"I can feel my sperm dying inside of me, one at a time"

If Samson Raphaelson was the finest romance and comedy writer of yesteryear, his modern day equivalents are the screenwriting pair Hollywood turns to when they need a flimsy excuse to attach unlikeable people for distasteful flirting. These writers are Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont and together they have penned the likes of A Very Brady Sequel, Can't Hardly Wait, Josie and the Pussycats, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas and Surviving Christmas.

More recently they have settled into a nice rut. In 2008 they co-wrote the script for an anaemic, detestable farce entitled Made of Honor, about a man who is literally made out of honour. Patrick Dempsey is another of those Hollywood hunks who coast on their looks and make me embarrassed about my physical appearance. Dempsey's cheekbones play Tom Bailey. Tom invented the piece of card jerks put around their coffee cups to stop from burning their fingers, for they are too busy to actually enjoy coffee and must combine it with walking into buildings hurriedly. Did Tom Bailey create card? No, but through some Hollywood logic he is now a multi-millionaire playboy with no financial worries. He uses his limitless free time to sleep with young women and has a series of rules to avoid emotional connection and happiness. Somehow, the film says, the audience is supposed to over-look his crippling dickishness and believe it worthwhile to watch him find love with the woman he is in love with.

But wait, for this lady, the only person who can put up with him, has to go to Scotland for work, and it is there she meets a hunky, red-headed Scotsman with a large penis and accepts his proposal of marriage. The only option open to Tom is to become her maid of honour and use this intimacy to break off the engagement and make her his own. He grows more charming by the minute.

Two years later, Elfont & Kaplan returned to our screens with Leap Year. This one concerns a young lady, played by the chin of Amy Adams, who wants to marry her emotionally-stunted doctor boyfriend. When he fails to propose she decides to surprise him at a conference in Dublin and propose to him on February 29^th. Leap Year Day being an Irish tradition, a time when women are allowed to propose to men and anarchy is tolerated. Journey plans go awry, naturally, and Amy Adams winds up in quirky, rural Ireland, with a grumpy, but devilishly handsome, Irish chap who has a beard. Needing money, he offers to drive her to Dublin, and pretty soon an entirely unconvincing romance is afoot.

For those keeping count, someone needs to stop Kaplan and Elfont before they reach Wales. However, according to reports, their next film will be Repeat After Me, a story about a woman forced to relive her nightmarish wedding day, presumably until she gets it right and dumps her English fiancé and instead marries his deadbeat Best Man, played by Josh Duhamel, or someone irritating like that. Before that, however, they are also adapting Marie Winn's Red-Tails in Love: A Wildlife Drama into a film, hopefully casting Kristen Bell and Hugh Jackman as the Central Park hawks. Fingers crossed!

As we can see, these two have a neat system operating, requiring little work besides name and location changing. Their films take place around weddings, often used a ticking clock device to force a man into realising he is ready for a relationship. Another curious trope involves infidelity, the husband-to-be screwed over in the name of true love between shallow people who deserve each other. Raphaelson might have made this work, but it is doubtful Raphaelson would have bothered with Hollywood were he working today. Kaplan and Elfont shouldn't be blamed entirely for the soulless despair their films represent. There are directors and producers at work here who rarely receive a fair proportion of the blame. It cannot be a coincidence that the pair's better films are the ones they directed, even though both of those films remain lousy.

Women love weddings as much as men hate the idea of marriage. Why Kaplan and Elfont are allowed to propagate dismissive stereotypes and gender clichés is best summed up by their startling financial success. Made of Honor was so successful a sequel followed, Made of Honor 2: We Didn't Think This Through and Leap Year proved so beloved, despite all the criticism, that other calendar irregularities shall soon be turned into films. Thankfully, none of that is true, except for the most depressing part, which is kinda true.

As this post has done, critics of the Kaplan-Elfont brand of romantic comedy never travel far beyond reciting the pair's credits, lazily trading on the obvious as much as the screenwriters have. While it is safe to say that their filmography shamefully speaks for itself, it is not enough for us, those who demand better, to feel satisfied in knowing we have the right to hate them. We want to know why we must hate them and why we continue to watch their films. There must be a reason as to why studios churn this claptrap out with heartbreaking monotony. Bad films are forced upon the public all the time and that is why we invented Renée Zellweger, Oscar-Winner. However, there was a time when inbetween the likes of When in Rome, The Ugly Truth and Bride Wars there were great films and decades on, when nostalgic, or angry, people looked back on said decade those garbage films were easily ignored and the great films were all that remained. We don't have the luxury of future hindsight, but at least we can rest assured knowing we have all the garbage films which will be forgotten done. That's taken care of.

Leap Year was a rotten and cheap excuse for a film, a clumsy, arbitrary list of clichés including, but not limited to, the couple who pretend to hate one another even though they like one another, the two people forced to pretend to be a real couple in order to get a room at a local inn (The Bounty Hunter somehow managed to fit this one in as well), an after dinner kissing competition contriving the fake couple's first kiss where they find out they kiss real good, the American's reliance on technology versus the indigenous country folk, a road blocked with farm animals - possibly sheep, it is not important – and ugly foreign stereotypes. And the guy kills a chicken.

Kaplan and Elfont shouldn't be blamed for a lack of effort when they're rewarded whether they try or not, and seeing as how their script is likely to be trashed by the producers this by-the-numbers approach avoids the inevitable disappointment that comes from seeing the finished product. It seems suitable to believe they wrote Leap Year and Made of Honor over the course of the same weekend, sometimes forgetting which one they were working on and then realising it didn't much matter. Then we should all hope they were paid a great deal of money, and some of that fortune went to charity.

“Tony Laughed Again. And So Did Dan. But He Frowned Too."

One of the absolutely superior things about romance fiction is its brevity. After all, why put off true love any longer than you're contractually obligated to? Mills & Boon books are likeable because they never strain beyond the bare minimum, but there are many romances that don't belong to the Harlequin canon. It seems everybody is at it, and typically of women, they don't consider brevity a redeeming feature. Nora Roberts, who we'll get to eventually, and those of her ilk, weigh in with hefty tomes, sometimes even going so far as to insist upon plot and depth to stretch their stories out. The reading of such novels can seem like a daunting task. You set out and realise you're in this relationship for the long haul. At first everything is great, it's so romantic and so much better than that last book you read. That book didn't care about you, not like this new one does. Then, naturally, you're one hundred pages in and still nothing has really changed...

The book thinks you remain in the first chapter and acts accordingly. Shouldn't we have moved past this stage, you think. Shouldn't the book be describing kinky sexual acts by now? Shouldn't you have met the main character's parents? And yet, as you flick to the end and check the page number, you note, with some dismay, that there are still three hundred pages to slog through. Jeez, you think. Won't this book shut up and let you sleep? Imagine relative delight then, when you find a romance novel that was over by page 104, printed with a large font and double-spaced. Just the kind of book for the mood you are in. Imagine your continuing displeasure, however, as you read Maggie's Story. This story of someone named Maggie isn't to be confused with Maggie's Story by Dandi Daley Mackall, which somehow updates the tale of Mary Magdalene into rural Ohio. Still, we should keep a look out for a copy of that one.

No, the Maggie in question here isn't just any old Maggie. She is Maggie, a nobody housewife aged forty-three. She's married to a man named Dan. Dan is a mechanic. Maggie and Dan have been married for twenty-two years and have two children. A twenty-year-old son, Tom, he works in retail and is unhappy and a daughter, Diana, a carefree sixteen-year-old whom Maggie constantly reminds us is beautiful, stunning and very attractive, even though sixteen year olds are too young to be found sexually alluring. You hear that, internet?

Maggie has a part-time job doing something that may not be a real job. From what the author suggests Maggie goes door-to-door asking people questions about their life, career and income, as some sort of government monitoring scheme. No one in the novel appears bothered by this, so let us assume, as we have always assumed, that Ireland is weird. Despite the rich, full variety of her life, Maggie is weary, bored and miserable. She feels under-valued at home, unloved and aimless, as if life passes her by. As the writer, Sheila O'Flanagan, so perceptively remarks, 'Blokes didn't really do things like bring you flowers and tell you they loved you. Blokes expected you to believe that the fact that they lived with you was proof enough.' Tsk. Blokes! Right, ladies?

Then, with all seeming lost, the blurb mentions a chance encounter that will offer Maggie the opportunity to question whether or not she is truly happy. In the novel, this random meeting appears to be with an author named Flora O'Brien, who lends Maggie a romance book she once wrote, entitled A Crazy Heart. Maggie reads this book, and in doing so neglects her family. But to hell with making them dinner and showing them attention. Maggie is entranced. She loves the romance, even though the story contains no romance, and begins to compare the protagonist with herself, and the glamorous locations of the novel with her kitchen. She quickly decides Fictional Female Character is beautiful and has a bevy of desirable men to choose from, and that this is very different from her situation, where she only has an indifferent husband, in his forties.

This potentially meaningless existential drama is challenged by a second chance encounter, this time with a forty-something single father named Chris. Meeting for a second time in the supermarket, Chris offers to show Maggie a good, platonic time. They go to the beach and then onto the cinema, where they take in that romantic classic, Enemy of the State, because Maggie likes Will Smith, and Chris likes Gene Hackman. That is genuinely what the book tells us.

Will Maggie cheat on Dan and start a new life with Chris, because he paid her a compliment? No. Instead she'll completely flip out when her husband asks, 'What's for dinner?' and run upstairs in a mood. Spaghetti was the answer she was looking for. Dan, Diana and Tom take this stifled breakdown and non-committal accusation of mistreatment as a sign they should show more appreciation of Maggie and all she does for them. The next day on returning from work instead of asking the customary, 'What's for dinner?' Dan asks, 'How was your day?' and Maggie senses an enforced change, which she accepts as good enough. But no, Maggie. There's more. Your family has also bought you a Ford Fiesta. Oh, happy ending indeed. If it sounds as if the ending makes no sense, that isn't due to my hopeless attempt of relaying the story. A cynical person might imply that this conclusion glorifies shallow consumerism. Maggie's mid-life crisis is solved with the buying of a product she doesn't need. While that is the case, I'd prefer to believe there was more to this book than such a sweeping generalisation. Let us instead believe Maggie's Story is badly written and the ending is stupid.

Maggie's relatively selfish behaviour effects a modification in the actions of those around her. Therefore it is those around her who learn a lesson. The lesson being to bow to those who demand to be treated better. O'Flanagan goes to great lengths to make Maggie sympathetic and likeable, pointing out that Maggie loves her children and doesn't regret having them. Well, that's something, at least. Now, no one means to understate the immensity of the courageous, selfless act of motherhood (Hello, Mothers), but the book just can't get away from separating Maggie's problems from her life. She realises that she is lucky to have the life she has. All she misses is youth and the romance of blossoming love. Where does the romance go? she asks. Romance is for the young, says Dan, but he is wrong. He means vitality. Vitality is for the young. Romance can literally be bought, so romance should be for everyone who can afford it, as we later witness with the bounty of a Ford Fiesta. Maggie doesn't get romance in the sense she seeks, but she gets a car, which is better. Cars go broom-broom. Romance just goes.

“All Hearts Know about Love, All You Have to Do is Listen”

Following up on the recent ruminations concerning romantic comedy movies, here's an unwarranted essay entitled, That Was Stupid, and Other Thoughts on Carolina. Bewildered Heart watches a great number of Julia Stiles films. This isn't a particularly surprising statement, as we watch a great number of films starring a great variety of people. Be that as it may, if Julia Stiles ever reads this blog, and why shouldn't she, this blog read hers, then she shouldn't be disconcerted. Although, we would be pretty upset if she wasn't in some way flattered. After all, we have seen most of her films, and most recently there was the viewing pleasure of a 2003 effort named Carolina, where Stiles played the titular role, alongside Shirley MacLaine as that Shirley MacLaine character she now plays in everything. We have seen a lot of her films too. In this gentle and under-whelming romantic comedy the audience is treated to what we most look for in a movie, squandered potential.

In Carolina, there's a fairly messy back-story to contend with, unfortunately, and that confusion has not been aided by a lack of attention brought about by tedious story-telling. Despite that, here goes. Carolina and her half-sisters live with their eccentric, matriarchal grandmother. They have extended family gatherings, where comedic character actors turn out to eat, drink and say quirky things. Carolina has tired of this activity and to pay for her independence works on a dating game show, matching up lonely, angry people and then filming the hilarious despair of romantic failure. Her best friend and neighbour is a dream-boat writer, named Arthur, who authors sensationalist romance fiction under the pseudonym Daphne St. Claire. He is in love with Carolina and she is in love with him. However, thanks to a stern refusal of happiness, Carolina dates an English gentleman and watches this relationship fall apart, as all the others have, due to her non-existent character flaws. On a side note, there actually is a Mills & Boon writer named Daphne Clair, whose bibliography includes The Timber Baron's Virgin Bride. What a coincidence! Isn't that almost interesting?

After some quite unbelievable events this blog entry is determined not to ruin for you, dear reader, and a few deeply contrived scenarios which ruin themselves, the film ends as happily as a story can when it concerns some people you cannot possibly bring yourselves to care about. Carolina was written by Katherine Fugate, who a year later would further erode the credibility of Julia Stiles with The Prince and Me and manage to boost the box-office appeal of numerous actors who never had any credibility to begin with, with Valentine's Day. Fugate also created a show entitled Army Wives and how depressing is it to only find out about that show now? Oh, Army Wives, where have you been all our lives?

Sadly Fugate never follows through on the satirical element briefly alluded to early in the film. She begins with plenty to work with and a subject worthy and suitable of exploration, thanks to the supposedly knowledgeable arenas Arthur and Carolina work in. Love is tricky, and dating game shows and fantasy romance fiction are outside our understanding of the day-to-day. They're mindless, inoffensive trash and wish to be seen that way. They're escapist entertainment for people easily entertained. In the big existential crisis that is life such things cloud our judgment, unrealistically alter our perceptions and leave us facing a future where new TV shows don't hold a candle to cultural landmarks such as Jersey Shore. This stuff makes people worse, under a most pessimistic scrutiny. At best, they don't help.

What helps, the film helpfully points out, is having the perfect man live next door to you and love you always and no matter how selfish and crazy you are. Carolina ends up not saying or doing anything, foolishly wasting any tangible notion of humanity and hoping the audience will be satisfied in seeing the lead character find love. Really, romantic comedy? That's all you have for us? Nothing. Films like this are a dime a dozen. A supposed female rites-of-passage flick that skips the rite-of-passage and settles for a solution that isn't what the film was set-up to be about, that in the end female empowerment is nothing compared to a sensitive man. If, during the opening credits, the viewer is able to announce that they have sat through Where The Heart Is, According to Greta and Post-Grad does that mean they don't have to watch anymore exact replicas of this meaningless garbage? Please note, Bewildered Heart has seen the majority of Alexis Bledel films because we love her. She certainly shouldn't ever read this.

Still, they are fascinating films in their simplicity. The emotionally heavy-weight issues of realising your true-self, loving your family no matter how inoffensively idiosyncratic they are and winning a competition, or giving birth, used as a ticking clock device, are all ideas rich for possibilities, and ruined when the writer doesn't properly deal with them. They all cope with the lovably weird family one, but that isn't a challenge. You're supposed to love your family, you spoiled dolt. No, in these films the epiphany never feels monumental enough to warrant cinematic treatment. Carolina has at its brittle heart a convoluted story with too many characters and not nearly enough heart. When Shirley criticizes a Daphne St. Claire book as having, 'Too much talking, not enough loving,' it's a valid point toward her own movie and the genre as a whole. Unless by loving she means sexing, because then her supporting characters are right to take issue with her one-track-mind. You're old! Eww. Stop it, Grandma.

Sam Wasson mentioned that rarely do we, as an audience, watch, with credulity, as a couple fall in love on screen. Yet, what is love and isn't everyone's interpretation of falling bound to be different? As James L. Brooks has finally asked, How do you know? even going so far as to make a film around the entire subject. Good on you, L. Brooks. We've seen a lot of your films. In the end, as the saying goes, when you know you know, and that's the critical stamp of approval few films receive. We just don't know.

"The Whites of Your Eyes are Clear, Your Corneas are Excellent"

The New York Times posted an email exchange between Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Maureen Dowd and Sam Wasson, the author of Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M., a book concerning the making of Breakfast of Tiffany's, a classic film of consumerism and casual racism that teaches a valuable lesson. The more beautiful you are the easier your life will be. Which is just true, so you really can't criticise the film for noticing how society is unfair. In their conversation they discuss the nature of modern Romance Comedies, the Hollywood film genre, while wallowing in nostalgia, not to mention managing to offend Jennifer Aniston and Katherine Heigl (Not Katherine Heigl! But she's so awful!). Meanwhile, Wasson offers a neat description of every film you will have seen recently. 'I can’t remember the last time I saw two people really falling in love in a movie,' he writes. 'Now all we get is the meet cute, a montage, a kiss, then acoustic song into fade out. Nothing experiential, only movies manufactured from movies.'

Ignoring the suggestion that acoustic songs are part of the problem, and that actors such as Aniston, Jennifer Garner and Heigl have any power or choice over the films they make, Dowd and Wasson's impression of modern romantic comedies is flawed in the simplest sense. Even now when watching a Howard Hawks film, a teary-eyed old codger who nobody invited (Seriously, who is he here with?) will say, 'They don't make 'em like that anymore!' and everyone will agree. He is right, of course, and probably lonely, yet once you've ushered him off with some change and an empty promise you'll call the realisation will hit that of course they don't make them like that anymore. It's an illogical statement. It's about as illogical as comparing Two for the Road with The Bounty Hunter. Now, Bewildered Heart watched The Bounty Hunter, for the sake of this blog (the things the internet goes through for you), and we noticed, during one of the car chases, that it really isn't a romantic comedy, lacking both a convincing, sweet-natured love story and anything approaching humour. It works along similar lines to a Mills & Boon, despite its own probable protestations. An abandoned relationship is rekindled over the course of a series of unlikely circumstances, as a couple hate one another at first, but then slowly realise this is as good as it is going to get for them. Happy Ending! Pop music! Credits!

The girl, portrayed casually by Jennifer Aniston's face, is a journalist, while the male, played by Gerard Butler's shirt, is a charming chauvinist. Furthermore, as with all Mills & Boon books, no one of discerning taste could possibly enjoy the experience. In terms of true romantic comedy nothing modern stands out as impressive, or worth watching, even when they do follow the trusted formula Wasson was criticising moments ago. Even the films he glorifies, those of Hawks and Lubitsch, begin with a meet cute and end with a kiss. So what's the difference between now and the Golden Age? If Wasson knows he ain't telling. He blames a lazy attitude toward assembly line film-making, with no attention paid to the craft of showing a couple genuinely falling in love onscreen. Gone has the charm, gone has the patter, gone has the wit. The question isn't that romantic comedies aren't good anymore. They aren't. Films aren't as good as they once were. Nothing is. The whole world is rubbish. Therefore, the question is, what happened? The most likely bet appears to be regression.

Yet, would audiences flock to see Trouble in Paradise or Bringing Up Baby if they were made today? Who knows? We have nothing in whatever decade this is that has the glorious old-fashioned feeling to demonstrate the public hunger for quality. Isn't the greatest love story ever committed to celluloid City Lights? Yes, it is and anyone who disagrees obviously has never seen it. We might blame capitalism, but Hollywood has always been profit-orientated. Wasson refutes the old adage that, 'teenage boys and girls drive the marketplace. But I say they only drive the marketplace because there’s nothing out there for grown-ups to see.' It is wonderful for older, more intelligent people to wash their hands of modern times, but it is a poor argument, simply because it absolves the statement from requiring proof.

Once you've seen every film made prior to the advent of colour is there any reason going on? Is the lack of romance and comedy in this new age of romantic comedies indicative of wider social troubles? Surely not! Tell us you're only joking, Sam Wasson. 'I am not joking when I say that because there is nothing to see my girlfriend and I have had to stay home and in some cases fight. If there were better movies out there, I am sure so many relationship disasters may have been averted. Also, romantic comedies, the good ones, taught me how to love, or at least instructed me on how to try. If I were falling in love now for the first time and going to see this garbage thinking this was real, I would be in deep (shit).' Perhaps, but anyone basing their business plan on corporate thrillers would be in more trouble, and anyone planning to renovate a summer camp and get laid this summer would be best served watching a couple of movies about that stuff first.

Inevitably, this is a matter of causality. Life imitates art, on occasion, but art is clearly based on life. Films reflect the times we live in, and the stale, bland, manufactured state of romantic comedies is not the cause of our societal troubles, and it is not the reason we fight. What Wasson means, we can assume, is that Hollywood pictures set the tone for our lives. If there is romance in the movies, then there will be romance in the world. Sure, there lacks a basic comprehension of romance nowadays, but those lightweight, fluffy ninety-minute escapist romps that made the world such a wonderful, peaceful place in the 1930s and 40s are behind us. Today we have soulless corporations churning out examples of how a stupid man can win the orifices of a stupid women, with the whole idiotic disaster sold only with a promise of Jessica Alba's, Biel's, Josh Duhamel's briefly glimpsed bare flesh. In conclusion it is all very sad, and, as Wasson notes with disappointment, there will be no backlash until the current formula fails financially, or a new, lucrative market in decency opens up. Neither looks set on happening presently, and so we silently despair, as good people are supposed to do.

"If only Sebastian can overcome his allergy to marriage…"

You're gosh darn right, blurb. Aren't unmarried men the worst? What are they afraid of? Misery?

In criticising The Playboy of Pengarroth Hall a perceptive critic would be well-advised to begin with the title, but Mills & Boon authors rarely choose their own titles, leaving it to the more knowledgeable and audience-savvy collective brain of the publisher. Therefore we cannot fault the writer, Susanne James, for faithfully submitting a by-the-numbers romance only to have it weighed down with a lazy, thoughtless title. The Playboy of Pengarroth Hall certainly sounds classy, sexy and mysterious, as all playboys surely are, but rarely does a playboy get as much page-space as a sheikh, or a surgeon, or a sheikh surgeon. No one outside romance fiction knows if a sheikh surgeon is something that exists in the real world. Maybe he's a sheikh who performs surgery, as a hobby, or a back-up plan if sheikdom doesn't work out long-time, mending hearts as quickly as he can break them... Who knows? It's a good tag-line either way. To find out more there is always The Sheikh Surgeon Playboy's Reluctant Bride, but why is she reluctant? He's a sheikh surgeon playboy for pity's sake.

Still, as noted previously, Sebastian Conway is pretty classic, in his Wellington boots, trudging across fields, drinking copious amounts of coffee and sleeping in boxer shorts. He's also an orphan which negates the tiresome business of parent issues, besides those concerning him being an orphan. While he had a deluge of previous lovers (that is the correct term, a deluge of lovers), these were never serious relationships, just casual sexual flings, because as with all Mills & Boon heroes, Sebastian has little respect for women as anything more, or less, than sexual objects. Speaking of sexual objects, Fleur Carpenter was a basket-case full of neuroses. Let's begin with the name, which obviously translates from the French as Flower Jesus. Completely nonsensical. Despite this shaky footing, Fleur is carefully introduced as a delicate creature, single and independent, but lost in life and with only her important work in science giving her existence meaning. Ignoring this possibly ground-breaking work she takes a week off to celebrate Christmas and at Mia's urging stays on at the house for over a month in order to get back into shape and put some colour in her cheeks. This can't be literal, because skinny, wan girls are surely the pinnacle of masculine lust, but that hardly matters, because as has been solidly demonstrated the characters in this book are thin caricatures and not worth spending any more time on.

In narrative terms, sending Fleur to Cornwall does little but establish that she loves solitude and walks in the country miles away from people. This is fortunate, because solitary walks are what are in store for the rest of her life. Chapter One takes place a few days before Christmas. Fleur arrives and has a run-in with a disgruntled and stuck-up individual on the grounds of Pengarroth Hall. How rude he was, she thinks, but still incredibly handsome and sexy, with dark, enigmatic eyes and thick, black hair. If only he wasn't so cruel and distant. You'll never guess who the man turns out to be, reader. Wait. Actually, have you been paying attention? If so, you'll easily guess. It turns out to be Sebastian. Did you guess? You must have been paying attention.

By Chapter Two all the Christmas plans made in Chapter One have been forgotten as it is now a few days before New Year's Eve and plans are afoot for the celebration of a year's worth of calenders becoming worthless. No sooner have you said, 'No, I'm busy,' than Chapter Three picks up in the first week of January. If this sounds like an unnecessary waste of time and lazy writing, you'd be correct about the former. It's not lazy, however, as James spends needless amounts of energy contriving a circumstance for Fleur and Seb to be together, alone, in a large house, when surely she just needed to put them together in the house and forget all the festivity rubbish. Anyway, Fleur and Sebastian don't need excuses to be in the same room, as they're in love with each other. Of course, in order to keep in contact without acknowledging that they're emotionally retarded they make up excuses to be together. They take a trip to Truro (for Seb's lawyering) and share intimate moments in a church. It would almost have been interesting had something happened. Then, when Fleur returns to London because the author has decided that might as well happen, Sebastian is forced into drastic measures to keep her in the same room as him. And so, he murders a dog.

Now, before those fans who have read the book refute this accusation of homicide and explain simply that Benson, the dog, was old and sick and died of natural causes, which had earlier been implied in the plot, the fact remains that Sebastian blatantly murdered the dog. If that wasn't enough he shows up at Fleur's door in the middle of the night to tell her to her face. He believed the news would devastate her, more than it would Mia, who owned and grew up with the dog. Fleur spent a couple of weeks patting Benson on the head. Mia can wait, Sebastian decides. Mia's a heartless jerk, we assume. Then, after some more stuff the explanation of which will depress both listener and explainer, Sebastian reveals the reason behind his troubles with commitment (his allergy to marriage, to use the medical terminology). He was engaged to a girl who turned out to be a prostitute, so often the excuse used by misogynistic bachelors. Finally, in a park in central London, a location as perfectly nondescript and potentially dangerous as a loved-up couple could ask for, Sebastian proposes marriage, Fleur accepts and the story ends.

All Bewildered Hearts are unable to understand not wanting to get married. We will marry anyone anytime, yet Sebastian's major character flaw is actually a virtue. He wants to make sure he loves the girl he is going to marry, and wants to make sure she is the one for him, and not a deceitful prostitute. How is his determination for certainty a stumbling block? Female people, sometimes you are confusing. As is becoming a disturbing trend then, the latest Mills & Boon is another disappointment. The predictable emotional hang-ups were never a match for a short conversation where those doubts were over-come by the shattering of misunderstood beliefs. In summary, thinking that someone doesn't want marriage when they do isn't a suitable obstacle to base a novel around. How about we find someone who genuinely does not want to get married? That sounds like a challenge. Furthermore, we should pour hang-ups into one another so love doesn't heal those involved of their flaws, but incorporates them into a single slab of unbreakable faith.

As a trivial aside, the most notable element of The Playboy of Pengarroth Hall is the old-fashioned attitude towards sex, especially in a so-called Modern Romance. There are no sex scenes in the book. There is one kiss and plenty of longing, but we are invited to believe Fleur and Sebastian wait until marriage before the sex and the childbirth that inevitably follows. This doesn't mean much, although it is nice to note that when we begin to write our own Mills & Boon, we don't necessarily have to describe the sexual act, thus saving us time on all that irksome research.

“There may not have been any ghost about, but she'd certainly cast a spell on him!”

Sebastian Conway may be rugged, rich, gorgeous and a genuinely pleasant chap, but he lacks a basic grasp of the differences between ghosts and witches. Half-way through Susanne James' 2009 Mills & Boon stocking filler, The Playboy of Pengarroth Hall, the reader is treated to one of the most absurd romantic statements ever to grace the pages of a genre seemingly committed to putting absurd statements on paper. Did you notice Susanne James has a new book out this year entitled The Master of Highbridge Manor? Someone might want to check into whether all she's done is change the names of the characters and locations. Sometimes that seems to be a worthwhile idea for dealing with these reviews.

Anyway, back to The Hustler of the High Society Penthouse. It was something like that. Sebastian Conway is the titular playboy of the titular house. However, for the sake of clarity, allow me to explain why this title is misleading. Firstly, Sebastian is no longer a playboy and he does not live at Pengarroth Hall. In fact, Seb (to his friends. Hi, Seb!) has not dated since his bitter break-up with a woman whose name is not important. He trusted her, foolishly, and like a fool had his foolhardy heart broken by this girl, who turned out to work as a prostitute. Oh, that is so something that happens. Since then Seb has become an obdurate jerk, only wanting to finish up his business in London as a lawyer (Sebastian is also a lawyer) and retire to his country estate, the upkeep of which is a full-time job in itself.

There has never been a more stereotypical Mills & Boon hero than Sebastian Conway. First off, his name is Sebastian. Furthermore, he's a lawyer, hugely respected, successful and wealthy. He's curt and difficult at first, but later revealed to be warm, kind and humorous. He owns a giant house. The most striking Mills & Boon element about him, however, is that when he falls in love he falls immediately and then spends two hundred pages not doing anything about it. He's perfect! Gawd, you guys, do we know any single ladies who would be suitable for Sebastian? Perhaps a feisty yet charming, smart but sexy, twenty-something who knows what she wants, but once she has found it has to spend two-hundred pages realising something she already knows through a series of plot contrivances that only appear in the thought processes of the characters. You do? That seems unlikely, but go on...

Well, you know Sebastian's sister Mia? Sure you do, she's introduced at the beginning of the book and gives the reader this unbelievably honest appraisal of her and her brother's history. 'For both our parents to die so unexpectedly, four years ago, before either of them had reached sixty, was a dreadful shock.' Yes, that so sounds like something someone would say. Good news, fate fans, because Mia has invited a bunch of work colleagues to Pengarroth Hall for Christmas (Themed! Eep). Besides her work colleagues she has also invited her best friend along, Fleur Carpenter, a hard-working and dedicated scientist. What Fleur's science work entails is left as vague as Seb's law work, because Susanne James clearly doesn't understand either profession. Never mind that though, because it's Christmas! And then New Year! And then January... For reasons never explained the seasonal setting has nothing to do with the story. Mia's work colleagues do not appear in the book, Mia disappears back to London very quickly and soon enough Fleur is alone at Pengarroth Hall with only a handful of poorly-described secondary characters to talk with.

Fleur has taken time off from being intelligent to get over the stress of a difficult and lonely year in the science laboratory. All those sciency things being too much for the poor doll. She just wants to relax and take walks and eat good food. She isn't looking for a relationship, but that hasn't stopped her noticing that Sebastian is really rich, looks great naked and is a really good kisser. Sebastian isn't looking for a relationship either, even though he does want a relationship with Fleur equally as much as she wants a relationship with him. Sounds complicated, doesn't it? Uh-oh, you guys, what have we done? We've only gone and made everything worse!

There are a couple of issues you should have known about before you got involved with Fleur's personal life, dear reader. She has troubles with her demanding, workaholic father, Philip. Fleur pities her mother, not wanting to end up in a marriage where she is controlled by a man, with her dreams forgotten and waylaid by her husband's priorities. That sounds reasonable. No wonder she is reluctant to become involved in a relationship, as this Sebastian sounds like the controlling type? Except no, he's not. He wants Fleur to live her life to the fullest. Yay! The only problem being that he fails to mention this and lets Fleur believe staying single is the only way to remain unhappy. Ooh!

Fleur loves being a science-person. All that scientific stuff with the research and the microscope and wearing goggles, she loves it. Her father is a scientist too and Fleur found herself forced to follow in his footsteps. Fleur actually yearns to be an opera singer, and, through a frankly damnable narrative turn, seizes the opportunity to sing on stage. She sings beautifully, of course, Seb falls even more in love with her, and this issue is supposedly dealt with. With her aspirations of a career in opera-singing momentarily sated, we are left with priorities, such as what Fleur wants and how can she overcome her daddy issues. But how, you ask? With pregnancy, of course! Man, is there nothing pregnancy can't fix? At the book's climax Fleur has given birth to Alexander Sebastian Philip Conway. All the family gathers to marvel over the baby while the proud parents wear thick jumpers and gaze upon their mansion and wealth with glazed eyes. Who cares about Fleur's dreams anymore? She's married with a kid in an isolated house. She's done. We can forget her.