Paperback 803: Love and the Countess to Boot / Jack Iams (Dell 139)

Paperback 803: Dell 139 (1st ptg, 1946)

Title: Love and the Countess to Boot 

Author: Jack Iams

Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• Cupid does not mess around with rival gods. Just look what he did to Santa!
• Everyone should have a countess to boot.
• This cover is ultra-terrible. No countesses. No boots. Weird log-like clouds. Bah.

Best things about this back cover:

• Ah, that's more like it. Mapback!
• Caribbean mapback with St. Croix inset and even bigger Bland Seascape inset. Hot.
• Ooh, Charlotte AMALIE. I recall that place name from a crossword clue I Did Not Know.

Page 123~

He sipped the frothy swizzle, enjoying Walter's rising curiosity.

That line is either benign and dopey or super-homoerotic, depending on your mood.

~RP

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Paperback 668: Fiona / Catherine Gaskin (Fontana 2958)

Paperback 668: Fontana 2958 (1st ptg, 1972)

Title: Fiona
Author: Catherine Gaskin
Cover artist: Uncredited [Renato Fratini]

Yours for: Not For Sale (gift to the collection from Laurie Gagne)


Best things about this cover:

• The drugs they gave her for her root canal were really, really good.
• Are you there God, it's me, sexy drugged-out plantation lady.
• If you can figure out what the hell is happening in the background with the people and the running and what not, you have better eyes and interpretive skills than I do.

Best things about this back cover:

• This novel should've been called "Dangerous Currents." That, or "Plantation Fantasies To Masturbate By."
• It's pretty impressive how this description manages to make "emancipation" seem like a species of orgasm.
• Woman's Journal—the journal read by just one woman.

Page 123~

"Before he was ill—before Maria and that rotten weed she gave him to smoke—that, and the rum—he was a clever manager."

Plantation romances are not really my cup of tea, but I am suddenly interested in Maria and her rotten weed.

~RP

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Paperback 391: Confessions of a Part Time Bride / Hall Bennett (Love Novel 4)

Paperback 391: Love Novel 4 (1st ptg, 1945)

Title: Confessions of a Part Time Bride
Author: Hall Bennett
Cover artist: "J.C."

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• When they say "hands are hard to draw," they aren't kidding. Yikes.
• What's most interesting to me are the *tiniest* suggestions of "bed": head is on a pillow, which I can tell is a pillow only by seeing the corner (which merges w/ the end of the word "Bride"); the small bit of ruffle on her shoulder, suggesting a frilly nightgown; the prominent ring emphasizing "it's marital!," raising questions about the suggestive "Part Time" part of the title ...
• Really like the font on "Part Time Bride." Really wish "Part Time" were properly punctuated.

Best things about this back cover:

Kind of a cool logo, actually. It's all very saucy for the mid-'40s, frankly.

Page 123~

"It's probably just another poor fish—customer to you, sugar. Those birds—the police, I mean—aren't likely to be so reticent."

Well, that's one way to handle slang in your stories.

~RP

Interlude—people send me books sometimes

After buying a book from me, reader JamiSings was inspired to send me a bunch of campy old paperbacks: several Agatha Christies, a romance novel, and a couple of sex books ("Sex Games that People Play" —about the unsexiest book I've ever briefly looked at—and "The Sensuous Woman" by J, which I've heard of and which is quite graphic in places). Of these six, I thought two of them deserved special notice.

First, the harrowing tale of Vincent Price's elaborate scheme for revenge against those bastards at Godiva Chocolate:



And second, the touching story of a woman with a secret passion for dry-humping enormous cloves of garlic:


~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter]