Bodice rippers



Continuing my sojourn down by the dark waters of Leith’s harbour side. Today I was sorting out a load of import books, mostly the most dreadfully generic crap you can imagine - awful novels for the romance section. Titles such as The Puritan and the Pirate and Seduced by a Rogue will give you an idea of how bottom of the literary barrel this worthless junk is. Almost every cover had a woman with heaving bosoms swooning into the arms of a tall, dusky, dark-haired, hugely muscled man in a pirate shirt, open to his navel. And I thought some fantasy covers were generic!



Will, the assistant manager had a quick flick through one and read out a few choice pieces of purple prose to keep us entertained. Let’s just say the prose matched the covers. The finest one had a woman in medieval-style clothes hanging onto a tall, dark-skinned, dark haired, muscle-bound man, naked save for a kilt and a big sword (oo-er). Dark hair, dark eyes and tanned, olive skin is, of course, de rigueur for all Caledonians (not) and the kilt he’s wearing didn’t exist until several centuries later and the sword is a little odd for a highlander of that period, but hey, what’s a little accuracy when you’re writing for morons who lap this shit up unquestioningly? Oh well, it gave us all a feeling of superiority for a while to look down on the purveyors of such awfulness. Although, as entire coach loads of pensioners arrive daily at the Ocean Terminal to visit the mall and see Britannia and this stuff is principally bought by old grannies it may well be a goldmine of a section.