I didn’t bawl.

Except I did laugh so hard I cried a little.

Oh, Miiiiisssssssssssssssyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!

MISSY: I’m freeee!

MELJEAN: Not for long. Just long enough for you to explain something.

MISSY: Aw, man! I hate you.

MELJEAN: Well, I can’t take long, because I’m not feeling so well, and any moment I might have to abandon the computer to throw up, and I have a feeling the passage I’m about to quote is going to hurry that along.

MISSY: I don’t care. Puke your guts out. Just tell me what we’re reading!

MELJEAN: Ginna Gray’s Where Angels Fear.

MISSY: Oh oh oh oh!! I love that book! I cried and cried and cried at the end, when Sam has to chase after Elise at the airport and tell her he loves her, and it’s so hard for him and a lone tear streaks down his lean cheek when he says it and she falls into his arms …. *sobsobsobsob*

MELJEAN: God, this is making me sick, too.

MISSY: Shut up! You have no soul and no heart! … that’s not the book I read. That has a different cover.

MELJEAN: No, it’s a reprint. It was a popular series. So popular that every time you walked into a UBS and tried to find the first book in the series, Fools Rush In, it wasn’t there. It took you almost seven years to find a copy. And you also bought up all of the others in the series along the way, until you finally forced yourself to stop.

MISSY: Were they good?

MELJEAN: I think they were pretty good, because Gray’s a pretty good writer, even though I haven’t read anything new by her in a while. And I’ll admit Where Angels Fear was an enjoyable read, even if it didn’t reduce me to tears again. It was okay. Except for…

MISSY: What? What?

MELJEAN: Remember how Elise wakes up on the first page in bed with Sam? This is what she encounters:

Avoiding his penetrating stare, Elise lowered her gaze, but her misery increased when she encountered his naked chest. It was broad and dark and covered with a pelt of black hair that shone with the same blue highlights as that on his head. A silver medallion dangled from a chain around his neck, swinging lazily back and forth.

MISSY: So?

MELJEAN: He. Has. A. Pelt. A PELT! Jondalar and Ayla wore pelts to keep warm in the Ice Age.

MISSY: Oh, I love Jondalar and Ayla! And I love Sam!!

MELJEAN: And worse, there’s a medallion! It’s skeezy! Way gross. Oh, and shit keeps getting lost in it. Like her nipples.

Above the towel, his navel was a shadowy cavity amid the whorl of black hair that arrowed downward from the thatch on his chest. In that glossy mat, Elise saw the glint of silver, and her breasts swelled and tingled …. Sam brought her back into his heated embrace, and she gasped as her sensitive nipples sank into the crisp hair on his chest…

A thatch? A glossy mat? What kind of chest hair is so thick that a medallion is covered by it? The silver’s always winking at her from inside the chest hair. At one point, she wants to “bury her aching breasts in the crisp hair on his chest” — how small are her titties and/or how deep is that mat? It freaks me out!

MISSY: What’s your problem? Lots of heroes have chest hair and medallions. It’s sexy.

MELJEAN: *killsself* All I can say is, thank god the 70s and 80s are over.

MISSY: Oh, go puke, you stupid twit.