Tongue-in-cheek fun, or insult to romance readers everywhere? You decide.

For those of you who haven’t heard, KFC just published its first romance novella, starring none other than Colonel Sanders himself. (And before you ask: no, I’m not sure, but I do THINK this is one of the signs of an impending apocalypse. You might want to start hoarding canned goods and antibiotics just in case.)

The novella, released to celebrate Mother’s Day, is called Tender Wings of Desire (gag) and portrays a love affair between Lady Madeline Parker and Colonel Harland Sanders. Currently, it’s a free Amazon download. (Update, 5/9/17: looks like it's 99 cents, now)

I can kind of picture how this “book” came to be. I’m pretty sure it happened like this: a bunch of middle-aged, white, MALE marketing executives got together for a meeting (or maybe a round of golf) and asked themselves, “how can we capitalize on a holiday like Mother’s Day and make it less about mothers and more about US and selling chicken?”
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I then imagine one of these smarmy dudes saying, “Well, women like romance novels. How about we have our ad agency write one of those and throw it out there on Amazon? I mean, how hard can it be? Anyone can write a romance novel, after all.” Then they all chortle and pat each other on the back on a job well done and move on to the next order of business.

Now, we’re assuming Tender Wings of Desire was meant as a cute, tongue-in-cheek joke/semi-clever marketing ploy (although none of the many, many press releases about this book actually state that outright). And if the book had been well executed, we might be able to chortle along with the old white dudes who conceived it. But it was FAR from well executed. Amateurish writing, absolutely zero regard for time period accuracy, multiple grammatical errors, every old romance novel cliche known to man, crappy, embarrassing cover art...this book looks and reads like someone studied up on stupid romance novel myths and did everything they could to incorporate EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM into one cliche-laden volume.

The fact that this marketing ploy perpetuates every myth sites like ours—and all the great romance authors out there—have been working so diligently to destroy irks the crap out of me. I mean, even some of the press releases about this book were fairly offensive to real romance readers. (For an example, I point you to Business Insider, who said, “Of course, no one reads romance novels for the plot. Instead, it's all about skipping to the ‘good parts,’  if you know what we're saying.”) But honestly, that’s not my biggest problem with this book.

My biggest problem with this book can be best expressed by this, my question to KFC: if you wanted to give something to mothers for free to help celebrate how they, you know, give BIRTH TO and raise little human beings (kind of an important job), why didn’t you care enough to give them something GOOD? I’m guessing the marketing budget for this little disaster was fairly huge. You easily could’ve found a real romance author to write a good book for you. (Because as it turns out, Business Insider and KFC, romance readers actually DO expect plot in their novels. Sorry to wreck your whole worldview there, guys.) Did you think that moms who enjoy romance novels don’t care about or deserve quality? Can we expect something similarly crappy as your gift to fathers on Father’s Day? Maybe a super low-quality set of KFC-branded socket wrenches, or something? Because, hey, all men love socket wrenches, right? (See how we just lumped all men into one category? Does that offend you guys? Welcome to the club.)

So, for the old white dudes who conceived this idea, I leave you with this advice:

1. In the future, before you launch a marketing campaign that’s geared toward women, consider actually asking a woman (a real one) what she thinks of the idea. You might learn a thing or two.
2. Romance readers DO expect their books to be well-written, and there ARE plenty of great romance authors out there (shocking, I know, but bear with me, guys)
3. Avoid cliches. No one likes them.
4. How about you focus on making and selling chicken, and let real authors worry about writing and publishing?    

What about all you romance readers out there? What are your thoughts? ​

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