"Regret, like a thief, crept into her heart, plundering her moralistic views about sex and love being entwined"

At Danielle's Book Thoughts, another weblog that occasionally reviews romance novels to further damage Bewildered Heart's aspirations for validity, Bedded at the Billionaire's Convenience receives a begrudging recommendation. Because last week the explanation of plot felt like proof enough of Cathy Williams' failings, our summing up of the novel has now been challenged by Danielle, and therefore a full and definitive analysis is called for, to end this controversy once and for all. So, Danielle, where do we begin?

‘The word 'mistress' needs to be struck from the vocabulary of the editors and the writers for this series of romance novels. It is so nineteenth century. And just a heads up here, a woman is not a man's mistress if he does not support her and she is not his beck and call, sexually or otherwise. Thus, this term does not apply to Georgie, whatsoever.’ So true, fellow anonymous literary critic, but there is one minor hindrance to your assertion, because nowhere in the novel does the term mistress appear, although much of said novel is instantly and thankfully forgettable, so who can say for sure? Anyone with a running history of reading Mills & Boon books, or Harlequin Presents as Danielle calls them, knows they shouldn’t begin with an in-depth critical analysis of the blurb, but here she goes.

‘I guess the person who writes the blurbs thought that us Harlequin Presents readers were so unenlightened that we wouldn't buy this book unless the blurb included 'mistress' in the description.’ Heaven forbid, not another unenlightened romance reader. Those are the ones holding the rest of us back. They’re the cursed reason we’re still reading at a nineteenth century level. Never mind that, though, Danielle, here at last is your forum to vent your dissatisfaction and put the romance world to rights. Mills & Boon respect and appreciate constructive criticism, so what’s a lesson? ‘Here's a lesson for you: I hate the mistress concept. When I get a Harlequin Presents in the mail or pick one up in the store, seeing this outdated, sexist term is a turnoff for me. I will read the book if I like the author and the story sounds interesting otherwise. But I would prefer never to read another book where the heroine is the hero's mistress. It offends my 21st century sexual egalitarianism principles.’

That was a clear misuse of the word lesson, but it is nonetheless a valuable insight. However, no one should blame Cathy Williams for the misguided and deceitful promotional material on the back-cover of Bedded at the Billionaire’s Convenience, but one question remains, Danielle? If you don’t appreciate the constant use of out-dated sexist terms in your reading material, then, dare we ask, why do you read these books? ‘Okay, you might ask why I read these books. Because they are good, and entertaining, and a nice way to spend a few hours, allowing me to recharge, relax, and let off some steam. Because they are fun to read, I am prepared to overlook some of the way un-PC aspects, most of the time.’

Comments such as these don’t necessarily fill one with confidence that the critic in question is the discerning, thoughtful type suitable for finding fault in trite romance fiction. However, as readers of Bewildered Heart will have figured out by now, what does Bewildered Heart know. Already it is apparent that Danielle is reading different novels to the ones we’ve been reading, because she describes them as ‘fun to read’ and ‘good’ and ‘entertaining’ and ‘a nice way’ and we have never used those descriptions on our weblog. Now our paths have finally crossed in the form of Cathy Williams’ Bedded at the Billionaire’s Convenience, so with our stalls forcibly set out as both disliking the sexist and incorrect blurb and having a general disdain towards misogyny, let’s get on with the review already.

‘I enjoyed this book. I liked the back and forth between Pierre and Georgie. I liked that Georgie wasn't beholden to Pierre or under his thumb. She had her own career and her own home, and was perfectly happy with her life in the country.’ Much of the book concerns itself with Pierre and Georgie’s ‘back and forth’, but such a personal opinion is largely invalid. The couple bicker as is standard for a romantic comedy, brought together via unlikely circumstance and then forced to remain face-by-face through irritating contrivance. Readers enjoy repartee, when such repartee is loaded with sexual tension and humour, but sadly Williams chooses to explore this through narration, leaving the bantering flat and repetitive. While this is a cliché of the genre there remains potential for success when dialogue is handled suitably. Danielle’s implication is either that this ‘back and forth’ is a clever twist on the form or that it is suitably-handled, and neither is the case.

Furthermore, one could argue, if one were so inclined, Georgie is beholden to Pierre. She is in love with him within fifty pages and aroused by him at their initial meeting. To complicate matters, once Pierre arrives in Devon to play out the charade for Didi, Georgie has no choice but to do his bidding, including sleeping in his bed, flirting with him and allowing some inappropriate breast-fondling in front of his easily-impressed mother. Despite this, Georgie was perfectly content with her house and life in the country with her chickens when the story began, but by the conclusion of the novel she has turned her back on all that for her billionaire husband, large house, pregnancy and quiet domesticity. Naturally, these comforts are preferable to living alone in Devon and having a poorly-paid career, but is this more or less compelling than a heroine only becoming happy once she has married? The strong, independent protagonist who is fine on her own is merely a necessity of the structure.

‘Pierre was the one who had some issues he needed to work out. He resented his family for squandering their money and he focused on making and keeping his money, and became more and more cold-hearted. Georgie brings a part of him to life, and he realizes how much he loves his mom, and enjoys being around her.’ We all know which part of him she brings to life and he then uses to show his mother love! Hey-oh! But yes, as with all Mills & Boon stories the interesting character is the hero, with the flaws and barely discernable character arc. In the case of Pierre, the women he has been cavorting with until Georgie wanders aimlessly into his life are an astute bunch of unfeeling, calculating career types. Danielle describes them as ‘colourless, snooty and boring’, but really, what are a few adjectives between indignant, judgemental people? Pierre must warm his heart, accept love, stop being so successful and accidentally impregnate a woman and in order to do this he is going to need a woman who warms hearts, gives love, has no ambition and allows men to have unprotected sex with her. Colourless, snooty, boring ladies with jobs just won’t stand for that behaviour and so step forward Georgie, girl of Pierre’s dreams.

‘Georgie and Pierre have good chemistry (although the love scenes are not fully described. Part of them would be shown, and part wouldn't. Which I thought was weird, but oh well.)’ If by ‘good chemistry’ Danielle means the author explains throughout the story that they are sexually-attracted to each other then that is a perceptive piece of criticism (as for the bracketed issues with the incomplete sex scenes she has a point. Where is the tame description of thrusting, the euphemisms for penis and vagina and the simultaneous orgasms that prove this couple are made for each other because they share a problem with premature climax so enamoured with the other as they are? That is all in there, Danielle, you pervert. What do you think this is, Modern Blaze! Spice! or Cosmopolitan Magazine? Because Bedded at the Billionaire’s Convenience is none of those, it states so clearly in the disclaimer on the opening page).

‘I was actually okay with Pierre to a certain extent, although I wished he hadn't kept his family at a distance, but I can't judge him for that.’ No, after all, that is the entire point of the book, and without this minor chink in the armour of his stellar characterisation then there wouldn’t have been a story at all. ‘He might be rich, but he didn't have much quality of life. I think spending time with Georgie and his mom helped him to realize what he was missing out on, but eventually that scared him. He made me mad when he sees a tender smile on Georgie's face and decides it's time to cut and run. I thought that was very cowardly of him, and low down.’ Cowardly and Low-Down would be a good title of a Cherish Romance, although it is doubtful Mills & Boon would use it. As for Pierre’s quality of life, that remains up to the reader’s opinion of Georgie. If you believe being a single billionaire with a string of attractive women at your beck and call shows a poor quality of life, and is bettered by being married to a woman such as Georgie and living in Winchester, then lucky you, for you are a fitting candidate for Mills & Boon reader.

Danielle ends her review with a sardonic eye movement at the indecisive tendencies of men everywhere before recommending the novel with a grade of four out of five stars. This glowing review prompts a re-evaluation of romance literature, because the target audience continues to not only absorb the steady stream of hopelessly-plotted stories, but then actually rate them highly as solid examples of the genre. What does the reader seek when settling down with Bedded at the Billionaire’s Convenience and how would they define descriptions such as ‘good’ and ‘entertaining’ and ‘fun to read’? When we, dear reader, set forth on our own entry into the romance canon we must bear in mind the analytical brain of our reader, and not attempt to sink to their depths, but challenge their expectations with something superior without prompting them to write a review in which we receive one or two stars out of five and a critical mauling their preferred novels regularly collect when scrutinized on this very page.

"She fruitlessly pummelled his back with her fists and demanded to be put down immediately"

Somehow, after having read the opening three chapters of Bedded at the Billionaire's Convenience, the publishing team at Mills & Boon decided this was a book worth finishing. Largely because of their misjudgement then, Bewildered Heart has been forced to continue onwards. When we left the absurd contrivances and inexplicably protracted exposition that amounted to a narrative, Pierre Christoph Newman was headed to the Devon cottage of his ailing mother, Didi, to prove he and Georgie were in a committed relationship, even though they were not, to cheer Didi up and offer the flimsiest excuse yet for a romance novel. With such an opportunity and a lack of chivalry, Pierre has no intention of merely playing along with Georgie's lies. Oh no, Pierre wants to enjoy the full benefit of a method performance, and that means more than taking his fake girlfriend and real mother out to shop and eat at fancy restaurants. It also means forcing himself on Georgie, the woman he admittedly finds repulsive.

Still, who hasn't pretended to be in a relationship to enliven a fraught Christmas break with their senile, judgmental parents? With a premise so relatable and ripe for comedy and love, Cathy Williams eventually gets Bedded at the Billionaire's Convenience up and running, painfully stretching four sentences over ten chapters and one-hundred and eighty-five pages of inane banter, misogyny, the cod-philosophical musings of the benighted and hilarious descriptions of breast fondling. However, by the grand finale of a lifetime of happiness and accidental pregnancy the story is no longer as exhausting and infuriating as it was when it began, over coffee in a series of impressive locations. Fortunately, Williams has a love story to unfold, to obscure the tedium of the telling. Georgie and Pierre are at odds, but slowly their exasperated shouting turns to petty squabbling, evolving to ribald teasing and then into love and polite honesty. How was this achieved, the reader wonders, putting down the book and sighing again, no longer confused, but just passed caring?

Stuck at Didi's cottage from an unlikely snowstorm Georgie shares Pierre's bed to maintain the illusion of a healthy sex-life. Didi is nothing if not the modern mum, always pushing her son into having sex in front of her. However, Georgie feigns sleep as Pierre enters the room, having finished his important business via email and staring at his laptop quizzically. Georgie finds Pierre's amazing eyes, luscious eyelashes and sturdy torso of manly masculinity frankly irresistible, and Pierre is easily aroused by the fact that there's an of-age woman lying next to him, yet libidos cannot be satisfied. After all, they still loathe each other and sexual ecstasy would come at a high price, although the reader is never informed of that financial breakdown. The next morning some light kissing, heavy breathing and breast fondling is interrupted by Didi, always alert to her son's erections. Dismayed and perplexed beyond belief Georgie finds fault in her womanly desires and demands such a thing never happen again, possibly put off by Didi's roving gaze.

From then on it's a parade of awkward meals and Pierre's shameless flirting, coupled with illicit rendezvouses in bedrooms where Pierre grins and leans in doorways, while Georgie hides her decency and spurns his advances. Pierre calls her a hussy, a hypocrite and other charming petnames and leaves her to her celibacy, in order to return to his own. Bearing this failure in mind, Pierre attempts a new approach. Less of the smug seduction with rape-overtones and more being a charming, sensitive chap offering compliments and help where needed. Well, smug seduction with rape-overtones has worked for nearly every other Mills & Boon hero, but then Georgie is hardly every other Mills & Boon heroine. She keeps chickens and possibly has other personality traits, and is not waiting for a big, strapping gentleman to come along and give her life purpose, even though that's exactly what she's doing.

First up for the improved Pierre is the small favour of playing Santa Claus at Georgie's primary school, after the usual Santa Claus injures himself slipping on ice. You'd expect Santa to be more nimble in such treacherous conditions, but Cathy Williams has proven a dab hand at contriving unlikely motivations for inconsequential anecdotes. So, Pierre puts on the outfit and entertains the tots, impressing with his parentings skills and also looking mighty tasty to the adults with his fake beard and fat suit. Georgie's colleagues swoon over Pierre as only parochial ladies can when faced with a good-looking man. Georgie feels the first twinge of jealously, but how can this be jealously, she asks herself, when she is not in love with Pierre? Unless the twinge of jealously at seeing other women flirt with Pierre is a sign of love. That would certainly explain all the other romantic feelings she has been having, yet denying herself. Oh no! She's in love with Pierre. How utterly hopeless, especially as there is no way Pierre could be in love with her.

Shortly thereafter, at a candlelit fish restaurant, Pierre admits he might be in love with Georgie. Oh no! They're in love with each other. How utterly unsubstantiated by plotting. How can the two of them make it work when they're separated by space, personality, outlook, aspirations, lifestyle and issues on keeping chickens? This is a situation so burdened with danger and tension the only possible escape for Georgie is drinking copious amounts of wine and then making a drunken pass at Pierre while fondling those fondle-worthy breasts. Pierre, now resolved to completing his character arc, refuses the open invitation in fear of taking advantage of her sullied state. His gallant chivalry only extends so far, however, because Pierre sees no moral issue in taking advantage of her hang-over and before she can say, 'Oh, my head and the worrying implications of my actions last night,' Pierre has fondled her breasts into the early hours of the morning, only breaking briefly to collect breath and talk seductively about Didi.

For a few pages of instantly forgettable prose Pierre is happy with his lot in life, while Georgie remains the same blank state of expressionless womanly emotion. All is well, and Pierre even finds himself enjoying the company of strangers, as only someone with severe psychological problems is able to. Nevertheless, a heavy air of doom hangs over the pre-Christmas celebrations as Pierre knows soon he must return to the fast-paced, cut-and-thrust business world of London, and such dog-eat-dog, high-stakes territory is no place for a dainty woman who keeps chickens, loves children and talks about feelings. Still, Pierre cannot stay in this fictional village in Devon to tend to chickens, love children and talk about feelings. He lives in London, where they presumably eat chickens, hate children and communicate their feelings through obtuse hand gestures. Is there no hope or future or compromised middle ground for this couple? Pierre and Georgie say no, because this is the penultimate chapter and the easy answers to solve these trifling troubles are only ever found at the denouement.

Pierre knows he must end things, but wisely takes the liberty of having unprotected sex with Georgie twice before making up a questionable excuse and leaving. For the best, he surmises, as love is not enough to keep you in love with someone, you also need to change your entire personality and sacrifice your aspirations and responsibilities, unless that woman is the right woman for you, although that thought never enters his mind. But hey, chap, you remember that morning you woke up proudly erect and proceeded to impregnate your soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend in a moment she wished would last forever? You'll never guess why she wished that moment would last forever. It was because that was the final moment in her life she would not be with child. Yes, Georgie is pregnant and, more importantly, according to Didi, making filthy, spontaneous, uninhibited love to a greasy-haired musician. Aw, Didi, you so disconcertingly aware of everyone else's sex life.

Pierre rushes back, so alarmed and envious he even takes public transport with all the disgusting non-billionaires. There he finds Georgie saying goodnight not to her musician-lover, but rather to her music-teacher. How many musicians are there, you disgraceful tramp! No, Pierre. There is no lover at all, your mother lied to you in the hopes you'd murder Georgie in a fit of jealous rage. Thankful, and still not in the least bit concerned about the mental welfare of Didi, Pierre resolves to finally do right by Georgie and marry her before the baby begins to show. To reconcile their lifestyle differences Pierre steps back from working so hard, buys a huge house in Winchester and attempts to find pregnant women sexy. Georgie stays exactly the same throughout and is rewarded with all of her wildest dreams, although she must quit being a teacher to concentrate on being a mother, because all female teachers are infertile, as the saying goes. Everything works out entirely as Bewildered Heart had predicted, making us feel intellectually superior to a book entitled Bedded at the Billionaire's Convenience, which, though incidental, still makes for a happy ending.

“Dreams of fairy-tale endings don’t make good bed companions…”

So, you’ve completed your standard list of neurotic compulsions you always go through before you begin writing, you’ve sat down in front of your computer/A4 Pad/iPad, you have your cocktail/painkilling-narcotic/rum/coffee and an hour or so before the children come home to demand their standard post-school cocktail of painkilling-narcotics, rum and coffee… You’ve opened a Word file, and typed Chapter One, then what? Were you, perhaps, a little presumptuous to believe you could make up a Mills & Boon novel as you went along without any prior planning or thought? Sure, most Mills & Boon novels give the impression that this is how they are written, but how does an aspiring author actually go about writing one?

For help we desperately and somewhat foolishly turn to Trish Wylie. You remember our previous dealings with Trish, surely, from her One Night with the Rebel Billionaire to the ongoing joy of her blogging and stubborn defence of romance fiction against mistakenly perceived threats. Beyond that, there is also a series of helpful writing guides on her website with the lessons everyone will need to learn before they can write as successfully as Trish Wylie. Say what you will about the quality of her work, her books have been published, which means she has that special something Mills & Boon look for, but refuse to describe for the rest of us. Perhaps she has a feverish work ethic and the willingness to receive insignificant amounts of money, or a starry-eyed and occasionally offensive attitude towards relationships and women?

Whatever the reason, let us hope the answer can be gleamed from the many articles she has helpfully offered up, including The Blank Page and a Blinking Cursor, for decades the visual trope Hollywood has depended upon when wanting to illustrate a writer struggling. Now, as we have previously established on too many occasions to recall, a romance novel’s plot is set in stone from the beginning. After all, you’d be imprudent to stray even a little from the girl-and-boy-meet-fall-in-love-and-live-happily-ever-after formula, which works so consistently today, to varying degrees of worthiness. Therefore, Trish informs us, her starting point for any new venture is the characters. ‘And I don’t just mean their age, height, hair/eye colour, what they do for a living or even the plot and conflicts that you have in place in your notes.’

You have notes? The article is subtitled ‘Starting a Story from Scratch’ and here you have notes of the plot and conflict seeds? We’re off to a terrible start, but never mind, as the creation of the characters is a foremost concern, and hopefully all that story wadding will work itself out as we go along. How do we create characters, Trish, besides writing ourselves more attractive and have us coo at babies in supermarkets? ‘I name them.’ Huh. Any attempt to explain this bizarre and unnecessary behaviour? ‘Some find that it's better to plot out their story first, some will change the names to match the characters’ personalities as their story progresses, but I find just by choosing their names I discover a little about their personalities.’

Already you get the impression that Trish Wylie was the wrong person to ask, but let us labour on for the sake of updating the blog. Here at Bewildered Heart an aspiring author will find themselves best advised starting with the plot structure and working from there, only giving their characters hilariously inappropriate names as something of an afterthought. However, once you have written twenty or so romance novels, each with an identical storyline, you may find yourself running down a creative dead-end each time a new project needs beginning. Thus, read Trish Wylie out. After all, fans must fall in love with the hero and want to be friends with the heroine. They are the emotional centre and main selling point of your novel and you can’t just endlessly reproduce the same tall, black-haired, dark-eyed, square-jawed, arrogant, powerful billionaire with only a name change to separate him from the million others.

In terms of developing these characters then, Wylie’s next job is to find a photograph to use as a visual reference point, and has handily uploaded pictures of famous actors onto her website for the aspiring author to browse at their leisure. Scroll through and find your favourites! Bewildered Heart sees no sense in disowning Hugh Jackman now, so if we pair him with whoever this Pippa Black is, rename them Jack Hewman and Philippa White, before you can say, ‘This won’t work’ we have our two protagonists.

Ahead of typing and dreaming of Torstar pay-cheques there remains the conundrum of story, the reason for two beautiful people to come together and mate, besides their obvious physical and emotional attraction. Wylie calls this sequence of contrivances the outside conflict, which serves to, ‘sustain the story, draw (Jack and Phillipa) together when they'd rather be apart, maybe even throw them together under one roof to heighten the tension.’ Yes, true love needs time and misunderstandings to bloom, but how do we create such a set-up? Perhaps the answer can be found in the next section of handy advice, the aforementioned importance of setting. For example, as Trish Wylie did with One Night with the Rebel Billionaire, she took a photograph of Allison Mack, one of Jensen Ackles, named them Roane and Adam, made the girl a timid virgin, the guy a ruthless, powerful billionaire, put them in a mansion on a beach and then sat back and let nature take its course.

For we discerning authors, hoping to revolutionise the Mills & Boon genre, however, more studious thought is required. We are above such writing techniques as throwing a bunch of archetypes into a bucket and stirring. Yet at this point Trish abandons us to stare at black and white photographs of Keanu Reeves, and calling it ‘research’. Therefore, Bewildered Heart turns to Lynette Rees, author of the e-book Crafting the Romance Story, and assorted proof that she holds a position of authority on the matter. Rees sets out a simple guide to cultivating a plot, even throwing in such essay clichés as dictionary definitions, a Do’s and Don’ts list and the Asking of the Following Questions:

1. What do I want my novel to say?

2. Which character is best able to say what needs to be said?

3. How can this message be conveyed to the reader?

4. Where is the action going to take place?

Best to start with the easy one and the answer is we want our novel to say words, and to be more specific between 50,000 and 55,000 words. Rees, however, has an even loftier response, involving the crucial element of theme. What is our romance novel about? What is the message, the over-arching philosophy we, the author, wish to suggest to you, who in this case is also the reader? Any devotion to the romance novel should be foremost in the creator’s mind. After all, there is no money to be made in this industry, and no acceptable acclaim or appetising fanbase to enjoy. There is a soulless abyss of artistic bankruptcy, but that would be preferably pursued in the far more lucrative fields of crime thrillers or television.

Perhaps what Rees is not quite asking is why we would want to write a romance novel in the first place, besides the misguided delusion that it might be a lark or that through this oft-maligned genre we may reinvent love and save humankind. Reading the article, however, it becomes clear such philosophical ponderings have no place in writing guides, as Rees suggests a suitable theme is loss, whereas Bewildered Heart would suggest romance. So ignore all those pressing issues over whether you are wasting your life and start to think about an ideal location for your book concerning love, and maybe loss, with a pilot and an air stewardess soaring to new emotional heights at ten thousand feet.

‘Who? Why? What? Where? When? How?’ asks Rees. Good questions, but not necessarily in the correct order. Still, if you can answer all of those you are ready to write your book. Suddenly, ‘When all seems lost [the black moment], there needs to be a sacrifice made by the person who has the most to lose. Finally, they are triumphant, a victory is won.’ Bear in mind, then, at one point, at the end of the second act, there shall be an instance so terrible and dark that it can only be spoken of within the safe confines of brackets. Yet don’t worry, gentle reader, for usually the hero is the one to make a sacrifice, such as discarding his entire identity, to live ever after with the heroine who sacrifices nothing, thus giving your romance the contractually obligated happy ending, because, frankly, a victory being lost just wouldn’t feel like a victory.

"She's looking forward to this more than she's looked forward to anything since your dad died"

One of the more troubling aspects of having your manuscript published by Mills & Boon is how the book will be treated by the savvy marketing team behind the release. Your Bridget Jones' chick-lit-lite story may be entitled something ghastly, such as Bedded at the Billionaire's Convenience, while your farcical sitcom plot may be twisted by the blurb to sound like sexist soft-core porn, and your quirky, self-depreciating heroine may be described as 'frumpy' and then represented on the cover by a slender, tanned model in a skimpy pink negligee. Without knowing the background behind Bedded at the Billionaire's Convenience, this misappropriation of facts appears to be what has happened to Cathy Williams, the author of a book now known as Bedded at the Billionaire's Convenience. Our first piece of evidence is the blurb, reading thus: "Billionaire Pierre Newman needs a fiancée - and fast! Frumpy, innocent Georgie is the complete opposite of the high-society women he usually has at his beck and call, but she will have to do!"

At the Mills & Boon offices this might have sounded terrific and a lot like every Modern Romance where a ruthless billionaire ruthlessly exploits a hard-working career woman into sleeping with him. The title even uses indicative words such as billionaire, bedded and convenience, while the tag-line, 'Like Prostitution, but Romantic!' only emboldens the illusion. However, nothing from the blurb actually takes place within the pages of the first three chapters, so let us instead focus on what Cathy Williams intended, and then wrote and then haphazardly typed with numerous grammatical errors. Georgie is a primary school teacher, scatter-brained and annoying, her oddities only exemplified by the strange manner in which she dresses. Her beau, for the purposes of this story, is Pierre Christophe Newman, billionaire, who snootily dismisses Georgie as a kook, based upon the use of layers and colours in her wardrobe choices and her keeping of chickens in the garden of her Devon home. Pierre escaped the claustrophobic stranglehold of Devon and sought the freedom of the financial industry in London, where he has made his fortune and reputation as a ruthless billionaire.

Arriving disorganised and panic-stricken on the pavements of the capital Georgie finds Pierre half-naked and grumpy at his exclusive gymnasium. She has something very important to tell the boy she grew up with and watch as he morphed into the man she now openly detests. While Pierre demands she tell him quickly, because he has emails to send and women to sleep with, the author stretches a five second conversation across the entirety of the opening chapter, much to the displeasure of the reader and the incredibility of the characters. For the cliff-hanger final sentence Georgie reveals the damning admission, she and Pierre are, in fact, engaged! Goodness no!, Pierre yells, you're so dowdy and weird and I'm a gorgeous, powerful billionaire with long, beautiful eyelashes, piercing blue eyes, a full head of thick, black hair and swarthy skin. Pierre, though immodest, has a point and ruthlessly insists Georgie explain the absurd situation which was clearly contrived for a suitable twist to end the chapter on.

Into chapter two and it turns out, much to the reader's continuing frustration, that there is no engagement. Georgie fabricated the whole thing to cheer up Pierre's mother, Didi, who fears Pierre's priorities are in the wrong place. Didi is like a mother to Georgie, she having lost her parents in a car crash years before, and the old lady's melancholy and endless sleeping have become a cause for concern. Yet the real matter of worry is Didi's erstwhile son, who has dedicated his life to success and happiness, and what kind of mother would Didi be if she sat idly by and allowed that to occur? Pierre argues that without his fortune he never would have been able to pay off Didi and her late husband's huge debts. Good point, Pierre, but what about this string of beautiful, intelligent women you've been dating, who you enjoy the company of and have much in common with? Surely they're not for you. Shouldn't you instead settle down with the complete antithesis of everything you value and believe in, a woman you have always hated and been irritated by and never found attractive and who, in turn, also hates you and everything you hold dear? Well, you're in luck, because this very woman has told your mother that you've been dating for eight months, which has given her a new lease of life, and admitting the truth now would probably kill the geriatric hag off for good.

Pierre, inexplicably, is convinced by Georgie's intentions and solid reasoning, and so at the next available weekend he heads down to Devon to see his mother and further elaborate on the charade. And with that bombshell the third chapter ends and the reader has the much-needed opportunity to stare incredulously at the front cover and shake their head. What on earth is Bedded at the Billionaire's Convenience? Why are none of the characters convincing, why is the dialogue so atrocious and how has it taken this long to explain nothing? Cathy Williams wisely keeps her distance from the thought processes of Georgie, largely because Georgie seems incapable of logical thought. Instead, the hefty gaps of emotionally-expository filler between interminable conversation are spent following Pierre's increasing agitation, leading the reader to the conclusion he is our protagonist and impelling influence. However, soon enough we find ourselves questioning his sanity as well, allowing the imaginary stack of cards to collapse under the weight of its own delusion. While the lady does protest too much over her obvious attraction to the attractive billionaire with much of his own hair and wonderful eyelashes, Pierre's utter contempt for Georgie and his antipathy towards his mother make his actions all the more unaccountable and unapologetically contrived.

Despite all this, of course, there are a number of highlights to the book thus far. Unlike many previous attempts at Modern Romance the romance part has a great many hurdles to clear before a happy life together is a guarantee. There is no happy ending in sight for Georgie and Pierre, unless they continue to enjoy their happy lives many miles away from each other. Cathy Williams has her work cut out to make the reader believe in this couple's burgeoning love, as already a third of the way into the word count they still seethe hatred through gritted teeth. No matter, of course, because not a word of the book has been believable thus far, so why bother making the finale convincing? Furthermore, the set-up is genuinely enticing, if you ignore the multitude of narrative faults. A girl lies to a senile old woman, concocting a relationship with the biddy's estranged son to galvanize both their dreary, lonesome lives. Once the façade loses muster, however, the girl must go to extreme lengths to maintain the illusion, including tracking down and falling in love with the son. In another writer's fingers there is great potential to the concept, despite the obvious comparisons with nearly every romantic comedy Hollywood has ever produced. However, due to the lightweight structure of a Mills & Boon the formula prohibits the best ambitions one might have for the material.

Pierre must be a strikingly gorgeous and intimidating billionaire, and he and the protagonist must share a history, leaving out the girl's possible idealistic notions of the man she knows only from her imagination. Didi must not be decrepit, but rather filled to over-flowing with sound vigour, unconditional love and occasional wisecracks, even though we must believe her gullible enough, or wily enough, to play along. Meanwhile, Georgie must be the same useless, giggling idiot all romantic heroines are, waiting for a rich, strong man to save her from her feminine trials, such as teaching, caring for old people and being single. As the story develops therefore, we hope to see Pierre's arc unfold from content, wealthy man of taste and style to betrothed husk, devoid of spirit and completely different in outlook, philosophy and personality. Georgie, on the other hand, will not change from her many faults, and will be rewarded with a husband, money and the family she never knew. Didi, we can only hope, shall slowly die, losing her ability to comprehend and perform simple tasks, watched on with horrified expressions by her children, to give the novel some much-needed visceral clout.

"We come to understand that there will be life after romance"

When a writer sets out to fulfill the dream of having a daytime fantasy published by Mills & Boon they are expected to firmly grasp a series of vital notions about what it takes to write a successful, printable romance story. Self-help guides and manuals of these assembly instructions are easily found on the shelves of a down-market bookstore and on this very internet you are currently enjoying. We are helpfully pointed to the core ingredients of writing romance fiction. What makes for a good heroine, how to write the most desired of men besides giving him blue eyes and thick black hair. How to create a satisfying happy ending and how to structure your story around components that don’t necessarily accommodate the structure needed for a compelling story. Many tips and hints can be found on Bewildered Heart itself, saving troubled writers the act of using a different website. However, all these technical story-telling points are worthless without first understanding the very essence of romance.

After all, finding out what romance is can be tricky without potentially upsetting a paramour. An internet search will yield the same disappointing results Bewildered Heart yielded when researching this article. Sure, there are guides on how to be romantic, although romantic itself isn’t clearly defined, and there are guides on how to create romantic fiction that delivers on the former word, but there remains a lack of conclusive information on the very subject, what it means and why the public are seemingly so obsessed with reading and watching it. We learned this by our reading of Lauryn Chandler’s Romantics Anonymous, which argued that romance was continually returning to the ungrateful arms of old loves who had previously screwed you over, and that this form of romance should be avoided. Yet, while this does sound like a constructive description, the book concluded that, in the case of the two main characters, reconciling with an old love who had previously screwed you over is one path to happiness. So, what can be learned from Romantics Anonymous, besides that Lauryn Chandler does not know what romance is?

Happily for us, Malvina Yock is here to explain. Why must we listen to Yock, you ask, as overly paranoid as always. Well, she did run a romance bookstore named Rendezvous, and she is a published romance writer, apparently, which makes her far more qualified than Bewildered Heart pretends to be, so let’s read on. ‘Floundering readers often define romance as 'Mills and Boons'. These well-known books have been around for years and are blatantly, gloriously romantic. Delightful reads.’ Well, she’s off to a shaky start with that assertion. Still, are we wrong to think of romance novels solely as Mills & Boon’s? Of course we are. No one would argue such a thing. There are many writers being published outside of Harlequin and the like, as Yock goes on to list. We’re not here for the obvious lessons. Get to the good stuff.

‘Romantic fiction is essentially a love story between a man and a woman, with a happy ending. That's it.’ That’s it? That does sound a lot like it, actually. No wonder all the people we were only moments ago chastising for their literary snobbery show such literary snobbery toward romantic fiction. ‘Romance readers will desert any author who cheats them out of their happy-ever-after ending by killing off the hero or heroine, or parting them forever. The hero and heroine do have an 'ever after', and it is most definitely happy.’ Hang on, but what about all those tremendous romantic books and films where at the end someone dies or can’t marry the other, because he is a cynical bar owner and she’s married to a revolutionary? What about our greatest love stories of all, such as Love Story and Romeo & Juliet?

‘Great love stories such as Love Story and Romeo and Juliet, etc., are certainly marvellous love stories, but they aren't 'romance'. They are love stories which end tragically, or anti-climactically in terms of the relationship, not happily-ever-after.’ This is an important distinction between love and romance, in which romance is casually defined by its structure. Romance, therefore, becomes a subgenre within the larger ‘love’ genre, in which all stories involve heterosexual couplings, and end however they please. A novel such as Maurice then, belongs to a whole separate genre we should probably classify under Fantasy, or Prohibited. So many shared subgenres within other subgenres, indistinctly labeled, as if only to complicate a genre defined by its simplicity.

Yock goes onto discuss the current trends of Romance, as they existed when the article was written in 2001. Still, it’s difficult to imagine many major changes besides a new and despicable preoccupation with vampires. ‘Readers like well-written, tight, taut suspense but they like it hand-in-hand with a romance that is also tight, taut and terrific, and driven by the suspense plot.’ Tight, taut and terrific extends to characters, to boot. So, romantic thrillers are big now, with running away from explosions shouting and firing guns now counted as a potential date. ‘Another interesting growth area is paranormals. Writers have almost reinvented the sub-genre with intense sensuality and blazing passion, balanced against horrifying violence and bloodshed.’ Ooh, sounds intriguing, and those who want their paranormal romances without any intensity, sensuality, passion, violence and bloodshed know exactly where to turn.

‘Another welcome trend is for lighter, more comic romantic fiction. The stuff of love and laughter.’ So, is there any subgenre that’s on the wane? It appears as if readers want action, suspense, horror, the supernatural and light laughs, although only the most ambitious writer would attempt a combination of more than one of those. What other trends can we make note of, now we’ve abandoned any pretense that this article is going to define romance for us? ‘One of the biggest changes I've noticed through the 90's is the characterisation of the hero and heroine. Totally gone, and good riddance, is the overdone, overblown swooning heroine (falling out of her bodice) who relies on the hero to rescue her. Today's heroines are empowered. They are feminine, fabulous and powerful.’ Let Bewildered Heart second that ‘Good riddance’, for masculine, dowdy and fragile women incapable of emotion were a blight on story-telling. Thankfully, modern heroines are only weak in their characterisation and no longer in their character.

But wait, there’s a forthcoming contradiction to render the previous statement an estimation, at best. ‘This is where authors do tread a fine line, romance readers still have a Cinderella fantasy, or enjoy watching a big, strong, tough hero rescue the heroine.’ Oh. So the heroine can no longer rely on being rescued, but must still be rescued, if only as a willing act to bolster the male’s ego. The conclusion one can reach from Yock’s indeterminate guesswork is that romance readers aren’t certain what they want and it is within this quandary that new writers can strike, offering the latest romance novel as the latest apex of fictional love, to which the romance readers will emerge from the shadows, their lips and hands quivering in anticipation, hungry and bleary-eyed, desperate and salivating, having scraped enough pennies together to pay the price. ‘The market is as large and specialised as any other fiction genre… Readers finish each book with a sigh and a smile, and rush out for their next 'fix'.’

Bewildered Heart is surely not the first to notice a clear discrepancy between what is written about romance fiction and the books themselves. Although we aim to dismantle Mills & Boon, as a genre within itself, the wider picture of romance remains frustratingly fuzzy. Yock argues quality of writing is second only in appeal to namebrand recognition, and therefore the likes of Linda Howard, Nora Roberts and Jayne Ann Krentz dominate the market through their years of building a loyal fanbase with a dependably satisfying bibliography. However, the books we have examined are poorly-written in every case, and often the author is so well-established they have taken to churning out titles with worrying regularity and diminishing quality.

For writers beginning in their careers, or struggling to have their voices read, the obstacles can seem as insurmountable as they are in nearly every other profession. Nevertheless, all the self-help guides and articles such as Yock’s, or this one, claim to be helpful and a necessary read on your schooling to success, but nearly every intention and conclusion is immediately tempered with an opposing alternative. Therefore, if no one is sure what works or why what works does work all the opinions are immaterial to the writer’s own ambition, and should thus be ignored and overcome. Unless that is incorrect, and there is a very obvious formula and actually the readers know what they want, but aren’t telling to keep us authors honest. You’ll never know until you try, and succeed or fail, after which you still won’t know.