When I was a student in college, I had to frequently use the public library for research purposes (and off course as a meeting place for friends, but let's keep that as a separate issue shall we?!). I noticed that there was a whole section of the library which was devoted to romantic novels and there were so many different types of these novels. There were two whole bookcases just filled with Mills and Boon novels.
Within these bookcases there were further divisions among the types of romance. There were the standard novels which were set in the modern world, historical novels set at some point in history, but usually in a century which was not too far distant and where the fashion was for the women to wear corsets and voluminous dresses with lots of buttons and petticoats! Then there were the medical novels which were set in hospitals either in large cities or in some deserted outpost. There were also the ones which tried to combine the old Wild West with the modern idea of romance.\
Another thing that always stuck me was the way that all the heroes and heroines were described in the same way. The women were all tall, slim but voluptuous and with long legs. They all had shining flowing locks of hair and eyes that would change colour depending on their moods. They all had pert noses, full lips and wonderful skin. It is no wonder that the modern woman feels that she needs to have cosmetic surgery in order to live up to the ideal of beauty that she has grown up with, and yes most women will have read a few Mills and Boon books in their life heroines in these novels would never have needed to have a tummy tuck or liposuction. As for the men in these books, they were all fine specimens of manhood, with broad shoulders, narrow hips and glossy thick hair which was always slightly long. The eyes were also piercing and the nose always proud. The lips were full (and without Botox and fillers and the skin was tanned and rippling with muscles, which he maintained without working out. Yeah right! How many men do you know who match up to this description, at least outside of the gym and the movies!
The one thing that you could be sure of was that they would all follow a standard pattern and that the end would be totally predictable, in fact for many of them you could know the whole story just from reading the blurb at the back. I got into the habit of reading these novels and found that some were better written than others and soon learned which authors' style I liked. Some of them were quite funny and all were very light and easy reading that you could do while having lunch at your desk, or sitting on the bus to and from work.
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