What on earth or all the exoplanets made you call your blog about being romance novelists something as ridiculous as Sweet Savage Thighs?
I was raised--and genetically predisposed--to become an avid reader. I started before I entered kindergarten (or maybe even before nursery school) and had made my way through The Lord of the Rings, the Encyclopedia Brown books, the entire Anne of Green Gables series (the original series), and Gone with the Wind by the time I entered fifth grade. Coincidentally, around that time my mother had a semi-serious illness that kept her from being very active for at least a couple of weeks, and one of her considerate friends brought her a bag of books in order to stave off boredom. Since my mom was a much slower (and pickier) reader than I was, I naturally decided to look through the selection in the bag to see if there might be anything that interested me. Pawing through the paperbacks, I came up with 2 volumes of a sort I'd never seen before: romance novels! One was an old Harlequin Presents title by Carole Mortimer, and the other was a historical set in medieval Scotland by an author I can no longer remember. Intrigued, I snagged the two books and began to read.
It was the beginning of the end.
Someday I may relate the entire story of my early days as an addict (Hello, my name is Christine, and I'm a romance-aholic...), but for now, suffice it to say that I have continued to gobble up romance novels from series contemporary to historical to paranormal and regency right up until this very day. Naturally, this involved spending lots and lots of time in bookstores, often with my dear high school friend.
Anyway, one evening after dinner, my friend and I were strolling through the aisle between the sci-fi/fantasy and romance sections of our neighborood big-box bookstore, and I was alternately looking back and forth at the shelves and perusing the books of both enjoyable genres. At the time, the American Western historical romance was a bit more prominent than it is today and several novels of that sub-genre had been faced out on the romance shelves. My eyes drifted over titles and cover art featuring passionate clinches, long and wind-swept hair styles (occasionally with the hero's and heroine's hair somehow swept by winds moving in opposite directions), loincloths, leather, and ruffled skirts. Then, without warning, I burst out laughing.
"What's so funny?" my friend demanded.
I blinked, looked at the shelf again, and shook my head. "Nothing, really. I just glanced over from the fantasy shelf, and I saw that book out of the corner of my eye."
I pointed to the novel in question, something with a title intended to help the reader identify it as one involving a young, blonde, innocent heroine who is kidnapped and falls in love with her strong, noble, vigorous, and tender Native American captor.
My friend shrugged. "What about it? It doesn't look funny to me."
"Oh, it's not, but I thought the title was Savage Thighs, and I thought, you know, that was getting right to the point."
So, from that moment on, Savage Thighs became my default fictional romance title of reference. After I told the story of it to Hannah, she agreed that it would make a grand blog title, especially enhanced with the addition of the "Sweet" in front.
This is not to suggest that I (nor Hannah, for that matter) find romance novels ridiculous or cliched or an object of comtempt. I LOVE romances. Heck, I make my living writing them! But one of the few rules in life that I try to never break is to always be able to poke fun at the things I love, including myself. It seems to me that whenever we begin to take a subject too seriously, we take all the joy out of whatever it was that used to make us so happy.
So for pete's sake, LAUGH! It's the second most important thing you can ever do in this world. The first, of course, being to LOVE.
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