A ripped Col. Sanders stars in KFC’s first romance novel

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From USA Today:

With rippling muscles and that signature silver mane, Col. Sanders becomes “a handsome sailor with a mysterious past” in KFC’s first bodice-ripper, a romance novel.

The fast-food fried-chicken chain dips into the sex-charged world of romance literature with its book, Tender Wings of Desire. The book can be downloaded for free from Amazon and 100 Facebook users will be offered a hardback copy.

The novella is part of a promotion around Mother’s Day, which KFC says is one of its biggest selling days of the year.

“The only thing better than being swept away by the deliciousness of our Extra Crispy Chicken is being swept away by Harland Sanders himself,” said George Felix, KFC U.S.’ advertising director. “So this Mother’s Day, the bucket of chicken I get for my wife will come with a side of steamy romance novel.”

Link to the rest at USA Today and thanks to Joshua for the tip.

36 thoughts on “A ripped Col. Sanders stars in KFC’s first romance novel”

  1. Look out NYT Best Seller list. Seriously. Look for other brands to start doing this very thing. McDonald’s, Burger King, White Castle… Fast food enters the publishing business. McDonalds: the newest Kindle World. I already have an idea for a Hamburgler story.

  2. I prefer to believe this was published on April 1. But now that I think about it, I’m wondering if the book will have scenes like the one with Grace Kelly and Cary Grant in “To Catch a Thief,” where the fried chicken is part of the banter.

      • Oh my goodness. Well. I just … Well!

        *Laughs out loud for a long while*

        Okay. So, here’s what I love: the lady has her purse with her while she’s swept up in his arms. I just love that. In my teens I couldn’t go anywhere without my purse, think Linus and his security blanket. Moving to a city cured me of that, but I’m thinking a “Lady” who runs away from a manor would have a very different kind of purse. One that looks like a reticule, perhaps, or a chatelaine purse. That one she has is too practical. And also implies that she’s paying for the chicken. Which is just wrong 🙂

          • See, that’s how much I focused on the purse. But yeah, he is too old for her. KFC could have really gone “edgy” and made the pair closer in age. Maybe a Miss Barbara-Stanwyck-as-Victoria-Barkley lookalike? I do remember thinking Mrs. Barkley was cool.

  3. When, when, WHEN will they stop using the term “bodice ripper”???!!!! It’s been considered outdated and insulting for literally decades!!! Sheesh.

  4. Tunneled down to the writer of the piece. About 19 out of 20 of his pieces (in USA Today, anyway) are on cars. The few that aren’t appear to be miscellaneous business stories. Definitely not someone who can be expected to know anything about books, much less the Romance genre.

    He’s completely off base, of course – take a look at the cover; the object of the Colonel’s affections is highly unlikely to even know what a bodice is…

    (This was supposed to be a reply to Kat S. Looks like I got confused at the end of the page again…)

  5. It actually starts out as some kind of Regency spoof. I wonder if we progress through all the various subgenres.

    • Really? Then it will probably insult Regency readers. For those like me, it certainly won’t get me to read it. (Now, I am slowly getting through some real Regency, as a study project; I wouldn’t want to contaminate the image that I am beginning to form.)

      I’m still trying to figure out where the bodice comes in, though.

      OK, it is currently #14 in Romance. (Remembering that “free” is separately ranked from “paid.” I managed to top out around the thirties myself in “free” – with what was a truly miserable first shot…)

      I liked this review, though! “Imagine how low your life has come that you’ve have to resort to writing erotic chicken fan fictions on Amazon?”

  6. Not that I’d have been interested in reading anyway, but the fact they don’t seem to realize that Colonel isn’t a Naval rank just hurts.

  7. This is taking advantage of a dead man.

    Yes, Harlan Sanders legally permitted his image to be used in advertising, but this book is just plain tacky.

    Does anyone imagine he would have acquiesced to this? In 1973 (at age 83) he sued the then-owner of KFC (Heublein Inc.) for misuse of his image. I imagine he’d be immeasurably less pleased with this book.

    • The economy these days, that’s a treat for many. I used to be able to take the spouse to a fancy restaurant – now, it’s a flower from the supermarket, a card, and I pull steaks out of the freezer.

      Although if I were to get fried chicken takeout, it would most likely be Popeye’s – KFC has been terrible (and slow, and usually doesn’t have the pieces and/or sides we want) for several years now.

    • Yeah, for that reason I did wonder if this was for the US market. I gather in Japan KFC is a Christmas dinner (it was even a plot point in one series I’m binge watching). Even taking into account the economy I’m skeptical. Wouldn’t you just cook for Mom instead?

      But I agree with Karl and Sheila that aside from this aspect, the real Sanders probably wouldn’t want his name and image used this way. I was wondering if KFC is calling this character a navy man in order to claim they didn’t mean the real one (Wikipedia says the real one was an army man).

      • My husband used to work at KFC (noting that this was many years ago) and he said that they were always absolutely slammed on Mother’s Day. Plenty of families can’t afford to go out to even something on the level of Denny’s, so KFC will do.

        Angie

  8. I read what I could stand of the Look Inside. Ew. Colonel Sanders must be rolling in his grave. I could see if they’d written something decent, maybe based the character on someone like the Colonel. But this?

    All I know is, if I got something like this on Mother’s Day, my kids would be shunned. I raised them better than that.

  9. It looks as though they did this because the romance genre in general is getting way, way too much respect. I mean, right up there with SF, mystery, literary…

    Doesn’t even deserve the rich fisking I can give it. Going back to write my next Greek mythology/Amish mashup romance, “Snakes in a Bonnet.”

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