Romancing the Blog | Romance Authors and Readers Who Blog

Seven displaced romance novel heroes. One matchmaker devoted to giving them Happily Ever After.

Pilot Episode

(An upscale bar. Five attractive women, four with red hair, are chatting at a table in the corner. Six other women in various stages of intoxication are throwing back shots at the bar. Six men wait in a private room under the supervision of an agitated professional matchmaker, who scowls when a seventh man enters the room.)

Matchmaker: A vampire walks into a bar. Sounds like the beginning of a great joke, but there’s nothing funny about you being an hour late.

Dante Dracovich: Complain to Daylight Savings Time. I didn’t make the sun set at nine.

Matchmaker: No more excuses from any of you. If you’re not going to take this seriously, hit the road, keeping in mind your deposit is nonrefundable. I’m going to go talk to the girls, tell them how fabulous you are, and get them liquored up before I send you out to mingle. Talk amongst yourselves.

Man with Lacy Cravat and Skintight Pants: I shall begin. I am Lord Tristan, Duke of Lanshropberktershire.

Christian Rockvanfellerbilt: Uh-huh. Where, exactly, is that located?

Tristan: It’s just north of Liverwurstershire.

Bane Aphelion: Ah, yes. Latifah, Queen of Newark, has a summer home there.

Tristan: Is that so? I must say, I am quite put out that I have never received an invitation from Her Majesty. We are practically neighbors, after all.

Bane: I know what’ll be fun. Let’s play a word-association game. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when I say “Regency rake”?

Tristan: Illicit rendezvous with lady fair.

Christian: Fashion fit for the artist-once-again-known-as Prince.

Dante: Gonorrhea.

Tristan: I beg your pardon!

Dante: I was there, buddy. Every one of you players swizzled your stick in some kind of pox.

Tristan: At least I haven’t adopted a pseudo-Romanian alias like a certain nocturnal fiend who used to be known to the ton as Donald Dunston.

Dante: You know, fop, a stake in the heart will kill a human, too.

Christian: Don’t make me separate you two. Unlike some people who inherited their fortunes along with their blue blood, I earned my billions by exerting my dominance over those who would waste time on such petty pursuits when they should be working as hard as I do to achieve my success.

Mitch Ruger: Please. Your great-granddaddy was the last member of your family to break a sweat. A hard day’s work for you is signing too many credit card receipts.

Christian: What do you know, and what is that lump under your arm?

Mitch: My gun. I work for a top-secret government-funded law enforcement agency whose acronym you’ve never heard of, rescuing trust-fund suckers like you from bad guys who want to part you from your money and your lives. I’ve been shot, stabbed, and once spent a week in a pit in Somalia, surviving on bugs and dew, all in the line of duty. I bring home five figures a year for that, so I don’t want to hear any whining about how rough your board meetings are, rich boy.

Christian: Don’t blame me for your inadequate career choice. Who’s that guy in the corner?

Guy in the Corner: Hi. I’m Joe Average. I’m an accountant.

Mitch Ruger: Sure you are. Undercover operative?

Bane: Interpol’s most wanted embezzler?

Joe: No, just a number cruncher for H&R Cube.

Dante: That’s… boring. You’re never going to get a woman.

Joe: Why not? I’m stable and reliable and polite…

Christian: Yawn. You need flaws, a dark and traumatic past, something. For instance, I’m a spoiled, arrogant skinflint.

Tristan: I’ve had indiscriminate, unprotected sex with half the women in Britain.

Mitch: I have a propensity for violence and occasionally value justice above the law.

Dante: I have angst for no discernible reason.

Bane: Like Joe, I’m a simple, honorable guy.

Mitch: Don’t I know you from somewhere? Wait a sec. You were the villain in my friend’s book!

Bane: If you’d seen it from my point of view, you’d know my purpose was noble. It just happened to conflict with your goody-goody friend’s purpose. If I wasn’t going to come back to tell my side of the story, I wouldn’t have been such a handsome villain. I’m not all bad. At least I never chew on my victims.

Dante: If you did, your villainy would have an erotic mystique that would garner instant sympathy from women and the envy of other men.

Caleb Albuquerque: Except for those pesky ones with the stakes.

Dante: Inconsequential annoyances. What’s your story, Tex?

Caleb: I suffered a rodeo injury some years back, and my fiancée took off at the prospect of changing my colostomy bag. I got my bowel function back and built myself a successful ranching operation, but I never recovered from her betrayal. Since then, I treat all women except my kid sister like the unreliable trash they are.

Tristan: One would think your being a farm hand would be sufficient reason for any woman to leave you.

Mitch: What are you laughing at, vampire?

Dante: I think our matchmaker bit off more than she can chew. We’re a despicable bunch, with the exception of Joe, whose dullness makes him equally unappealing. She’s crazy to think any woman would want us.

Christian: I mentioned that when I signed up for the service, and she told me not to worry. It’s all about PR, and she has spin doctors who have put a shine on worse flaws than greedy, bloodsucking, bitter, promiscuous, violent, dull, and villainous.

Bane: Sounds like the Seven Deadly Dwarves. I hope we don’t have to share Snow White. She’d be a little shopworn after a week or two. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I specifically asked for a sweet, virtuous heroine to serve as a foil for my nastiness.

Caleb, Tristan, Christian, and Joe: I asked for a feisty redhead.

Matchmaker: Okay, boys, it’s showtime. We’re going to do speed dates. You get five minutes of one-on-one time to get to know each girl, then I’ll talk to you after to see if there’s one in particular you felt a special connection with, and we’ll proceed with arranging your one-on-one dates from there.

Caleb: By the way, darlin’, who are those women at the bar?

Matchmaker: Oh, those are the writers. Pretend they’re not even there.

Mitch: Hey, nobody said anything about writers!

Christian: I thought I was going to get to make my own decisions!

Matchmaker: Yes, your own decisions thus far have clearly resulted in lasting love. Why didn’t you bring your wife tonight? Oh, that’s right. You don’t have one.

Joe: My best friend’s plumber’s cousin had a writer, and he ended up with some woman who needed a psychiatrist more than a husband.

Matchmaker: Is your best cousin’s… friend’s plumber happy?

Joe: That’s what the book says, but even that writer’s rabid fangirls didn’t believe it.

Matchmaker: My agency accepts only the best writers, all of whom have passed a rigorous screening process. You trusted me to find you the perfect woman. Trust me to find you the perfect writer.

Caleb: Do any of them write erotica?

Matchmaker: One does, and she happens to adore cowboys. See, I know what I’m doing here. Now relax, remember how I coached you to misrepresent yourselves, and let’s head over to meet the girls of your dreams.

Dante: Anybody else notice there are seven of us and only five women?

Mitch: Oh, man. I don’t know how to break this to you, vampire, but I’m suddenly feeling a “special connection” with you.

Dante: You’re creeping me out, cop. Although… have your eyes always been that soul-seducing shade of aquamarine?

(Maniacal laughter erupts at the bar.)

Mitch: Aw, son of a [CENSORED]!