you're giving me a feeling, it's a sudden rush
"impulsive" by wilson phillips & one of my most formative romance novels
Picture this: it’s the early ‘90s in New Orleans, I’m like six or seven years old, and there’s a jukebox in the Burger King.
That’s right. A JUKEBOX in the BURGER KING. When we talk about what’s been lost to younger generations, this is what we mean. I put my money in and select the song I’m most obsessed with, the one that could be a blueprint for why I love romance novels all these years later . . .
“Impulsive” by Wilson Phillips.
I LOVED this song as a kid. It was everything to me. Arrows through hearts/drawn on a misty window/you’re taking me home in the rain. This was PEAK ROMANCE to me. Wendy Wilson was my favorite one in the group, for incredibly shallow reasons (she had long red hair and was super pretty), and so I was personally thrilled that she got to take the lead on this song.
When I played Barbies, my Barbie was always a singer and performed the most banger tracks from my rotating CD’s of Cher, Roxette, Wilson Phillips, Madonna, and the Bangles. Except in my version, there was no male singer in Roxette, only one woman who could incredibly do three different harmonizing vocals at once in Wilson Phillips, only one Susanna in the Bangles, etc., because while my Barbie was an absolute singing SAVANT she was not particularly collaborative and so she had to be the star of every show lol.
Part of what got me thinking about this song was all the hype around the new Barbie movie dropping in July, which I am hella excited for. It looks fun and campy in the way that all movies featuring men with too-bleached hair always are.
But I also connect the song with one of my all-time favorite comfort books, a romance I first read at the tender age of 13 or 14 — Impetuous by Lori Foster. I recently reread it for the, oh, hundredth time, and it made me realize just how formative it was. Literally I think this book (and okay, The Little Mermaid) was where a lot of my love for the “she knows that it’s him but he doesn’t know that it’s her” trope came from — a trope that, as you already know, is exactly what I’m currently writing.
So. If you’ll indulge me, I’m going to tell you all about this book. And when I say all, I mean all, so if you don’t want spoilers (or just aren’t interested in reading x,000 words about a random romance novel), no worries, I guess I’ll see you next week! But if you feel like taking this trip down memory lane with me, here we go . . .
Impetuous starts with Carlie McDaniels, shy, buttoned-up schoolteacher who’s getting ready for her friend Brenda’s costume party. Brenda picked a costume for her that was way too sexy (THANK YOU, BRENDA) and she’s not usually a party person, so Carlie feels self-conscious and awkward and like she already wants to go home. Tag yourself I’m Carlie lol.
(I know we’re barely five pages into this book at this point, but I already want to go on a brief little writing tangent here to say one thing I absolutely eat up with a spoon is when one section is like “okay, fine, she’ll go to the party for a few minutes to make her friend happy” and then the next section opens up with “Tyler Ramsey hated parties” and you’re just like YES THEY ARE AT THE SAME PARTY AND THEY BOTH HATE IT BUT SPARKS ARE ABOUT TO FLY I CAN JUST FEEL IT.)
So what you need to know about the love interest Tyler Ramsey — he’s a lawyer, hot as hell, has a reputation for being kinda a ladies man, Carlie disapproves of him because she doesn’t think he takes anything very seriously and she takes everything seriously (THE DYNAMIC IN COLD WORLD BTW). Tyler already starts off with a bit of that “I like women but they only care about clothes and cars and money and that’s why I hate parties so much, because they’re always throwing themselves at me and I’m sick of it because I want something real” energy that, honestly? Is a little hard to take. Like surely EVERY woman is not a gold-digging mercenary, Tyler, surely that is a YOU problem and not a WOMAN problem, but you know what. It was the ‘90s. This kind of trope was very popular, and Tyler is a lot more likable than other similar heroes of his time, so I roll with it.
He spots Carlie across the room, all disguised in her dark wig and bright blue contacts and skimpy harem costume (I just pictured Jasmine from Aladdin, my only frame of reference), and is immediately like *eyes bugging out* WHO is SHE. When the mystery woman runs out into the rain, he follows her, and they end up having sex in the pool house. Sorry, making love. This book does call it making love a lot, which is not my personal kink but again, it was the ‘90s.
I know this sounds a little bonkers so far. I mean, I can’t emphasize this enough, he doesn’t even know who she is at this point. She’s all trembling and unsure because this is NOT her at all, but also like, super turned on and what would it hurt to live a little, just once? The sex scene takes up like 13 pages and happens in the second chapter, and after reading a lot of fairly tame Harlequin Presents in comparison at this age, what can I say, it was an awakening.
They indulge in pleasure all night, which is ‘90s language for they def fucked more than once, and then Carlie slips out of the pool house while Tyler is sleeping. The next day she tells Brenda a very abbreviated PG version of what happened (just that she and Tyler “flirted” a little but he didn’t know it was her) and swears her friend to secrecy that she was at the party at all. Meanwhile Tyler comes bounding in (his brother Jason is Brenda’s husband, making Brenda his sister-in-law) and is singing a happy tune, like thank you Brenda for inviting me to your party, now you have to tell me who the harem girl was. Which of course, Brenda can’t do, since she was just sworn to secrecy. Intrigue!
To complicate matters further, Carlie had conscripted Jason to help her with this after school basketball program, but he can’t do it so he volunteers Tyler. Of course Carlie’s instinct is like no, anyone but him! Not only does she have a chip on her shoulder about Tyler and his seemingly hedonistic approach to life, but she’s worried he’ll figure it out that SHE was the one he was getting all hedonistic with in the pool house.
But of course Carlie can’t turn down help with the after school program, so it looks like they’re going to be working together. If you’re a romance writer who subscribes to the Romancing the Beat (god, it’s so helpful, I highly recommend it!), you’ll recognize this as the adhesion beat in the story. Basically, this is where even though your two characters are saying they want nothing to do with each other . . . they’re thrust together. They’re going to have to figure it out.
I love this section of Impetuous. It’s filled with a lot of Carlie and Tyler just circling each other, observing things. Carlie gets caught staring at his thick hair, and has to pretend she was thinking about the kids at her school. Tyler can’t help but comment on her striking eyes and how tall she is for a woman, and Carlie is all prickly and like, “keep your thoughts to yourself, please, this is a professional relationship only.” But then she’s watching his large hands and can’t help but remember the pool house. He sees her in her classroom, and interacting with a parent, and he’s moved by how much she cares.
One of Tyler’s defining characteristics is his outrageousness, where he just kinda . . . says whatever is on his mind. I mostly like it. He’s not intense or brooding — he wants to have a good time and flirt and enjoy himself, and every once in a while there’s a glimpse at the depths that he hides behind that easygoing exterior. But at one point, Tyler invites himself over to dinner at Carlie’s house, and then he sees a “Work Out with the Oldies” video and thinks about how she’s always wearing these baggy, shapeless clothes . . . and he puts it together and is basically like, ah, she’s a little overweight. So he just ASKS HER OUTRIGHT HOW MUCH SHE WEIGHS.
This scene is so wild to me I have to spend a little time with it. On the one hand, Tyler is being WEIRD. Like, even in the ‘90s, this could not be social norm. He just straight up says, “What does your body look like? That’s what I’m wondering. How plump are you? How big are your breasts, how bountiful is your bottom? I’m used to looking at a woman and seeing what’s there, be it attractive or not, not this infuriating guessing game, trying to see beneath layers of ugly clothing.”
HOW BOUNTIFUL IS YOUR BOTTOM.
Tyler — and by Tyler, I mean the book — seems to be fixated on Carlie’s body and just how slim or not it is. When he sees her in the harem costume, he explicitly describes her as not slim, but with curves in “all the right places.” But then later, when he feels her body through her layers of ugly clothing, he’s surprised to feel her slim back and trim waist. Was it working out to the oldies that made all the difference? What are we to believe?
Anyway, I don’t love this part, obviously. It IS weird, and anyone who grew up in the ‘90s and ‘00s with heroin chic and belly button rings everywhere knows how gross and pervasive some of this body stuff could be.
BUT what I do like in this scene is how much Carlie calls him on it. She’s basically like, you think you’re outrageous but actually you’re just rude. You may be a pretty face but I’m a good person, and can you say the same?
Somehow they go from arguing to playfully chasing each other around the table (they were drinking milk with dinner! It was a wholesome time!) and then Tyler almost kisses Carlie but she tells him to back off. He suggests that they go on “dates,” just as friends, because he thinks they have fun together. Carlie agrees! I know, shocking! She really shouldn’t be tempting fate at this point with her whole secret identity thing, but what can she say. They DO have fun together.
They go to the movies and it’s super cute. Just him putting his arm around her, sharing a large buttery popcorn, her making him laugh and the people behind them shushing them in the theater. I think I’ve seen this very ad play before the previews! Just two attractive adults enjoying American cinema and each other’s company.
Of course, this makes Carlie retreat (once again giving Romancing the Beat vibes!) because she knows she’s in danger of falling for Tyler not just as a sexy man in the pool house but as a genuinely good friend. She vows to go back to avoiding him.
Tyler shows up at Brenda’s house, asking a little about his harem girl still, but more fixated now on Carlie. He wants to know more about her, and Brenda does real to him that Carlie was married before and it didn’t end well, but says Carlie is a private person and she wouldn’t feel comfortable saying any more.
(Can I just say that I love scenes where a character talks to someone else about the object of their affection, trying to figure out exactly what makes them tick? I wrote a couple of those kinds of scenes in Cold World very deliberately, because I really do love them. They’re dying of curiosity, they don’t want to show it, they’re really turning over every piece of information they get, trying to fit it together with what they know. Gah, it’s so good.)
Carlie can’t avoid Tyler forever, and eventually he catches her at Brenda’s house, dressed in the ugliest khaki green nylon tracksuit and her hair all frizzy from jogging in the rain. Tyler’s mood visibly lifts just seeing her and being able to tease her again. She tries to blow him off, say she’ll get out of his hair, but he’s like, “But I want you in my hair today. Haven’t you been paying attention?” I always think that line’s very cute.
They get in the car to go rent a movie and go to Tyler’s house (I’m sorry to keep beating this dead horse, but is this the most WHOLESOME ‘90s SHIT OR WHAT) and it’s started raining again and there’s just this really nice, intimate scene between them in the car. At one point he asks her if she’s ever made love in a storm, and she has to lie and say no (except she has!!! with him!!!), and he says he has and she’s like it would probably be nice and he’s like . . . wait, did you mean it would be nice with me? And she’s all flustered like, what? No, of course not!
He rents a scary movie which means she ends up half in his lap, at one point he starts tonguing her ear and when she’s like, “What are you doing?” he’s like, “Uh, putting my tongue in your ear,” he drives her home and they come in from the rain and kiss again, and he says, look, this isn’t going away, obviously we’re into each other. But Carlie still isn’t sure. She wants him; she’s already had him; she’s stung if he’s moved on from the costumed version of her; she’s jealous if he’s still thinking about his mystery woman. It’s a mess.
Because Carlie is sick to her stomach with wanting him but not knowing what to do, and also let’s face it because she’s self-sabotaging, she decides to give him a call as the “mystery” woman. When she still won’t reveal her identity, he says (fairly) that she’s playing games with him and he’s done with it. She hangs up and feels like she’s definitely lost him.
(Quick aside here — this is always the part of any “Cinderella”-esque story that stretches credibility the most. Like, really, Austin Ames? You didn’t recognize your special Cinderella even when she was STANDING RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU SERVING YOU COFFEE AT THE DINER? Really, dude with the British accent and the cute dog, you couldn’t figure out that Uma Thurman and Janeane Garofalo were two different people even when you listen to Janeane’s voice on the radio every day and then Uma Thurman (who is pretending to be the body behind the voice) introduces you to her friend who JUST HAPPENS TO HAVE THE SAME VOICE AS THE WOMAN ON THE RADIO? These are references to A Cinderella Story and The Truth About Cats and Dogs, specifically, but really, it’s always the hitch in this genre. I don’t care. Put a demi mask on her and then don’t recognize her for the rest of the movie. I’ll eat it up.)
After their next after school basketball session, Tyler goes over to Carlie’s house, and they’re both in weird moods — because of the same phone call, although of course he doesn’t know that. They end up kissing and look, it’s inevitable, of course they’re going to make love again.
We are in a classic Romancing the Beat structure here, so you can probably guess what’s going to happen next. They’ve just had sex, it was hot and passionate but something more than what they’d done in the pool house, because this time they’ve had this whole relationship leading up to it. Carlie is relaxed and happy, Tyler is feeling all possessive and tender . . . and we are in a false high, because shit is about to come crashing down.
Tyler wakes up the next day and starts rooting around Carlie’s bathroom drawers, looking for a razor. Instead, he finds a contacts case, and when he opens it up and sees the bright blue color suddenly it all hits him. His mystery woman at the pool house and Carlie are . . . the same person. And she obviously knew that — called him, even, to taunt him about it (that wasn’t what she was doing, but Tyler is spinning out here, cut him some slack). He’s pissed.
The next scene, where they have their big break-up fight, really hurts my heart. Lori Foster just wrote the shit out of it, what can I say. They’re both still naked, which adds this element of vulnerability to it and also makes it feel more charged. Tyler is so angry, his pride so wounded, that he becomes sarcastic and cruel. And that makes Carlie just shut down, and retreat back into her cold, nothing-can-touch-me protective shell she hid behind before she met Tyler.
There are these few moments in the fight where you can see their tenderness for each other peek through, and that almost makes it worse. At one point, “[Carlie] turned back to Tyler, and caught him watching her intently, a look closely resembling concern shining in his eyes. She disregarded that possibility. He hated her now. She could feel it.” No, Carlie, don’t disregard it!!! He cares about you! And then later he reaches for her, saying her name, and that “single word was sharp, edged with a vague emotion Carlie couldn’t begin to fathom.” Fathom that he loves you, Carlie!!!
(I am TRASH for an “unreadable” look or an “unfathomable” emotion. If my younger years were listening to Wilson Phillips’ “Impulsive” and trying to imagine what every single unreadable look could mean in a romance novel, you’ve basically got my romance education in a nutshell.)
Tyler ends up back at Jason and Brenda’s house, and he’s mad that they didn’t just tell him that Carlie was the mystery woman. But instead of being on his side, they’re mostly just worried that he hurt Carlie and that now she’ll REALLY retreat back into her shell and never come out. To his credit, Tyler gets over himself pretty quickly and realizes that although he’s still a little stung that she would’ve lied to him, ultimately he just wants to be with her so who cares.
Here’s where the book gets a little interesting, structure-wise, because we essentially have a double grand gesture. And it works! First Tyler grand gestures Carlie by going to her house and saying he forgives her. He presents her with this whole plan he came up with for helping out the kids at her school (I kinda love that he unabashedly is like, yes, this is partially to win you over, but who cares, I still want to do good in the community at the same time). He also blurts out that he wants to marry her! But of course Carlie is all closed off again and back to being Brittle and Scrupulously Polite —
(quick aside: a friend and writing buddy read this book just yesterday after I posted about it on Instagram, which is just about the HIGHEST FORM OF FRIENDSHIP as far as I’m concerned, and she agreed it was such a cozy, nostalgic, comforting, low-stakes read, but this was the one thing that kind of bugged her. That Carlie could be so over-the-top in her reactions sometimes. To which I want to know — what does it say about me that I fucking love this shit, get Brittle, get Scrupulously Polite, don’t give him an INCH, don’t let him know how you feel — Tyler is like “People can’t just turn off their emotions” and Carlie is like “I can turn off my feelings with a snap of my fingers” and now THAT is my kink)
So Carlie rejects Tyler, and he’s basically like, fine. You’ve talked and I’ll listen. I’ll leave you alone.
Except of course Carlie doesn’t WANT to be left alone. She CAN’T just turn off her feelings. After a couple weeks pass, she misses him, and she decides it’s her turn to grand gesture. There’s this cute little scene where she gets Brenda and Jason in on it to lure Tyler over to the pool house under some guise of helping work on their house or whatever. Only Carlie is waiting there in the harem costume, wearing her mask, and he’s like, can I remove it, and she says whatever you like, and he says I like you, and then she says she loves him, he says he loves her too, they probably make love again in the pool house which is a GREAT example of mirror images at the start and end of a story if you ask me.
And that’s Impetuous by Lori Foster, if you’ve hung with me this far. It really is just one of those books for me. I’ve read it so many times. I think it might be part of my DNA at this point. What is one of those books for you?
Currently reading . . . I just finished To Swoon and to Spar by Martha Waters, and speaking of a cozy, comforting, wonderfully romantic book. I just loved it so much. Martha has this sneaky wit to her writing, this ability for creating these real, intimate little moments between her characters. I think this might be my favorite of her Regency Vows series, and that’s saying a lot! In this one, they enter into a marriage of convenience (top-notch trope!) because he wants his ancestral home back, but SHE wants him out of his ancestral home so she can just enjoy it herself. So she stages a haunting, which is just so much fun, the playfulness of her getting the servants involved and him kinda figuring it out and testing her, and her testing him right back.
And speaking of this book . . . I will be speaking about this book!! I’m very excited to be in conversation with Martha Waters tonight, April 12, at 7pm ET/6pm CT. The event will be streamed via The Novel Neighbor’s YouTube and social media accounts, and you can register for it here. Martha recently posted a redacted picture of a bad haircut she had as a teen and I might ask her about it. Or I might stick to just asking her how she makes her books so funny, what was her favorite scene to write, that kind of thing.
watching . . . Of COURSE I’ve been watching my beloved Rays go 11-0 to start the season!!! And also watching all the salty takes about how it’s only because we’ve played “cupcake teams” so far, blah blah blah, sour grapes sour grapes. Listen. Here’s what I have to say about that:
don’t you get excited when your team sweeps another team in a series, even when the other team is a “cupcake?”
and they’re pretty rare, right? sweeps? in a sport where the top teams can go just above .500 and still make the playoffs?
so wouldn’t you be excited if your team had three sweeps in a row?
oh, and one more thing
Obviously we’re not going to go 162-0! I know the loss streaks will also happen! But in the meantime, is it so hard to just let me have this one shining beacon of hope and joy in this shitty world? I’m out here trying to tie my mental health to baseball, so 11-0 sounds pretty damn good to me.
listening to . . . I worry this is going to punch a hole right through my “mental health’s never been better now that my sports team is on a glow-up” representation, but this morning I was listening to “Killing in the Name” by Rage Against the Machine on repeat at work, one AirPod in my ear, and then the receptionist came by to ask me something and somehow it disconnected and started blaring out from my phone and she was VISIBLY taken aback and like, “Wow, you’re really rocking at 8:30 a.m.!” and I was like, whatever gets me through, man. Whatever gets me through.