Deb Erika Blames It All On This Guy

Erika MarksThis week’s theme here at the Ball is guilty pleasures (Not to be confused with last week’s theme of heat, which did happen to involve some guilty pleasures from Deb Linda—can you imagine the eye candy she’ll spring for THIS week??)

We all have guilty pleasures. Some of us love reality TV and won’t admit it. Some of us blast Motley Crue when it comes on the radio. Some of us empty whole cans of aerosol cheese straight into our mouths. (These are just random examples of things I’ve heard people do. I can’t be certain they’re true. And what’s more, I will deny every one if pressed.)

But when it comes to books—no way! Surely books are exempt from such a trend, right?

Right?

Oh, I remember a time when I knew nothing of literary guilty pleasures. Sure, I knew there were books you were assigned in English class and those were considered “literature” and as such they were high up on the literary food chain, but no matter what you were reading, it had to be good because you were, you know, reading, right?

And then, along came this guy…

Oh, Fabio.

What was it about your golden locks, your bulging biceps (and all those other muscle groups that I can’t take the time to name here) that made all of us feel kind of, well, guilty? It didn’t matter if we never even opened the first page of whatever delicious historical romance whose cover you were gracing—there you were! Bulging. And blonding. And rippling. And ripping.

You darkened your mane–it didn’t matter. Your wicked, I-will-have-you gleam remained–and we remained rapt.

And so, a guilty pleasure was born.

Friends, you can have your Fifty Shades. I prefer my guilty pleasures of the Fabio-kind.

What do you all think of as a guilty literary pleasure? Do you have any you’d care/dare to confess??

15 Replies to “Deb Erika Blames It All On This Guy”

  1. LOL! Careful, you’ll give me performance anxiety. 😉

    Re Fabio: a friend of mine met him (quite a few years ago), along with several other male cover models, at a Romance Writers convention. She said he was not only very nice, but also quite intelligent. Hope that doesn’t ruin any fantasies. *grin*

    1. How fabulous! Frankly, Linda, that would only heighten the fantasy, I suspect! 😉 But it doesn’t surprise me the man is bright–he did, after all, shape quite a career for himself. Best of all to know he was gracious–LOVE that!

    1. Hi Mary! Thanks so much for visiting this morning and sharing in our Fabio fest! I honestly forgot HOW MANY covers he was on until I revisited some for this post–wow! And I too remember reading SO many of them!

  3. For me, not Fabio. I tended toward Perry Mason and Hercule Poirot myself… and that’s the story I’m sticking to on this blog comment. Although I will admit a bit of a crush on Nero Wolfe’s sidekick Archie 🙂

  4. Oh my Erika, the moment I opened your post and saw Fabio you took me back so many years. I read everyone of the books with Fabio on the cover and then re read them again.

    Talk about anxiety WOW WOW WOW. You just took me back 45 years, love it and what a feast (might even be on pare with kugel, brisket, chocolate cheese cake and cabbage borsht).

    Linda,your lucky friend having had the opportunity to meet him. **I would have been in over the ****MOON****

    1. Hi Marcia! Oh, I love it! Comparing Fabio to a delicious feast–THAT is perfection right there. I’m so glad I took you back–I had the exact same reaction when I went searching for these covers for this post–I couldn’t believe how many I remembered!–and I even remembered the plotlines too–amazing, right???

  6. I’ve never been a Fabio fan – I like short hair on dudes, so maybe that’s why. Or maybe it was the glass-cutting nipples on so many of the covers that was sort of off-putting. But hands down, my guilty pleasure is J.R. Ward’s BDB series. And I can’t tell you how many friends I’ve turned on *cough* to the books, so I had people to talk to about them.

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