It's Monday, so it must be Smart Bitches Day. Today's bitch: keyboard restrictions. I think the "y" key needs to be removed from the keyboards of all romance writers (well, maybe not all, but a bunch of them). At the very least, the use should be restricted when it comes to the names of the characters. Maybe some enterprising person could write a macro preventing their use? The conventional romance wisdom seems to be that if an "i" or "e" has been used traditionally, a "y" can used instead. I know the author is trying to be innovative and make her characters distinctive, but it screams trying too hard to me.

If the book is an historical and the character is Welsh, a plethora of y's and dd's is only to be expected. But so many of the other names have no excuse. Ravyn. Lyon. Lync. Bryanna. Mykayla. Carolyna. And don't get me started about JR Ward's characters.

I want to read a red hot romance between Anne and Bob, or Juan and Li, or Owen and Marg. Or any other real name, please.

You may be wondering what brought this on: I picked up a copy of Stray while at the store and skimmed the first few pages to see if I needed to buy a copy. I didn't see the heroine's name on the backblurb: Faythe. First time I read it (in the dialogue), I had to double check -- was that a name or merely the speaker lisping "face"? Name. Ugh. Back on the shelf.