like the feeling at the end of the page

My wife and her friend were browsing the stacks at the local chain bookstore when they came across this fine work of high literature...


I realize that there is a detailed science behind romance novel cover design. In a genre based on disposability and formula, marketing is everything and the ideal state exists between comfortable familiarity and enticing difference. Call it the "impulse purchase zone."

The intent behind the cover to Midnight Treats is fairly obvious -- the promise of softcore titillation. The couple posed in a way that the focus is on the man, whose focus in turn on the potential buyer...not his partner in monkey-lovin'. "I'm really thinking of you, not this hot blonde I'm spooning," his expression suggests. Or perhaps, "This hot blonde could totally be you."

Intent is not the same as execution, however, and Maura and her pal saw things through the filter of a Medford, Massachusetts upbringing...


For full effect, it really needs to be read in a Medford accent, which is a testosterone-heavy variant of the Boston accent with Vinne Barbarino tossed in for good measure, and delivered with a slight nod of the head. You can take a girl out of Meffa, but you can't take Meffa out of a girl.

(That comment could very well get me killed once the wife reads it. She insists that the whole "Meffa" thing was a joke constructed in neighboring communities, and that no one in Medford calls it "Meffa," despite ample evidence to the contrary. I can't be too hard on her, though. It's not her fault she didn't grow up in the green fields and wastepits of Woobin, as your humble author did.)

Missing Persons - Words (from Spring Session M, 1982) - An excellent slice of American new wave, featuring the talents (and distinct Medford accent) of singer Dale Bozzio.