“A woman with backbone, a woman with brains and ambitions – and breeding”

Nora Roberts has written over two hundred romance novels. She began her career with Silhouette over thirty years ago, having been first rejected by Mills & Boon when they began scouring the United States for authors. By the time she had found the international success few romance writers achieve her publisher had been bought out and Harlequin cashed in on a novelist attuned to her reader's desires, canny with a franchise and with a relentless appetite for work. Beginning in 1985, Nora created a new dynasty, a multi-generational family of the wealthy, attractive and powerful, allowing her an endless series of books and short stories about the MacGregor clan. Not to be confused with the Mackade Brothers, The Stanislaskis, the Calhoun Women, the Cordina Royal Family, the Stars of Mithra, The Donovan Legacy, The O'Hurleys and the goings-on of Night, the MacGregors are led by Daniel Duncan MacGregor and wife Anna Whitfield. They met and married in print and went onto have three children, who also got their romantic stories told, having numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren that would fill Roberts' writing obligations for the next few weeks and shape the destiny of fictional American politics and culture, a country controlled by an affluent, white elite.

What followed became known as Playing The Odds, Tempting Fate, All The Possibilities, One Man's Art, For Now, Forever, In From the Cold, Rebellion, The Winning Hand and The Perfect Neighbor. However, Roberts and Daniel Duncan could not be stopped, offering us two collections of revealing briefs; The MacGregor Brides and The MacGregor Grooms. These are not the same stories told from differing points of view, but rather six further romances between one of the world's most celebrated families and the offspring of other incredibly rich legacies. Daniel MacGregor is sick of not seeing everyone he knows married and living in a mansion with countless kids, so he sets about playing secret matchmaker for his gorgeous and talented descendants. In The MacGregor Grooms' opening novella he trains his demented eyes on grandson Daniel Campbell (DC to his friends. Hi, DC!), sister of Julia and son of Alan MacGregor, former President of the United States. Roberts helpfully adds a Family Tree in the glossary. DC is a devilishly handsome and highly successful artist, who has moved back to Washington because of his name. He lives in a luxurious two-storey apartment overlooking the C & O Canal, where he paints sound tracked by the tough urban poetry of John Mellencamp. Despite having everything his glamorous lifestyle lacks a few items that DC would rather not have, namely a wife, some children and an interior design scheme.

From the moment DC was born Daniel had picked out the perfect partner for him. Now, having allowed legality to catch up with his dastardly games, the time for romance is afoot. The only trouble is DC does not want to settle down, so Daniel will have to play this carefully. He ropes in family friend “Aunt” Myra, the actual Aunt of one Layna Drake, heir to the Drake Department Store fortune. Layna has also recently returned to Washington D.C. to work her way up the corporate ladder and one day take control of the family business. Daniel asks DC to accompany Layna to a business function, purely as a favour to Myra. DC reluctantly agrees, but it soon becomes clear that he and Layna have many things in common; they are both exceedingly beautiful, successful and wealthy, they are both controlled by manipulative ageing family members, they both live locally and both have no interest in relationships, preferring instead to focus on their lucrative careers. All best intentions are torn asunder, however, when they see each other for the first time since they were innocent infants, running free down the hallways of the White House. Layna has developed from a willowly waif with hair like a dandelion to a stunning womanly creature of perfection with blonde hair, and still thin. Meanwhile, DC has retained all of his hair and become taller, thus overcoming the two challenges all men face when under-taking growing up.

Despite the stars aligning for an illicit clinch in a bathroom cubicle DC and Layna are able to control their baser urges and focus on struggling through the evening without any awkward instances of falling to the floor as watery liquid. Instead Layna has a short conversation with DC's parents, who happen to be there, and then they dance, sultrily, their bodies fitting together as if they had been designed to meld into one. Heart rates soaring unrealistically they call it a night without having to admit that they like one another. Foolishly, and perhaps only because Nora's ending demands it so, DC cannot resist some playful home invasion the following day. Finding Layna listening to classical music, wearing a hat and planting flowers in the garden he sketches her face and asks her to an art exhibit at the Smithsonian. There the third chapter ends with merciful succinctness, leaving Bewildered Heart to comprehend what so many millions of readers enjoy in the work of Nora Roberts. Her early fame seems remarkable, as nothing happens in Part One of The MacGregor Grooms to differentiate it from the romance canon, except Roberts seems less willing to baulk her prose out with heavy-handed emotional revelations. There are the standard clichés readers will have resolved to accept as inevitable, including mentions of DC's masculine hands and Layna's realisation that only a thin layer of silk saves her from skin on skin contact. The attraction between hero and heroine is carried out with a formulaic predictability, yet the novel's most obvious accomplishment is the subversive manner with which Roberts brings her leads together.

Mills & Boon Romances are keen to avoid secondary characters and plot contrivances, instead pushing ideas such as fate, soulmates and true love to the forefront of their stories. With the MacGregor series Roberts takes a cynical view, inviting her readers to empathise with the old-fashioned family orientations of Daniel Duncan rather than the actual leads. What do young people know of life and love, he asks, in the introductory passage, supposedly lifted from his memoirs, published, one assumes, when he eventually died of an excess of love in his heart. The youth know not what they want, but Daniel is certain that what they want is the same thing he had at their age, and to believe otherwise would surely call into question his entire existence. Often in these Harlequin tales the deliberations and neuroses of the hero and heroine are delaying tactics until the characters accept they want and can have what everyone wants, eternal happiness with their ideal partner, a department store empire and a national security detail. The umming-and-ahhing is a tedious narrative gimmick Secrets Uncovered had the nerve to call Conflict, but thanks to Daniel MacGregor's delusions of God-like perceptibility the story of DC and Layna giving up their youthful dreams of work and real estate for an incestuous marriage of corporate interests and Nora Roberts franchise-building takes on a knowing, wiser veneer.

Furthermore, to the author's credit, her book assumes a semi-relevant tone involving numerous details of Washington D.C., and throwing out hip references to the youth of the late nineties, such as Chopin, Dali and John Fogerty. Her heroine gardens with a manual at her side, fears death by automobile accident and does not like strangers entering her townhouse without an invitation. Equally, DC is humanised with numerous quirks including his enjoyment of bacon, driving recklessly and entering stranger's townhouses without invitation. While this does nothing to suggest he and Layna should be anything other than spiritual enemies the asides do help create a relatable parallel universe where Alan MacGregor was President, department stores remain in business, painting is a career and twenty-somethings enjoy what sixty-year-old retirees enjoy in the real world. Despite these supposed positives Roberts will have to work her vaunted magic on making the eventual ever-lasting kiss believable. So far the reader has little to buy into besides physical lust and the word of a senile old man hellbent on strengthening corporate bonds through his children. There is a clear lack of romance and credibility three chapters in, unless The MacGregor Grooms, and its forebears, were intended to be darkly satirical treatises on the trappings of money, breeding and heritage, which they really are either way.

‘Should Rick start mixing business with romance -- and both with a baby?’

The talk of Mills & Boon titles being proof of anything has made Bewildered Heart thirsty for a romance novel with a heavy-handed title indicative of female mating interests. One of the many omissions of the scientific study was no noting of the gradual evolution the publishers have made towards ridiculous titles containing market-researched signifiers and away from the previous generation’s more artistic leanings. Nowadays there is no ambiguity in a Harlequin title, with modern monikers increasingly close to those a website such as this would invent for parody. Even our limited travels into the world of saucy fiction have thrown up names such as Finding Nick, Romantics Anonymous and Leopard in the Snow. Those don’t include the words billionaire, bride, mistress or pirate. What on earth will the female reader base her consumer wants on?

For this reason, among others that will soon become clear, we have chosen to investigate the Mills & Boon Desire 2-in-1, named 2-in-1 because there are two stories offered in one novel and not because of any sexually-explicit love triangles. In this case we have Emilie Rose’s The Millionaire’s Indecent Proposal and Under the Millionaire’s Influence by Catherine Mann, two writers challenging readers’ expectations by asking us to fall in love with millionaires when there are so many gorgeous single billionaires running amok. Best of luck, Rose and Mann. Before we tackle the stories, however, our research begins with the publisher’s description of what a Desire is.

Originally an imprint at Silhouette over a Simon & Schuster the sub-genre was bought by Harlequin in the mid-eighties and today Mills & Boon operates it solely as 2-in-1, having before that run it as Desire Double. Why is Desire only sold as two times the amount of novel at twice the price? No one seems willing to explain, but each coupling is themed, as ours is themed by millionaires and force, while others might instead use cowboy tycoons, secret babies, virgin brides, billionaires, blackmail and force. With instant appeal and obvious differences between others sub-genres aspiring authors can look to the Writing Help for further information. ‘A powerful, passionate and provocative read…guaranteed!’ it says, temptingly. All alliteration, and rhyming, aside, this is a strong start. Whereas Cherish would guarantee a gentle, loving and inoffensively bland read, Desire sets its stall out without any ado. We can only hope they don’t instantaneously become vague and contradictory in the opening paragraph.

‘Desire books are filled to the brim with strong, intense story-lines. These sensual love stories immediately involve the reader in a romantic conflict and the quest for a happily-ever-after resolution. The novels should be fresh, fast-paced and modern, presenting the hero and heroine's conflicts by the end of chapter one.’ Do you see, gentle reader, here we are offered palpable narrative instructions to help us understand the key variations that mark Desire unique, from, for example, Modern or Nocturne. Those sub-genres are stagnant, meandering and archaic, presenting tensions eventually, once the reader has bored of all the easy-going camaraderie. But who are these heroes and heroines the Author Guidelines speak of and how should we, starry-eyed writers, attempt to present our leading men, other than perhaps making them desirable?

‘The hero should be powerful, wealthy — an alpha male with a sense of entitlement, and arrogance. While he may be harsh and direct, he is never physically cruel. Beneath his alpha exterior, he displays some vulnerability, and he is capable of being saved. It's up to the heroine to get him there.’ These are the conflict seeds we have previously discussed. Firstly we introduce the hero, as conceited, believing he has the right to have sex with a woman just because he is authoritative and prosperous. However, our heroine is not attracted to those traits, though she is enamoured by his physical appearance, money and influence and thus, over the course of some two-hundred pages, she must teach him to stop being egotistical by having sex with him and acting womanly. Any further character details for those who haven’t been paying attention? ‘The Texan hero should own the ranch, not work on it, and the urban hero should be the company CEO, not a handyman.’ Indeed. Female readers will not buy A Texas Handyman’s Respectful Courting, and more fool you for even suggesting it.

Desire heroes, therefore, are much like all the other Mills & Boon heroes, with the exception of Cherish men, who, by this definition, aren’t men at all. Now, what of the protagonist, the heroine herself? ‘She is complex and flawed, strong-willed and smart, though capable of making mistakes when it comes to matters of the heart. The heroine is equally as important as the hero, if not more so. There is room for both protagonists' perspective, as long as his thoughts are centered on the heroine and their conflict. Desire novels are usually 60% heroine and 40% hero.’ Everyone understands percentages. We can expect our two upcoming Desire novels to be more women-centric than any examples from the other categories. Due to this statistical breakdown then, it is advisable to create a compelling heroine with more depth than cooing at babies in supermarkets and having frizzy hair on especially humid days, although it is most likely this is what they meant by complexities and flaws.

‘The conflict should be dramatic with such classic plot lines as revenge, secret pregnancies, marriages of convenience and reunion romances.’ Where is the implied prostitution? From the list of fairly standard soap opera clichés we can only hope marriage-of-convenience is code for live-in-mistress-but-not-prostitute-because-they-love-each-other. After all, that is a pretty classic plot line. Wannabe Mills & Boon creators should look to these suggestions for a scenario for their own ideal novel, where a couple reunite, arrange a marriage of convenience and then the heroine makes a terrible mistake in matters of her heart by getting pregnant because of the hero’s arrogant misplaced sense of entitlement, but gets revenge by falling in love with him. We can call it The Millionaire’s Blackmailed Bride’s Secret Baby Revenge. Cox and Fisher would adore that one. All we have left to learn is how many gratuitous sexual acts we will have to type.

‘Desire novels are sensual reads and a love scene or scenes are needed, but there is no set number. Rather, the level of sensuality must be appropriate to the storyline. Above all, every Silhouette Desire novel must fulfill the promise of a powerful, passionate and provocative read.’ Goodness, how helpful. With there being little discernible difference between Desire and Modern, besides a minor emphasis on the heroine, we should assume by the over-use of words such as sensual, passionate and desire, as well as the red cover, that this series will have a large story-appropriate quantity of copulation. Once you have decided your story will contain a wealthy tycoon buying a woman for cohabitation (and possibly more!) only to discover his physical attraction blossoms into genuine emotional connection you are going to need a gregarious attitude towards describing their love-making just to reach the required fifty-five thousand words.

First up for our reading pleasure is the aforementioned The Millionaire’s Indecent Proposal by Emilie Rose, part of her 2007 Monte Carlo series that included The Prince’s Ultimate Deception and The Playboy’s Passionate Pursuit, so we can comfortably assume Emilie knows what she is doing. The blurb promises passion and drama and the title hints are derivativeness. ‘Would she accept one million euros to be his mistress for a month? How could practical American Stacy Reeves say no to Franco Constantine's proposal?’ Hopefully these are the first of many deeply philosophical questions the scenario will throw up. How do women refuse money in exchange for sex? ‘The wealthy, arrogant CEO of Midas Chocolates was overwhelmingly passionate in his pursuit. Their union would be pure pleasure, but Stacy did not know Franco's offer was part of a bet.’

Intrigue, pleasure and chocolate, the dream trifecta for every lady of a certain age, but how does this differ from Modern’s The Billionaire’s Housekeeper Mistress, besides the gulf in wealth? Reading through the Writing Guidelines we are supposed to study before submitting our manuscript to the beloved publishers the only alteration should become apparent from reading on, and that shall be the focus on Stacy over Franco. This suits the story perfectly, as Franco, a millionaire who pays vast sums for call-girls, can remain suitably enigmatic, to hide his blatant sleaziness under layers of sexy mystery, while Rose can delve into Stacy’s psyche and convince the reader that her protagonist’s actions are credible. Our empathy will be vital to prevent us from falling into the trap of leading with prejudices and concluding that Stacy sounds like a hussy. Emilie Rose will presumably do this by making Franco incredibly gorgeous, charming and seductive, the offer impossible to turn down and the terms quite agreeable, thus under-mining those guarantees of passion, drama and provocation.

"Men could be hired anywhere at any time... for only a few dollars a month”

One of the many troubling aspects of writing a weblog concerning romance fiction, besides the continuing prospect of having to read and write about romance fiction, is the clear lack of positivistic analysis of psychology related to scientific studies at renowned universities. Worry not though, Bewildered Hearts, for all that is about to change thanks to The Texas Billionaire's Pregnant Bride: An Evolutionary Interpretation of Romance Fiction Titles. You read that correctly, dear reader. Apparently one Anthony Cox from the Centre for Psychology and Computing in Dartmouth, Canada and one Maryanne Fisher from the Department of Psychology in wherever St. Mary’s University is have teamed up to make sense of fifteen thousand and nineteen book titles published between 1949 and 2009 by Harlequin, North America's very own Mills & Boon.

So, how did Cox and Fisher decide to use this huge amassed amount of information and what did they hope this venture would prove? 'First, we identified the most frequently occurring words to determine the most prevalent issues addressed by titles. Second, we performed a qualitative analysis to identify the most popular, recurring themes that appear in the titles.' Hmm, that sounds like something someone might do to obtain grant money, but for those in the audience already bored by phrases such as 'qualitative analysis' is there a pithy sentence in the opening paragraph that might set out a conclusion so obvious it renders the entire research nugatory? 'Our results indicate that Harlequin romance novel titles are congruent with women’s sex-specific mating strategies, which is surmised to be the reason for their continued international success.' Bewildered Heart likes the sound of women's sex-specific mating strategies, but we can't help but wonder whether the world needs hard evidence to show that Harlequin and Mills & Boon are successful because they offer a product that deals with an element of life a large proportion of women think about.

Still, there are fifteen more pages of charts, tables and statistics to wade through, so enough questioning the time and cost that was wasted here, and let us examine the findings. Cox and Fisher break down this vast number of texts into Harlequin's own hilariously-titled sub-categories, such as Love-Inspired (Christian emphasis, inspired by love, no actual love), Super-Romance (Really good romance), NASCAR (Thanks to a clever marketing strategy to combine romance with NASCAR), American Romance (For patriots) and, of course, Flipside, which lasted three years before someone realised the name might be misconstrued as homosexual. To complicate matters further, our clever authors included the Silhouette Imprint and their own remarkably varied list of subgenres, which aren't nearly as silly-sounding as those of their sister company, so little wonder most are now defunct. With their database full to over-flowing with romantic words and their technical normalising work complete, the complex algorithms did their business and now the public can marvel at the surprising results. Do you think billionaire and sheik made the list of most used male occupations? How about disenchanted blogger?

With the paper outlining Harlequin's success, 5.8 billion books sold so far and counting, they go onto speculate explanations for why, and how. According to a study over at Parapublishing, a potential consumer will spend an average of eight seconds weighing up a book's appeal before buying it. As Oscar Dystel points out, in Mass Market Publishing: More Observations, Speculations and Provocations Harlequin do little to distinguish their 'uniform, homogenized, quality controlled' novels. Therefore, within these aforementioned eight seconds the potential reader forms an opinion based on the subtle differences between the books, which are the title, the author name and the photograph of a couple canoodling. Naturally, Harlequin are well aware of their target audience, and in fact, romance fiction publishers conduct more market research than any other publisher. They know what women want from their romance fiction and, for financial reasons, give it to them via implied semantic signifiers.

Therefore, when female consumers trawl through the shelves at a down-market bookshop for as long as we still have bookshops, and after that trawl through the Mills & Boon website, their eyes and opinions are immediately shaped by the title, and shortly thereafter the blurb. Yet we have learned that the blurbs lie and we have also learned that titles lie, so in one sense, the commercial draw of an enticing title is vital yet largely immaterial to plot and characters. As we have witnessed, the salacious aspect of Bewildered Heart's wanton desire for romance fiction means we search the library shelves for certain words. There is no logic in trying to pick a good one, so we pick the ones that offer our favourite clichés of the genre. Those include reclusive billionaires, emasculated former circus performers, brunettes, small business owners, Hugh Jackmen and ladies dressed in costumes of cartoon animals. Had Mills & Boon ever visited this internet treasure trove of useful information they would surely have published The Kinda Hugh Jackman-Looking Emasculated Former Circus Performer Billionaire's Brunette Wearing a Cartoon Animal Costume Mistress, Accidentally Pregnant!

The results substantiate what Cox and Fisher seemed intent on proving, that women's evolved sex-specific mating interests are consistent with the words found in Harlequin titles and the heroine's yearnings within its pages. The top twenty most popular words were Love, Bride, Baby, Man, Marriage, Heart, Secret, Wife, Doctor, Night, Christmas, Cowboy, Wedding, Child, Family, Texas, Nurse, Woman, Lady, and Husband. Danielle shall be delighted to note the absence of mistress from the list. So, Cox and Fisher argue, we can ascertain that what women want from their romance books are Texan cowboy doctors marrying and impregnating a nurse at night on Christmas, whilst one of them hides a secret family. Furthermore, says the paper, what women want from their romance fiction is what women want from life and this means the ideal characteristics of the perfect husband are decency, healing hands, a well-paid job (or cowboy) and a love of fidelity, Christmas, Texas, cooing at babies in supermarkets and different nouns for the same word.

Don't lose hope though, men who are unlikely to become doctors or cowboys, for Fisher and Cox have listed the twenty most frequently occurring professions in romance novels and they are as follows: Doctor, Cowboy, Nurse, Boss, Prince, Rancher, Knight, Surgeon, King, Bodyguard, Sheriff, Soldier, Lawman, Pirate, Secretary, Consultant, Midwife, Cattleman, CEO, Executive. It shouldn't take an academic to note that these careers fit into four categories. Medical: Doctor, Nurse, Surgeon, Midwife. Masculine: Cowboy, Rancher, Knight, Bodyguard, Sheriff, Soldier, Lawman, Pirate, Cattleman. Billionaire: Boss, Prince, King, CEO, Executive. Other: Secretary, Consultant. Secretary would depend largely on the inclusion of Boss, while Consultant is frankly the most confusing one, and that is on a list that includes Pirate. So, what straightforward conclusions can we gleam from these results? Cox and Fisher note, 'two primary themes: resource-based (e.g., doctors, surgeons, CEOs, kings) and athletic (e.g., cowboys, cattlemen). Perhaps related to the athletic theme is that of protectors (e.g., sheriffs, soldiers, lawmen) since these professions also require a high level of physical fitness. Therefore, our hypotheses concerning resources and physical fitness gained at least partial support, given the emphasis on these professions.' See, they glossed over Consultant and Pirate as well.

To round out the findings the authors define eight distinct themes, beginning with the most evident and ending with the afterthoughts: 1. Commitment, 2. Reproduction, 3. Western, 4. Resources, 5. Medical, 6. Christmas, 7.Royalty, and finally, 8. Professional. Now, this data is inevitably skewed by Harlequin's Medical and Western subgenres, and a world of lazily unimaginative writers. Despite this, the popularity of these books should not be overlooked. They should be looked at as indicative of the reader's sex-specific mating interests, and when done so doctors and cowboys are basically the same man, strong, nurturing, able, protective, passionate, land-owning, wearing funny outfits and using unorthodox methods of transportation.

With the irrefutable proof out of the way, the authors can move onto their wild and unreasoned conclusions. For example, 'The 20 most frequent words clearly suggest long-term commitment and reproduction are important to readers.' As other writers have pointed out, with far less research and intelligence to back them up, the romance genre is defined by a happy ending, and unlike life, a successful relationship involves having children and dying together. Therefore many of the words and themes that appear throughout the titles are a requirement of the form of story-telling. While no one should be surprised to see marriage and offspring hinted at by the book names, there were a handful of actual surprises. 'The word “attractive” appears only once in the database, and “handsome” only six times. Synonyms like “gorgeous” appear rarely (gorgeous appears three times), and the word “athletic” does not appear at all.'

What does this mean? As it turns out, nothing, 'It must be noted that there are only a few adjectives that describe the characters’ traits in the database. The majority of the words are nouns that identify the characters’ roles, such as bride, executive, or husband.' However, a quick glance at the contents of the book assuages any doubts regarding the physical attractiveness of the characters. It goes without saying that Texan billionaire doctors who own a ranch are rugged and gorgeous. However, Cox and Fisher are obviously dedicated to the subject of evolutionary psychology and whether or not Harlequin Enterprises entitle their books with a keen understanding of evolutionary psychology. They surmise, rather disappointingly, that such technical terms are interchangeable with common sense. Importantly, there is no way of proving how successful the books are, and whether a title such as The Texas Billionaire's Pregnant Bride would sell more or less copies than The Welsh Lorry Driver's Infertile Pen Pal, although common sense would surely prevail.

Due to these flaws and a seemingly tentative understanding of the genre, the study offers little valuable insights for a prospective romance writer, besides maybe dusting off those boots of yours and giving cowboys another spin. The focus of the article concerns itself with the sex-specific mating strategies of women, and only deal with the what, leaving the why tantalisingly vague. Why would a woman's ideal man be rich, caring, honest, loyal, virtuous, handsome, muscular, intelligent, kind, stable and also a doctor? Please don't just argue that evolution explains everything, because otherwise we are going to need a scientific analysis on what evolution is and then another one explaining why Texans don't believe in evolution.

"We admit that the search for "true love" has brought chaos to our lives"

When faced with reading a Mills & Boon the reader may feel a powerful rush of emotions not unlike the reaction a heroine has to seeing her ideal man rise from the ocean in revealing swimming trunks and slowly descend over her quivering body laid wild and enticingly on a bed made of grapes. For fans of trite romance fiction a new novel is a gateway into a fantasy world of passion, intrigue and love. For readers who dislike romance fiction, of course, having another book land on their bedside desk and shimmer in the golden light of a low wattage energy-saving bulb conjures an apprehension more akin to seeing a dripping wet Adonis rise from the ocean in revealing swimming trunks and slowly approach as they attempt to read; jittery, self-conscious, fearing the worst and questioning their sexuality.

Having finished The Truth About the Tycoon happy in the knowledge that the truth had been that he was, in fact, a tycoon, Bewildered Heart yearned for something different and what is more different than a yellow cover? In all our many months of searching never have we seen a yellow cover and approximations of what snowflakes might look like if drawn by someone unaware of what a snowflake looks like. Yes, back in 1993 Harlequin and Mills & Boon showed elements of ambition in the marketing of their product. Before and during the wilderness years of titles such as In Bed With the Boss, Wife By Agreement and Bedded at the Billionaire's Convenience (Last one coming to Bewildered Heart soon, mind) the Mills & Boon subgenre Enchanted published Romantics Anonymous by Lauryn Chandler.

Immediately the reader will sense something special about this offering. Overlooking the pale cover for a moment (which should be easy as there are no pictures on the internet of the Mills & Boon edition), one is struck by the purposeful capitalised title, the nonsensical tagline, 'Mistletoe: Magic!' and the painted picture of a couple. Before the staged soft-core photograph of attractive people canoodling on silk sheets while candles flicker seductively in the background Romantics Anonymous offers a drawing of a fairy-tale scene. An Italian lounge singer with receding hair rubs his thumb against the chin of a high society dame who holds a bouquet of flowers while what appears to be a pheasant blazes to death in the fireplace. There is a Christmas tree and there are greeting cards on the mantelpiece. Also, and perhaps most inexplicable of all, there is a fluffy cloud about to consume them all. Is the building on fire, or is this luxurious house actually in Heaven? One must read on to find out if any of these strange elements are incorporated into the story.

Cynthia James, Cyn to her friends (Hi, Cyn!), has written a thinly-veiled anti-romance novel recounting her disastrous marriage to her ex-husband, the big-shot Hollywood screenwriter Lane Lincoln. Cynthia has also founded a self-help group for women addicted to love, named Romantics Anonymous, which teaches a twelve-step programme for afflicted ladies to use when wishing to say goodbye to their filthy habit. But hang on, romance writer, what's so wrong with a little thing called love? According to Cyn and her novel, Love and Marriage and Other Tall Tales, chemistry can be easily created, lust is a hormonal fluctuation and sexual passion can't be trusted, whereas stability and honesty are the cornerstones to a successful partnership. She learned this the tough way, first from her charming, yet flighty, father whom she adored, but was abandoned by, and then by the charming, yet flighty, Lane, who wooed her at 1970s university. Thereafter they lived a nomadic life, travelling America in a Winnebago and having tremendous sex before Cynthia demanded they settle down and Lane's dreams became too large for his life.

Since then, Lane has followed his calling to become an insensitive jerk and writer of epic Hollywood love stories. Imagine his consternation, therefore, when he sees his ex-wife on a chat-show setting forth her principles and explaining that she looks back on her infatuation with him as laughable and a mistake. Damn it, Cynthia, indeed. If only there was some unlikely circumstance which might force the pair together so he could prove to her that sexual magnetism is a once-in-a-lifetime miracle and a relationship should be built around tremendous sex and not support of each other's complex neuroses formed by unresolved issues with their fathers. Besides the destructive causes of their divorce are no longer an obstacle, because Lane has settled down and made a life for himself in California, while Cynthia has stopped being a control freak with unrealistic expectations of others. Can love be rekindled, asks the author? Yes, we reply, because you've already mentioned on numerous occasions that the love between Lane and Cynthia still burns brightly. Gosh, if only there were some unlikely circumstance...

As it happens their twelve-year-old daughter, Beth, has flown across country, from wherever Oregon is to wherever California has got to, with an ultimatum. Cyn has followed, freshly returned from her publicity tour and desperately searching for her missing child. This brings the former couple face to face for the first time in ten years and how attractive those faces remain, despite the stress and the ravages of time. Beth is not finished at disappearing and boarding a plane alone, however. She has an imposition of her parents that they must grant her, otherwise she will begin drinking and having sex with boys. Beth wants her mother and father to reconcile for a traditional family Christmas. For unexplained reasons Lane and Cynthia agree to this request, suggesting Beth may grow up to be a real bitch. Still, what could possibly happen during these weeks between responsible and emotionally-mature adults? After all, Lane and Cynthia tell each other that they are in happy, committed relationships that they're not really in, but are only pretending to be in to make the other one jealous.

While Mills & Boon constantly promise their books will be fun, flirty and may have you laughing out loud we have not yet seen any evidence of such a prospect. However, Chandler's novel has an odd smattering of jokes and a possibly satirical edge that is destroyed within the opening three chapters. The Romantics Anonymous twist on the standard formula quickly sacrifices itself to the requirements of the structure and ends up only working as a clever gimmick to fool the likes of us into buying the book. While the idea of a romantic heroine who actively denounces romance is hardly original, to go a step further and invent a self-help group affords an opportunity for deeper dissection of the principle subject. Sadly, it quickly becomes apparent that neither Cynthia James nor Lauryn Chandler believe in their own rhetoric and any fun set to be had at the reader's expense is lost to a withering lack of credibility.

Still, a full examination of romance maybe a worthwhile endeavour and perhaps Romantics Anonymous will deliver an understanding of other intangible notions such as fidelity and marriage. Lane is a changed man, no longer a slave to his youthful fancies and idealistic dreams of true love and adventure. He is, therefore, an empty shell of the man he once was, and the pressures of conformity and responsibility have evolved him into suitable husband material. Perhaps over the course of the novel Cynthia's support can resurrect him back into the vital, daring force she formally fell in love with. There remains a good possibility, however, that she will slowly be drawn to his good looks and easy-going charm, all the time fighting herself not to fall back into bed with him, until she does and remembers just how wonderful their relationship was, only to then be thwarted by self-doubt, magician issues and concerns for Beth, before a soul-baring speech helps her realise Lane will not leave her this time, because hope and ambition have been slowly crushed out of him by life.

Chandler may argue that Cynthia is fine the way she is, but there remains inside the heroine an inability to experience impulsive joy. Therefore it is up to Lane to help her realise that a life without romance is a life not worth living. She should embrace her life and step out of her mind. Lane still has a thick head of hair, as only handsome men do, and Cynthia should enjoy it while she still can. Who says one cannot experience passion and peace at the same time, such as love-making in Switzerland? Are we really expected to choose between reason or romance? Isn't there room enough for both? After all, the Romantics Anonymous Programme stresses the utmost importance of logic and really, what is so logical about a fundamental separation of unrelated brain functions? Lane shall, of course, say these things with his shirt removed, having recently risen from the ocean and approached seductively, his torso glistening and bare, his tight swimming trunks overtly suggestive, meaning he might as well have said nothing for all we were able to comprehend.

“The sound of the lock being turned was as loud as a gunshot to his soul”

After three chapters of The Truth About the Tycoon, the 2005 Harlequin Silhouette novel by Allison Leigh, we were aware of many things that only make sense within the confines of the book. Billionaire business owner, American royalty and Rockefeller stand-in Dane Rutherford, of Clan Rutherford, was in the small town of Lucius, Montana to track down one Alan Michaels, the dastardly bastard who years before had kidnapped Darby Rutherford and held her hostage for four days on the roof of a warehouse. While Darby and the United States were able to move on, Dane continued to blame himself for his sister's trauma, while Alan Michaels continued to be completely insane.

When Michaels escapes from his low-security mental ward, for things such as this happen in The Truth About the Tycoon, Dane seizes his opportunity to track him down and deliver some billionaire-style personal justice. Plans go awry, however, when his car collides with the car of a pretty, wide-eyed brunette by the name of Hadley Golightly. By the time Dane has awoken and found himself covered in blood, with a headache and nasty wound, he realises that his car wasn't the only thing involved in a collision. For his heart, or fate, his destiny, you know, collided with the destiny of Hadley Golightly, and even though finding Alan Michaels remains his top priority, she quickly becomes all he can think of and his top priority. Yet who is this beguiling virgin who never met her own father and how does she fit into Allison Leigh's complex plotting?

Life hasn't been treating Hadley Golightly too kindly of late. Sure, she loves living in backwoods Montana, with her step-dad and half-siblings, but she longs to make it on her own, to create her own identity and become a celebrated writer of things no one is allowed to read. At the tender age of twenty-seven she remains hamstrung by her mother's legacy. Had, to her friends (Hi, Had!), runs her mother's boardinghouse and spends her days helping those in need and generally being a darling girl to everyone she meets. When all seems lost and there is no easy way for her to carve out a personality of her own a handsome, rich man rolls into town, solving all of her problems with his masculinity and sturdy torso. However, Dane wants to keep his Rutherford name and his motivations a secret, so he calls himself Wood Tolliver, the name of his business partner. Hadley's half-brother, Shane, is suspicious, but Hadley falls head over heels in love with Wood, the dashing hunk, leaving the discovery of his true identity and hatred of his deceit until the story's predictable conclusion.

The reader is well-advised to gloss over the next one hundred and fifty pages for nothing of consequence takes place. Hadley is briefly concerned with her new tenant, a pregnant lady who collapses whilst sleighing in the snow, but once she is whisked to hospital she is never mentioned or heard from again, allowing the reader to assume she can't have been important. Equally meaningless is Evie, Hadley's half-sister, and her marriage to Charlie, a drunk. Leigh uses this to further prove Dane's tough manliness with a series of deeply improbable bar fights with events culminating in a surprise party for Evie, where a few things occur that should have been edited out. Meanwhile, Dane's father, Roth, needs surgery to save his life and there is a maniac on the loose headed to Lucius for unspecified reasons. With several heavy burdens weighing on Dane's broad, masculine shoulders, he and Hadley decide this is the perfect time for the book's one and only momentous sex scene.

With Hadley's innocence hanging in the balance and Dane being a man who can ignore any danger when sex is available, the tumultuous love-making is inevitable, but good God does Leigh find a bizarrely-written way to deal with the lack of a condom that avoids any possibility of pregnancy. Perhaps the words, 'hot pleasure jetting over abdomen,' and the line, 'Gotta get a wash-cloth,' should suffice. However, this fails to mention that no wash-cloth is forthcoming and sleep is immediately undertaken. Needless to write, it was the first time Bewildered Heart had ever come across an incident like that in a Mills & Boon. Still, by now we should celebrate original sequences in our romance consumption and then try our best to forget they ever happened.

Shortly thereafter, Dane's world of arrogant indiscretions collapses when one of the characters bothers to check who he is. Does Shane the Sheriff finally get around to looking into the chap who arrived in town, crashed his car, shifted around mysteriously, got into a series of highly improbable bar fights and then slept with Shane's sister? How about anyone seeing Dane and recognising him as the most famous businessman in the world? No, it is left up to Hadley herself, to find Dane's driving license in his wallet, as she routed through it in search of a prophylactic. She is enraged and naked and tells Dane or Wood, whoever he is, to get out, to leave Lucius behind and never look back. He had taught her a valuable lesson, that moments before he had learned the opposite of from her. Some things are unforgivable and seducing a virgin using your true personality albeit it with a fake name is one of those unforgivable things. Somewhat at odds with Dane's new perspective that even kidnapping a young girl in front of a crowd of people and tormenting her for days before pretending to save her and becoming a national hero is forgivable when holding onto vengeance is stopping you from having sex with a beautiful woman.

Phew, eh? Next, Dane boards his private jet before a convenient call from a bounty hunter-turned-attractive-barmaid tells him that Alan Michaels is heading straight for Lucius, also finally explaining where his obsession with the town stems from. Clearly someone else has the same belated sleuthing skills as Hadley, because she has discovered that Michaels had a child with a woman whom we the reader know as Holly Golightly, but not that one, the one in the book, Hadley's mother. Oh no, Dane Rutherford, the woman you're in love with and can never see again because you repeatedly lied to her in order to trick into sleeping with you is in danger from the man who kidnapped your baby sister. At last! All the plot strands are being brought together, with the exception of those that Leigh has forgotten about. Quickly, Dane and Shane, back to the boardinghouse and step on it!

The excitement, if that is what it is, is short-lived, however. Michaels believes Hadley to be Holly, but so in love with her as he is he presents no greater physical threat than the shards of china on the floor from Hadley having dropped her coffee mug. Nevertheless, Dane's timing is impeccable and he saves the defenceless woman from being attacked by the irrational man, proving he does love Hadley no matter what his name is. Dane puts to rest his demons over the destruction Michaels wrought over his family and is ready to embrace the next stage of his life, quitting as Rutherford CEO, returning to death-defying custom racing and marrying a girl ten years his junior.

For Hadley the finale is equally rewarding and perfect. No longer is she the shy, penniless virgin she once was. Now her social problems are irrelevant for her husband has confidence to spare, her financial struggles are immaterial for her husband is a billionaire, and her virginity issue was sorted out by the same man in chapter eleven. Perhaps with everything fixed she can concentrate on her fledging career as an author, but she should be warned not to write a novel about a twenty-seven-year-old virgin with a criminal father and insensitive family, who meets a mysterious, gorgeous man who may or may not be who he at first appears, because she can be sure that that novel will be rubbish.

And so, what have we learned from reading The Truth About the Tycoon? Firstly, we have learned that Harlequin Silhouette and Mills & Boon Modern Romance are the same, with the possible exception of length. Allison Leigh's book weighs in at a hefty two-hundred and fifty pages. While size may not matter, Leigh's failure to do anything with her extra few thousand words counts against her work. She wastes many pages on peripheral characters, including Hadley's co-workers, her siblings and her tenants at the boardinghouse. While a little local colour might have strengthened the appeal of the story, it is under-utilised, largely irritating and in the cases of Wendell and Nikki the lack of closure and representative meaning are maddening. Dane wonders aloud why Evie, Hadley's sister, named her son Alan, briefly believing this may have something to do with Michaels. The reader learns at the end that Evie had known that Michaels was Hadley's father and had warned her half-sister about him. However, we never learn why Evie then named her son Alan. Is she a tactless idiot, is she mean-spirited, forgetful or is the writing needlessly clumsy?

We also learned something about characterisation. When we spoke of creating heroes and heroines we had a good laugh about personality traits, those telling signs that establish no two humans are quite alike. We too learned that these signs can be visualised by cooing at babies in supermarkets, fidgeting with hair, baking cookies and speaking timidly. It is easy to dismiss these particular foibles and examine the more vital complexions of an individual. The few idiosyncrasies that embody Hadley at first seem to suggest a compelling protagonist, but are quickly forgotten to the insistence of the plot. Her actions are not grounded in our understanding of her introduction. The story should never demand passiveness in a protagonist, and when the protagonist is characterised by passivity for continuity’s sake you have self-sacrificing romance fiction. This counter-productive attitude is amateurish, but the root of the issue lies at the heart of the genre. No matter how a heroine starts out she invariably folds to the rigours of her archetypal storyline.

Does meeting Dane change Hadley? Her lifestyle did not make her content and she awaited the arrival of change that came in the form of a strapping gent. If we ignore the evidence we can argue that Dane allowed her to explore an undiscovered, dormant side of her id, and if so The Truth About the Tycoon is the tale of womanhood and the pitfalls of sexual awakening, the deceit of men and the pain of idealising love, except for here all works out well thanks to an under-cooked thriller subplot. In truth, of course, the book is the tale of true fated love and how our soulmate will find us eventually through a sequence of dubious external contrivances. If you have never read The Truth About the Tycoon the former is a nice way of remembering it.

“He didn't have much choice with her tugging at him the way she was”

For all our talk of Mills & Boon, and this weblog does seem unhealthily devoted to Mills & Boon, there are numerous other ways to see your romance novel published. There will be a time when Bewildered Heart turns its attention to the likes of Josephine Cox, Nora Roberts and Daphne Something, and when we've lost all hope and turned viciously on ourselves you, gentle reader, shall be the first to know. Until then, and as a break from all this Cherish nonsense, let us gaze upon a novel so different from our standard fare that only the name of the publishers offers any semblance of change – Harlequin Presents a Special Edition Harlequin Silhouette, Special Edition.

When Mills & Boon failed to tap the potential of the United States and their many women Simon & Schuster sought to fill that gap, and they called their romance imprint Silhouette. As we've previously established, Harlequin, owned by Torstar, bought Mills & Boon and Silhouette a few years later rendering the whole sordid affair even more trivial than you might have thought. However, before Harlequin changed the banners and confused us more than we would appreciate having to acknowledge Silhouette worked from the same office as Mills & Boon, published the same sort of books with the same sort of titles and same colour covers with the same photographs of couples canoodling, but under a changed tagline of, “For every kind of woman. For every kind of mood.” Hah, that's a lie, isn't it, Harlequin?

In 2005 Allison Leigh wrote The Truth About the Tycoon, and through a twist of coincidence Bewildered Heart found a copy and decided to save itself a trip to the library. Any illusions, or wishful thinkings, that Silhouette might offer a slightly improved approach to romance writing than Mills & Boon were immediately shattered by the blurb, where the reader is introduced to the two leads, a worldly billionaire hiding a devastating secret and a virginal small-town girl named Hadley Golightly. Having read the first three chapters our understanding of what we have in store has worsened to Mills & Boon Modern Romance levels of despair.

Don't take our word for it, however. Allow Bewildered Heart to explain in typically gratuitous detail. Hadley is twenty-seven, loves her life in Montana, runs an infrequently boarded boardinghouse, enjoys baking baked goods and concocting soup. She has never slept with a man and has two brothers and a sister who are always bothering her about her non-existent love life. Oh, Hadley. You're a creature of rare disposition. But look, for there is less to this pretty woman than jumps from the page. She is also tragically shy and easily-frightened, her voice barely audible and her self-esteem a very attractive low.

Meanwhile, our heroic hunk of wealthy masculinity has everything one might expect from such a character, including the name Dane Rutherford. He's curt, arrogant, mind-bogglingly gorgeous, enigmatic and well-travelled. He has two facial scars to reveal his raw manliness and capability of taming, but small scars only a woman gazing very closely would notice. Hadley and Dane meet at the scene of a car crash, shortly after Hadley and Dane's vehicles crash into one another. Hadley comes through without a scrape, but Dane's classic sports car is totalled and he is bleeding from the head. No sooner have they made poor first impressions of themselves has Hadley's brother, the Sheriff, arrived and arrested Dane for driving without a license. Why doesn't Dane have a driving license? Well, he does, it is in his bag, but Dane is concealing a potentially dramatic secret. His name is, in fact, Dane Rutherford, of Rutherford Industries, the biggest corporation in the world of The Truth About the Tycoon.

For Hadley, her brother and the quaint town of Lucius, Dane is the unassuming Atwood Tolliver. In Hadley's naïve and adoring eyes Wood is just an incredibly attractive sports car enthusiast on vacation in chilly Montana, when in fact he is Dane Rutherford, an incredibly attractive billionaire come to town with murder on his mind. Oh yeah! The plot congeals. Hadley is delighted that the pleasant and helpful Wood has decided to stay at her boardinghouse. It allows her the opportunity to test her skills at driving men away and hating herself for having driven a man away. Despite her tuneless mating calls, Dane cannot afford the distraction of romance. Years ago his sister was kidnapped and tormented by the evil Alan Michaels, and his release from prison has caused Dane's father, Roth, to have a heart attack. Therefore only one course of action is open to the son, head to Lucius and begin an unconvincing romance with the local twenty-seven year old virgin.

By the end of the third chapter so much has been established despite very little happening, besides the inciting car wreck and a smattering of meals. Allison Leigh has bought us up to speed and introduced us to the hero and heroine. The lengthy explanations are rather needless though, as so far Dane and Hadley are identical to every pairing in the history of the genre. Yet despite the trappings of the form there are certain deviations that propel The Truth About the Tycoon into the almost palatable. Hadley is neurotic and socially-awkward, yet beautiful and unfailingly friendly. With her easy-going lifestyle, her simple outlook, her casual self-loathing and her upper class stalker there remains an element to her person that makes her relatable to the twenty-seven-year-old virgin whom dwells in all of us.

While the location of Lucius uses every cliché expected of rustic Americana the setting carries with it a predictable charm and the boardinghouse in particular is a novel twist, offering Leigh an opportunity to add an assortment of oddball characters which she manages to squander. This is not our first read of a romance in a small-town in the United States, of course. Finding Nick was set somewhere in Texas, Learning Curves took us into the heart of Arizona and The Dad Next Door played out in whichever state Squam Lake is in. The homespun values of these fictional, idealised locations are well juxtaposed by the demands of an harassed, ruthless billionaire passing through. Modern Romance seems to call for the fast-paced world of urbanity and professionalism. Cherish, and whatever The Truth About the Tycoon turns out to be, can optimise the lax attitude of country living. However, with every writer and reader aware of this obvious contrast one must be careful to avoid slipping into stereotype, fish-out-of-water shenanigans and scenes from Reese Witherspoon movies. While it is too late for Allison Leigh it is worth making a note of it here, for our sake.

This is not our first brush with crime and kidnap either. We all remember MacKenzie's Promise no matter how hard we try to erase it from our collective memory. However, unlike that deeply inappropriate mixture of child-suffering, murder and life-affirming sex, The Truth About the Tycoon suggests a route of the healing power of love. Will Dane find redemption from his dishonesty and homicidal intent through the disarming beauty and innocence of a good woman? In any other genre it would be too early to tell, but with Harlequin Presents a Special Edition Harlequin Silhouette, Special Edition we should avoid becoming too cynical too soon.

What may happen is that Alan Michaels will continue to be evil, and Dane will heroically save another child from the same fate of his sister, but through doing so will reveal his true identity and actual motivations to the increasingly smitten Hadley. At her discovery of his treachery and heroism she will turn away, hurt and shocked, stripped of her innocence and trust, only for Dane's sister to explain what was really going on before Dane returns to say something, or smile, or take his shirt off, leading Hadley to accept that she cannot convince her heart, or brain, otherwise, as she is already head over heels in love with this man, whatever his name is and whoever he turns out to be once he ends the charade of pretending to be a sports car enthusiast to cover his intentions of violent revenge. Hadley didn't even know he was a billionaire Rutherford, and that surely proves how pure her devotion is. At this point that looks the more likely course, but Bewildered Heart hopes for everyone's sanity it is the former. For now at least we have a reason to continue reading.