, we should air this phenomenon and let a cleansing gale blow it away! Be off with you, badly written book!

Dido, I well remember those days of which you speak. I am no puritan, but I have no desire to read this. Why waste my time trying to decode such a badly written book? I've read many other reviews of it, and not one praises the author's literary style.

Somehow I acquired a copy of Book 1 of L Shades for my sea-going book stash. (I suspect a joke by someone who knew I would be a captive audience.) Anyway, I settled under the bimini with a cool drink and began to read. I thought it was so obnoxiously trite that I bounced it off the gunwhale and it went overboard. Normally a book will float for a bit and can be retrieved, but this one sank like iron. I'm sorry that I polluted the ocean!

I may be sticking my neck out here -- hope not, and I haven't read it and don't plan to, but...
1) why is it never the man who gets tied up and whipped and then falls in love with his tormentor, and
2) what does it say about women that they rave about this book in which, once again, a woman is, apparently, being physically and mentally abused?

Plus, there are so many well-written, worthwhile books out there to read, it's a shame to have something like this sucking up all the air.

Vee, over here we call it locker room humor as in the immature sport-playing guys.

And, no, I haven't read the book and don't plan to.

I haven't read the book(s) and have no interest in doing so, although I'm no prude either.However my best girlfriend read the first one and said she learned a lot. I was surprised as I thought she knew a lot already (in that dept.)

Frieda, I love it! Thus, 'this little (book) does the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.'

Sarah, in real life, from what I gather, it's usually men who like to be tied up and beaten by a 'dominatrix'...... Oh, I don't know. But yes, what does it say about us that so many queue to read this stuff?

So many women I know have read this, so I picked up my SIL's copy and read a bit at the beach last weekend. The story started life as Twilight fan fiction, and it shows. Yes, the sex scenes are steamy, but it's certainly not well written. Based on the bits I read and what others have told me, it appears to be a very graphic fantasy at the end of which the Bad Boy becomes a Good Man by falling in love with the Right Woman. That it takes handcuffs to get there ... meh!

As far as the S&M aspect goes, Anne Rice covered this territory long ago, and Exit to Eden is a far better book.

And Vee, that review was PERFECT!

Loved that review...

When we went on vacation last month, our friends (with whom we travelled) happened to be both reading this book.
And so, since I had seen some of the reviews, I picked it up one evening, whilst we were sitting around have a drink, and started reading random parags out loud with a BBC announcer/voice-over voice....

Oh. My. Hilarity ensued. Yeah for mockery of ridiculous badly written books. :-)

I loved the review, now if I understood the plot correctly:

Anastasia and Christian Grey
Seem to spend a good part of their day
In a room which is red
Also sometimes in bed
While their author coins cash and makes hay!

Annpan, well done!

Brilliantly summarised, Annpan!

Due to overcrowding, Hell has been relocated to the deepest cave in the remotest depths of the Mariana Trench. Here, at the back of the 57th Circle, dwell the S&M, bondage freaks, leather fetishists and general unsavoury low-lifes who are doomed to keep each other company for all Eternity.
As yet another very long day beings, the heaps of skeletal remains notice something unusual in the waters above. A book is floating down towards them.
It is grabbed by the claw of Attila the Hun.
"Please not another Gideon Bible." he groans as he peels the damp pages apart.
"Well, this looks like something more up your street de Sade." He passes it over to the ravaged form of the once devilishly handsome aristocrat.
"Sacre Bleu, what is this childish piffle? In my time a five year old could have produced a more grammatical piece of work. Does no-one know how to handle a whip any more? And where did they find a virgin in the twenty first century?"
He is just about to throw it into the paper-recycling can (Hell does have certain standards) when a wraith-like form, clad in washed-out tartan enters.
"Is this a dagger I see before me?" She takes the book and waves it indecisively. "How now My Lord, hie thee hither. Hell is murky today."
"Come now Lady Macbeth" de Sade is all charm. "You haven't taken your medication this morning." "Stalin, you are meant to be keeping an eye on her. Where are her pills?"
Stalin calls down from a very high heap of remains; rumoured to be all his own work.
"The three witches were fresh out of entrails and eye-of-newt. I am not good at keeping spirits alive. Death is more my thing."
Meanwhile Lady Macbeth tries to wipe imaginary blood onto the pages of the now tatty book.
"Out damn'd spot." She wanders away, wringing her hands. Vlad the Impaler, bored through lack of live bodies and a supply of stakes takes the book from her and tosses it into a fetid eddy where it continues its journey of cheap sensationalism.
"You never know, de Sade. Perhaps this grubby book will lead to more human remains joining us."
And so the Eternal day turns into Everlasting night . . .

That's quite some scenario, Vee! How do you think these things up? It sounds like more fun down there than in the world of said book. Quite brilliant! and my good laugh for today.

Well done, Vee.

Vee have you ever thought of writing a fantasy book? That was so enjoyable!
I am glad you and Dido enjoyed the limerick. It just popped into my head as I was drifting off to sleep. I must have had that review on the brain!

Thank you. I did have quite a bit of time on my hands as it rained most of yesterday.
Ann, were you 'here' when there was a limerick fest? Turned out to be very enjoyable and surprising what RP'ers came up with.

Below is an article from today's Telegraph about L Shades. Good Heavens! This paper, for so long a bastion of Middle Class mores is going 'down-hill' a bit. ;-)

Here is a link that might be useful: Even the Telegraph Mentions It

Those women who are loving this series must certainly have a lot more estrogen than I do !!
Happily , I am SO over all that :o)

I have one friend who read the first book and said she wasn't at all titilated by it and found it boring.
Another friend was so excited by it that she read it in one day and is on to the second and third books !
She loves them.

So....I guess it's all in your vantage point.

S&M is not a fascinating topic for me.
I cannot understand the subjugation of a woman in that way regardless of whether or not she consents.

But....to each his /her own tastes.

Vee, I think I joined around early 2004 after watching how the forum worked for a while. I don't recall the limerick fest but if I saw it, I would have enjoyed it. I did join in some of the poetry threads.
I am with some other forums where poems are written. Some of the writers have no idea of the forms and think if the words rhyme at the end of a sentence, that is it! Should we blame lack of teaching or pop lyrics? :-(

The limerick thread we created was one that required that your limerick have something to do with books or reading.
It was really quite good, in fact hilarious.

Did Martin archive it perhaps?

Couldn't see this on Martin's Booker list!!

I haven't been here for a while because I have been reading - wait for it - all this new erotica!
I started with the book of topic, and then, horrified by the quality of the writing, went looking for some decent erotica. Then all the publishers jumped on the bandwagon and started publishing these books, and I have been busy reading them to be able to recommend to customers.
So in summary:
L Shades is appalling writing. The main female character was limp, and her internal dialogue, which is much of the book, was repetitive and dreadful. Holy Cow!, Holy Sh*t and Holy F*ck were used so many times it grated. The sex scenes introduce a side of relationships that many people may not have even known existed, so I see the interest in that. However, more reading has suggested that her interpretation of the BDSM scene is not very good. The idea isn't about subjugation of women (and indeed in one series, there were a couple of men who were the submissives) and normally it is a voluntary consensual relationship, whereas Grey tries to force Ana into it. But I digress. The story line is pure romance - love of a good woman redeems the man - and there is a horrible happily ever after ending.
I hasten to add that I was only able to skim through these books as the writing was so awful.
Since then I have also read Bared to You by Sylvia Day, which has a similar story line but immeasurably better writing, and a female lead with much more chutzpah (and not really BDSM although it might go there in future books); a deplorable Australian offering with the creepiest plot I have ever encountered, and three different series by Joey Hill which combine a decent plot with good writing, as well as entertaining sex scenes. Oh, and a couple of books by Tiffany Reisz which were much more hard core BDSM but quite good writing.
So there you are, if you want any erotica recommendations, I'm your RP rep *VBG*
(You'll be pleased to know I have also finished a couple of 'real' books).

Wow, thank you Kath for that well-considered rundown. I have, actually, just started reading L Shades - skim-reading, like you - but am abandoning it at half way through because I can't stand any more of the silliness and shocking writing. If it weren't for the sex scenes, I should have put her age at about 14 years!

Can I add to your list an older book, now something of a classic, The Story of O by Anais Nin.

Dido, your comment on her apparent age is exactly what I thought.
The other problem I had with these books was how they stretched my limits of belief. In many books, you accept something 'not true' - say the existence of vampires, or hobbits, or magic - but then, for me, the book has to be true to this new setting. The idea that Ana had finished college without an email address is unbelievable to me. Here our university students get given an email address when they enrol! Also, here is a totally sexually inexperienced virgin who is presented with a 'contract' by an older man which includes many sexual practices which are way beyond mainstream, and not only does she not run away as fast as she can, she doesn't even ask what some of them are!
Just not credible enough for me.

Kath,I think we could go on almost ad infinitum about the unbelievables in these novels. Coleridge said about fiction that it should be able to suspend your disbelief - '

'... that willing suspension of disbelief which constitutes poetic faith'

- and this book comes nowhere near doing that. As you say, when you start reading, you accept a given set of premises, a context, such as in S.F., and go along with the following content - providing it remains consistent with the 'world' you;ve been led to expect.

I'm curious, Kath, what was the "deplorable Australian offering with the creepiest plot [you] have ever encountered"?

Colleen, something called Destined to Play by Indigo Bloome. It wasn't the sexual content, it was the situation in which it occurred. A woman meets her lover from uni, a man she's kept in touch with, and agrees to spend the weekend with him, allowing him to temporarily blind her with drops and be in complete charge. (Here again, I find it hard to accept this situation. I can't imagine anyone doing this, even for someone they still fancy.) She also isn't allowed to question him, and knows she will be punished for every question she asks ('where are you taking me?' for example!). The whole thing has a medical research overtone, and was just so creepy.

Yuk! No wonder I stick with murder mysteries.

Sounds ghastly, I'd have serious concerns about the author......

My 71-year-old friend and her 80-year-old sister are reading these books and she finds them hilarious. Apparently, she finds the the voice of the main character quite funny. I hadn't really heard that reaction from anyone else.

And, should one be so inclined, the L Shades person/agent has just signed with three different clothing companies to make L Shades-related items to wear (including undies)....

Lemonhead -- That's amazing.

And cds of Thomas Tallis's 'Spem in Alium' are having record sales, I gather. Not bad for a 32 part Elizabethan bit of church music, eh?

Hahaha! L Shades undies, when it is mainly about not having them on!!

Astro - perhaps they come with accessories? And E-Z access?

Chortle. :-)

And soon to be released, a classical music CD to
accompany the book.
Sorta like having Dom Perignon with fish sticks.

Great phrase there, Leslie: "having Dom Perignon with fish sticks"... :-)

I must admire the perseverance of the author. Writing porn is very boring. When my husband and I were poor students we both sent in a couple of short stories to one of the magazines with nudes and bad jokes. We used pen names although we didn't expect any of our friends to read the stuff. All mine were accepted but none of my husband's and the editor wanted me to become a regular contributor, he found my stories funny. The pay was good but I couldn't go on after the first three efforts.

Mariannese...I saw an interview with a "vanilla porn" romance author who said she used to have quite a few stiff drinks and then wrote all the sex scenes needed for her book at that one time! One way to tackle it!

I started reading here from the bottom up, and Astrokath, I can't get past your mind-blowing synopis, specifically the "blind her with drops." What sort of loon could write--or read--that? And the clinical overtone? Yikes, now I'll be afraid to visit the optomotrist.

You can now listen to this piece of cr*p as an audio.
A link below to a report from the Telegraph.

A message for Kath: after reading one of your posts above, the computer, with a strange smell of burning rubber and scorched leather gave up the ghost and froze. My son is even now de-gaussing it. In the meantime we are having to use the lap-top which is not happy with this RP site and requires me to sign in everytime I go online.
Kath, I notice you haven't been at RP since your posting here and wonder if the L Shades was an erotic experience too far and the men in white coats have taken you away to a darkened room.

Here is a link that might be useful: Could Dame Judi Have Read It Better?

No Vee, still alive and in full possession of my faculties *VBG*
My reading time has been rather curtailed lately - I do a lot of it in the car on the way to work while DH drives, but for various reasons I have had to drive a lot lately.
Sorry to hear about your computer - I hope it is back to good health soon.

Vee, what an article! I have had no desire (excuse the expression) to read the book, and after reading your link, I know enough about it to be very thankful I wasn't even curious.

The shampoo woman where I get my hair done assured me that it wasn't just sex as everyone says but that it was a real story. This is a new shop for me, and I always get comments on the fact that I take a book with me, so she wanted to discuss what I was reading and tell me about just having finished Fifty Shades. It wasn't a very intellectual discussion between us. I was reading a murder mystery.

I just saw a baby onesie that read, "Nine months ago my mommy read Fifty Shades of Grey."

Yikes! The Telegraph article is amazing, and so is this thread!

Years ago, in my 30's, I read "The Story of O". That is the full extent of my erotic readings. I don't know anyone who is reading L Shades, nor have I even seen a copy. I guess B & N is hyping it, more than likely, but then now that I have moved, there are no major book chains nearby.

I saw a display of these books in the woman's clothing department! Presumably for the ladies who don't know where books are normally sold! No getting away from them!

woodnymph, these books re being hyped up world wide, not just Barnes and Noble. The book was originally only available on line.

Carolyn, there is a story in L Shades, but if you take out the kinky sex, it's just a basic romance of boy meets girl, problems, boy gets girl.