This was Joanne...

It's time to showcase another book from my slightly narcissistic collection of books with my name (or its variation, Joanna) in the title. Joanne by Scott Stone was published in 1955 by The Vixen Press (what a name for a publishing house, you gotta love it). Here's the summary:

Her velvet tones caressed the microphone and the audience stirred in restless delight.

This was Joanne...

She had that power--the power that only a vibrant, lovely woman can have--the power to move people.

There was the rub. She moved them, all right, but she couldn't quite control the direction they took.

It wasn't her fault. She wanted no part of the whole mess. But want it or not, she was stuck with it. Love, desire, lust, blackmail, murder!--they all swooped down to plague and torture her like vultures over a cadaver.

But she took them in stride--she had to--and played it cool in the warm spotlight, knowing all the while that she was singing to a maelstrom of human emotion, a veritible vortex of vice. And she knew well--all too well--who was playing the center of this strange pinwheel of passion.

Yes...this was--

JOANNE.

Seriously, how over the top is that?

Joanne, the Unpredictable

We managed to get a few more boxes unpacked this weekend--I think it will be years before everything we have finds a new spot. But among the boxes and boxes and boxes left in the basement is one I can't seem to find: My collection of "Joanne" books. Oh, it's there somewhere, I remember moving it. I just have to dig down to it.

A few years ago, I started collecting books with my name or its variant, Joanna, in the title. They all look kinda cool lined up on a bookshelf. I picked up another one this weekend: Joanne, The Unpredictable, by Katheryn Kimbrough. It was published in 1976, when I was way too young to be reading such bodice rippers. The plot:

Joanne was the most stunningly beautiful and dangerously willful of all the Phenwick women. Even before she reached the age of twenty, she knew how to be all things to all men in order to turn them into puppets of her desire. And from the moment she arrived at Merrihew Manor, the ancestral Phenwick family estate in England, she began to cast her spell over everyone from her elegant, aristocratic cousin, to the handsome, virile master of the neighboring property, to the worldy, irresistibly charming man of the theatre who was visiting from London.

Life at Merrihew Manor was a whirling, intoxicating masked ball of romance for Joanne--until she realized the occult horror that ruled this ancient place, and felt the tightening embrace of a satanic force that neither her beauty nor her guile could disarm or deceive...

What a hoot. It has it all: occult horror, a gothic estate, and a beautiful young heroine. It may have to be this summer's poolside reading. Er, if I hung out at the pool, that is.

Some people collect Precious Moments figurines, I collect books with my name in the title. What's your freaky collecting habit?