“Three heart-breaking, regret-filled, uneventful days”

Anyone who has ever visited the internet will have noticed that there sure is a lot of internet on there. Every possible taste is catered for, and as Bewildered Heart goes to show there are even websites that cater to the interests of nobody. The enduring popularity of romance fiction transcends fleeting phenomena such as technology, but Harlequin has been quick to capitalise on the evolving ways in which humans read, learn, socialise and share photographs. Authors communicate to readers with a satisfying immediacy and fans can unite to discuss, recommend and philosophise deeply their second favourite subject, after themselves. Within this presumably unprofitable cottage industry there are the odd dissenting voices and there are bloggers who are attempting to change the ways in which we assimilate the tropes of the genre. Romance Novels For Feminists argues that even advocates for equal rights can love Mills & Boon without betraying their values. Does Harlequin need to update their attitudes or should the public's perception of Harlequin get with the times? How can RNFF be more popular than Bewildered Heart? Are we really analysing sexism within romantic literature again, even after we effectively solved that whole issue months ago? None of those questions will be answered below.

The traditionally misguided notions of conventional wisdom and public opinion believe Mills & Boon's product is unhealthy, not only for the hackneyed prose and predictable plotting, but because the, 'Genre’s conventions may appear to grant women power, but in truth work to limit women’s power within patriarchy, and resist any messages that might teach women how to subvert its restrictions.' The very publisher offering books by women for women are the ones keeping women doomed to the perpetual subservience and unhappiness that men used to force upon them. However, there is, as there always is in a democracy, an opposing viewpoint. The critic Pamela Regis has suggested that, 'The romance novel is about women’s freedom... and popular because it conveys the pain, uplift, and joy that freedom brings.' Yet presumably readers cannot have it both ways, and Romance Fiction For Feminists points out both arguments are based on sweeping generalisations. The genre is too vast and too categorised for one-fits-all statements. Mills & Boon is slowly developing and with them their heroines are becoming more independent and successful by the novel. The frightfully sexist Doctors and Nurses imprint became Medical™ and perhaps most tellingly of all Harlequin added a new subgenre to its roster, Feminist, where heroines proudly choose to die alone, sarcastic, bitter and without make-up on.

'The romance novel’s central conflict is a struggle between two individuals intent on negotiating how power will be divided and/or shared between them.' While this isn't nearly as romantic a description as it could have been, a Mills & Boon is a deliriously-heightened version of the recognisable politics within any relationship. The compromises, agreements, personality clashes and emotional arcs depend upon credible and honest portrayals of this journey. Romances therefore reach their happy ending through various means. Typically authors favour, 'Feminine submission to a dominant man; while others explicitly reject such submissiveness while implicitly endorsing it.' Occasionally, and with a knowing wink to empowered women, there are many that, 'Marry action and ideology, presenting protagonists who share power equally.' Thus the genre serves a multitude of purposes. 'By comparing and contrasting what a successful negotiation of power in a romantic relationship looks like a discerning feminist reader can learn about equitable models, and the tricks our culture uses to convince women to accept inequitable ones.' Without realising it or intentionally pursuing any objective other than profit and glazed stares into middle distance Harlequin have contributed to feminist theory, albeit much in the same way as the guests on Jerry Springer have benefited cognitive linguistics.

'Traditionally, romance has been characterized by a strict heteronormativity.' What scholars dub heteronormativity we call a happy ending. As previously discussed the eternal union of a beautiful woman to a handsome man at the story's conclusion is the defining trait of romance. Nevertheless, monogamy is no more anti-feminist than a loyal and sensitive billionaire made of chocolate is. Psychologists have demonstrated that women read romance novels to reinvigorate their love lives and reaffirm their commitments to partners, and only the most cynical of feminists would imply that this process masks deep-seated repentance and a genuine desire to escape quiet lives and desperate marriages. Thus we move on to chief among the criticisms of the genre, the predictable repetition, and, on a related note, the sex scenes. Mills & Boon plays upon the reassurance of familiarity, but does the focus on the initial courtship offer a false model, that a couple's problems are over once they declare their undying love and does this, 'Deny the necessity of the constant dance of love, hurt, anger, and forgiveness that make up the day-to-day workings of most real-life relationships?'

Romance Novels For Feminists disagrees, 'If you read romances on a regular basis, you actually find an echo of the relationship work you have to slog through. Repetitively encountering the pattern through reading of many romance novels heartens the work of enduring the same repetition in day-to-day life.' This sounds suspiciously like the self-justifying defence of a guilty pleasure and the writer acknowledges the shaky footing under which this statement was constructed. Why have Mills & Boon not published any stories involving married characters going to therapy, or openly arguing during terse dinner parties at the homes of wealthier, more contented, couples? Such idealistic notions of love and the firm refusal of reality are more widely political than the restriction of women to chains of bondage. Equally the desired and popular fantasies Harlequin sell require an indifference towards logic, so why can't a feminist reader choose the occasional romance without needing to rationalise their behaviour, in the same way intellectuals might accidentally enjoy the cinematic offerings of Michael Bay?

Finally, there is the endlessly problematic view that such novels are pornography for women, as opposed to pornography, which is pornography for men. 'This label suggests that women in particular should be ashamed about being interested in, and reading about, sex. As a feminist, I take exception to such a belief.' Who wouldn't, but then pornography is subjectively characterised, albeit most often with negative connotations. Romance Fiction For Feminists goes into greater detail on this idea in later posts, even daring to chastise the industry for not being progressive enough to elicit rebellion. Author Ann Snitow views sexually explicit prose hopefully, due to her insistence that, 'Good sex for women requires an emotional and social context that can free them from restraint.' Unfortunately romantic heroines tend to wait for their emotionally wary heroes, shedding sexual aggression and spontaneity for the more desirable passivity and innocence. Seen in this way even the sex scenes in romance fiction are part of patriarchal oppression. Nevertheless, 'If pornography is defined as sexually-related subject matter that sexually stimulates its reader/viewer, then calling romance novels “pornography for women” is no insult in this feminist’s book,' the blog post concludes. By the sounds of it the feminist's book she speaks of is shamelessly disgraceful.

“He ran through air thick as quicksand, each move bogged down by guilt and regret”

The numerous obsessive Bewildered Hearts out there may recall an awkward encounter this weblog suffered through thanks to a Mills & Boon Desire 2-in-1. Here the benevolent publishers offered twice the romance, making The Millionaire's Indecent Proposal and Under the Millionaire's Influence the bread in an unappetising sandwich that had no filling. Never one to give up on a failed metaphor Mills & Boon has continued with this tradition and now Bewildered Heart has a new double novel to contend with, only this time there are two Special Moments for the price of two. Previously remembered as Romance Romance, and now known as Cherish, Special Moments is an imprint that specialises in fanciful fantasies and lightweight comedies, distinctly separated from the gritty realism of Modern, the sweaty sensuality of Spice and the ethnicity of Spanish. With no discernible qualities besides in what they are lacking therefore, Special Moments pushes the absurdity of romance fiction to the forefront, leaving readers in no doubt that Cherish authors live in a delusionally blissful state, writing novels such as Once Upon a Wedding and Accidental Princess.

For the time being we will focus our attention on the former, a 2009 effort by Stacy Connelly. While the title implies gruelling disappointment Once Upon a Wedding also suggests fairytale nuptials, and after the opening three chapters the reader will have had their worst fears confirmed. Life hasn't been kind to Kelsey Wilson. Despite her thriving business, winning personality, stunning good looks and impressive breasts Kelsey has had her fair share of misfortune. First there was something to do with her father the narrative rather glossed over, and then her dear and feisty mother picked one fight, with cancer, that she couldn't win. Presumably orphaned and frightfully working class Kelsey was taken in by her Aunt and Uncle, the billionaire Wilson's of the legendary Wilson Family. Kelsey grew up in the shadow of her beautiful blonde cousins, Emily and Aileen, and as a result of not seeing any sunlight has grown into a literal pale imitation. Now a somewhat struggling wedding planner she has her biggest, and possibly first, event to coordinate, the marriage of Emily Wilson and Todd Dunworthy, of the resplendent Dunworthy clan. With ten days before the ceremony a rather large and attractive spanner is through into the works. The bride and groom only went and invited Emily's ex-boyfriend, Connor McClane, to the wedding and now he has arrived, spanner wedged uncomfortably into his trousers and with every intention of halting the couple's happiness and Kelsey's gainful employment.

Thus Once Upon a Wedding's heroine has a new job to add to that of everything else, she must stop Connor from whatever he is doing, but what is Connor doing? Connor McClane has a good life. He lives somewhere and works as the world's sexiest private detective. Sunglasses look tremendous on his face and even one of his lazy half-smiles is enough to reduce the female population to giddy puddles of excitement. Sure, he's a rebel from the wrong sides of the tracks and yeah, he was never good enough for Emily's uptight parents and big deal, he was responsible for an innocent woman getting murdered a couple of weeks ago and so what, he's an insensitive, paranoid jerk who gave up love for a big cheque, but Connor McClane has changed and now only three of those things are true. A month ago Connor had dinner in San Diego with Todd and Emily, and his tingly Private Detective senses went into overload. Something about Todd's smug wealth and handsome face and penis in Emily rubbed Connor the wrong way. Since then he has been hellbent on proving the groom is unsuitable for Emily and his exhaustive and expensive investigation has brought him absolutely no evidence. Yet Connor does not need evidence when he has a hunch and a history of fatally misjudging people. While readers may jump to the conclusion that he still harbours feelings for Emily, Connor dispels such notions by immediately attempting to seduce Kelsey, even going so far as to stare at her breasts.

While Kelsey was living in lowly one-bedroom apartments with her mother, Emily was the society princess her parents always planned for her to be. However, Emily had very different ideas, ideas borrowed from too many hackneyed Hollywood movies to recount. Aged eighteen she fell for Connor, a bad boy on a motorcycle and their doomed love affair fizzled briefly before Mr. Wilson paid Connor to break up with Emily and leave town. Nothing would have given Connor greater satisfaction than throwing the money back in the old man's face, but unfortunately destiny conspired against such idealistic notions of youth, because even then Connor loved money and needed some for a business opportunity. However long it has been since then has passed, but Emily has not changed, and is still the easily-manipulated arm candy she has always been. For this reason Connor has returned, perhaps to stop a sham marriage, or maybe just needing more money from Mr. Wilson. Our supposedly down-to-earth heroine cannot resist Connor's wild conspiracy theories or impish grin, and as the third chapters ends the adventure to bring down Todd Dunworthy has begun, just as soon as Connor finishes having breakfast in his hotel room with Emily.

Unlike every Mills & Boon novel Once Upon a Wedding contains a superficial impression that money isn't necessarily attractive. Although Kelsey shows the archetypal disinterest in wealth that all romantic heroines pretend to have before they marry a billionaire, Connor arrives in town as the never-do-well troubled youth made good. He has expendable resources for his vendetta against Todd and for a fortnight's stay at a five-star hotel, but these plot contrivances are more likely erroneous missteps by Connelly rather than subtle references to Connor's status as the richest private eye Earth has ever known. Laying the alpha male's financial comfort aside, the novel retains many trademarks of traditional Mills & Boon shelf-filler. Kelsey is an unassuming beauty, disgusted by her womanly curves, porcelain skin, fiery hair and freckles. Fortunately for the book's genre, and her own self-confidence, Connor likes his proverbial cushions sparkling white, plumped up and with red trim. Of lesser importance perhaps, Kelsey prefers a man to be an assured, patient, idealised Adonis with nothing but compliments and commitment on his mind. Soon swept along by Connor's immaculate brilliance, of course, and it hardly seems to matter what she wants.

Little of significance takes place over the course of the initial sixty pages, with the author cramming in as much laboured back-story as possible. When the action does manage to briefly catch up with the present hero and heroine are found wistfully remembering how beautiful the other is, only to worry over how their instant infatuations cannot lead anywhere, because Connor and Emily used to date and Kelsey is supposed to be distracting him, not falling in love. Despite these persuasive reasons they are falling in love, they have no choice, yet what is there to suggest that this couple are meant to be together? Without discernible personalities to give depth to their journeys they only share a disdain for Charlene, Emily's social-climbing, conceited mother. Kelsey is a mess of panic and neuroses, but Stacy Connelly has simply contrived the creation of her hero to specifically love all of her heroine's flaws and anxieties. Thus by failing to flesh out a credible protagonist the surrounding world she relates to becomes stereotypical and emotionally-clichéd. There is no need to fret at this early stage though, as there is much plotting to unfold over the remaining one hundred and fifty pages. Villains will be unmasked, lives shall be saved, secrets will be revealed and at some point Kelsey and Connor will wed.

“Are you ready for all the happily-ever-after, love-of-a-lifetime, till-death-do-us-part stuff?”

As the predictably tedious wisdom of humans dictates all good things must come to an end. On a  related note all Mills & Boon novels must end as well, usually with some lip-locking and a few grand promises between two people standing somewhere expensive. Romance fiction is defined by its happy endings and there is no room for manoeuvre when it comes to the meaning of the word happy. Therefore every Harlequin book must conclude in the same manner, with the hero apologising for his previous errors in judgement and the heroine accepting his behaviour in exchange for money and babies. Authors are perceptively advised to finish writing at the most delirious and idealised moment of a relationship, the initial declaration of eternal love, while leaving the reader to ponder the implications and whether it all worked out for the best. Despite this seemingly straight-forward lack of ambiguity Secrets Uncovered closes out Chapter Three with a brief lesson in how to conjure up the most satisfying of happy endings, helpfully spelt out with five tips that are fairly obvious.

What say you, editors. 'Be Creative – We know that it's hard to avoid happily ever after clichés and there’s certainly nothing wrong with a fairytale wedding or a baby bump but think of what new twist or spin you can put on these tropes.' While it is good to know that all the creativity we haven't been using up until this point may finally be expended, how does one think of fresh spins on pregnancy and marriages, besides making them secret pregnancies and secret marriages? 'For example maybe your hero and heroine get their happy family by adopting or maybe your heroine is the one who proposes!' Those certainly are fresh spins on conventional tropes and are sure to delight your readership of old-fashioned traditionalists, but is this really the most ambitious subversions we can hope for, and would such things ever be accepted in idealised romance? Has the time come for assertive, modern women to buy their own engagement rings and out-source baby-making to those physically capable? What will become of our beloved commitment-phobic alpha males now such contemporary heroines have found a way to build a domestic life without needing a man's willingness, bended knee or sperm?

'Your ending should belong to your characters – Make sure that it grows organically out of who your characters are. As you write keep asking yourself what the characters want most in the world, why they want it, and what’s stopping them from achieving it.' While this piece of advice suggests authors must guide their archetypes to a contractually-obligated finale with a natural grace that belies the truth, every love story depends upon an allusion to destiny and complex ethereal forces that do not exist. Therefore with a hero and heroine so utterly hopeless without one another and barely able to function in their successful careers or contented home lives the inescapable choice of being together can be tailored organically because the characters are simply too shallow to think of alternative ideas. This somehow brings us on suitably to the next point where Secrets Uncovered explains how murder mysteries are basically romances, except a murder is replaced by a meet cute and a chase after the guilty party is largely retained. 'The solution, once revealed, must seem to have been inevitable,' as Raymond Chandler once said, or as Harlequin put it, 'No shock twists for the sake of it!'

Of course there have been no surprise revelations in romance since Jane Eyre found a wife in the attic and Cathy discovered that Heathcliff was a ghost. Nowadays handsome millionaires turn out to be gorgeous billionaires and sexy bellhops are unmasked as Mediterranean Princes, which is hardly as devastating or dramatic as Mills & Boon writers seem to think. With the narrative structure involving dual internal monologues through an omnipotent third person narrator there is little mystery to intrigue the reader. The recent trend has given the author an opportunity to play on tension between hero and heroine, but more often than not this is squandered, as hidden truths are never particularly disgraceful and everyone concerned is far too polite and desperate for love to cause a scene. Consider titles such as The Truth about the Tycoon, in which the heroine learned that the man she loved was not only someone else, but someone richer, more famous and with a slightly more credible back-story. The supposedly shocking finale of The Domino Effect piled incredulous disclosure upon contrived decision until the reader decided on a suitable place to stop and never thought of the book again.

'Tie up all loose ends – Make sure you keep track of even the smallest sub-plot aspect, and that you resolve them. For example you can’t have a secondary character go for a walk around the ground of your hero’s stately home and never come back!' Actually them never coming back would be a resolution as there is a certain finality to never, but Secrets Uncovered argues a compelling case. While practically every Harlequin novel fails to adhere to this most basic tenet of story-telling few aspiring authors should send a secondary character for a walk and then not at least mention in the epilogue that they were eaten by a bear. The final hint treads on similar territory and even manages to repeat many of the same words, 'Resolve the central conflict – Most importantly your hero and heroine must face up to and overcome their internal conflicts by the time you reach the climax of the story.' Failing to do this is what separates actual finales from abandoned novels. After all, if your characters have not dealt with their neuroses and married then the chances are your novel isn't finished yet.

At this point Secrets Uncovered moves on to whatever comes after endings, leaving us to ponder what we have learned. What would anyone have learned from reading this cobbled-together collection of clichés? Well, there is more to writing an ending than simply typing THE END and closing your laptop, just as there is more to writing a novel than simply typing the first fifty-five thousand words that spring to mind. While readers know what to expect from the climaxes of romance fiction the ending remains a strong selling point of a book, rivalled in importance only by the hero. When a couple kiss and commit to several months of idyllic sex followed by endless months of painful divorce proceedings this moment of certainty and hope is the culmination of all the novelist has been working towards, the final definitive statement on love and happiness. This creation of life-affirming optimism is the very reason millions read Mills & Boon books, and continue to read Mills & Boon books, even though on numerous previous occasions they have been disappointed or betrayed by an ending. Every new bundle of synonyms holds a promise of capturing these feelings, and for an aspiring author there is both an implied and contractual obligation to see hero and heroine achieve what they desire and deserve. Meanwhile, when the dastardly, cloying, second suitor disappears on a walk and is later found to have been eaten by a bear his fate, while surprising, must be seen to have been inevitable. That's a sign of quality writing.