Harlequin Romances: Don't Eat the Salad

In the crush of the Friday morning subway commute, the enterprising marketing department at HQN publishing (formerly Harlequin) passed out "Happy Valentine's Day" sample books. Each 94-page volume showcased sample excerpts from four of their "must reads for Valentine's Day — the most romantic day of the year." (I beg to differ, but that's another discussion)

Having never read a romance novel, I was curious. Would they unleash heady double entendres in this sample collection? Would my morning commute be fogged in a steam of hot erotica? Seeing that two of the sample books (Blame it on Chocolate and Delicious) were clearly aimed at the epicurean sensualist, I was doubly intrigued.

Alas! My panting expectations (Oooh! Perhaps they'll show a rugged hunk whipping out his throbbing manhood atop a thick marble slab in the chocolate room!) were dashed to the floor like so many shattered meringues.

No hot nudity, unfortunately. Worse... how is a reader supposed to buy into the storyline when an author (Jennifer Greene, in this case) tosses out similes like this:

This morning she had on a down jacket over a corduroy shirt that showed off her skinny tummy — and here it was, freezing like a banshee outside.

Freezing like a mythical howling harbinger of death? Well, gosh... best dig out the Thinsulate gloves today.

This brand of bad prose made my boyfriend yelp with rage. (He actually turned pink and shouted while reading.) To my mind, the most egregious error was the recipe put forth in Susan Mallery's Delicious.

Let me give you the backgrounder: Penny Jackson is a top chef. She's about to eat lunch with her ex-husband, who desperately needs her expertise for his floundering restaurant. This scene intends to establish Penny as a woman with clear opinions on how food should be treated. What's more clear to me are signs that the author has never actually prepared and eaten such a salad:

The waitress appeared with their lunches. He'd ordered a burger, Penny a salad. But not just any salad. Their server laid out eight plates with various ingredients in front of Penny's bowl of four kinds of lettuce.

As he watched, she put olive oil, balsamic vinaigrette and ground pepper into a coffee cup, then squeezed in half a lemon. After whisking them with her fork, she dumped the diced, smoked chicken and feta onto her salad, then sniffed the candied pecans before adding them. She passed over the walnuts, took only half the tomato, added red onions instead of green and then put on her dressing. After tossing everything, she stacked the plates and took her first bite of lunch.

"How is it?" he asked.

"Good."

Gah! Good? Really? That's a description of one of the most revolting salads I can imagine... Balsamic vinaigrette with olive oil and lemon juice? Tomato with candied pecans? Sniffing the pecans? It's like a game of "How many things are wrong-wrong-wrong with this excerpt?"

What I love most about my edition of "Happy Valentine's Day" is the fact that HQN bills Jennifer Greene and Susan Mallery "USA TODAY bestselling authors" and invests top dollar in the marketing — they're clearly not putting a dime behind the editing.

Thanks for the stoneware mug of piping-hot outrage, HQN. Happy Valentine's Day to you, too.