Look Closely (Mills & Boon M&B)

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Baby of Shame is quite common.

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The more I listen, the more I realise that every possible combination of romantic stories is for sale here. If you want to read about a gynaecologist who has lost his arms, there will be a book. If you want to read about a typist who has lost her legs, there will be a book. They publish novels a year. The hero will always be attractive.

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He will always have a basic integrity because he has to be a man the reader can love. He is always difficult initially but there is always a reason why he is difficult. But, prodded by the heroine, who cannot smoke or admit to multiple lovers, he will be redeemed. And so she is empowered. She is a saviour. I still keep expecting to be given the formula.

The scenarios can be outrageous. But they must be characters the readers can believe in.

Then I have a mad conversation with some women from the editorial department. First I say I want a war correspondent hero who doesn't trust women because the girl he loved was blown up in Sierra Leone. Then I say I want a billionaire newspaper proprietor who my journalist heroine falls in love with but they can't be together because he votes Conservative and she votes Labour. Then I want to set something in rehab.

I feel they are knocking my ideas down. They take this incredibly seriously.

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They say things like "Mediterranean hero equals passion" and "Billionaire sells" in the same tone you would say, "Your father is dead. They are selling dried goods. In fact, the managing director, Guy Hallowes, is leaving soon, to be replaced by Jane Ferguson, the woman who runs Ryvita. I walk out of the office and ignore everything they have told me. I don't read 50 current books. And I realise I hate the characters. I call it Abducted by Reality. The men are appalling. They are always saying things like, "You are a stupid little fool!

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So I decide to talk to some. One of them says she has five university degrees. You escape to another place and another world. I am now a little chastened. So I sit down to write. But I find I can't do the sample chapter and synopsis. I know I am supposed to write about a believable heroine falling in love with a believable hero and having a believable happy ending.

This is what the experts have told me; this is what the readers expect. But, to my surprise, I simply cannot do it. I can't even begin to write a woman I like enough to give a lover to. Begin with myself, you say? There is nothing heroic about me. I am bilious and I smoke. Ready to become a book-a-month girl?

A woman who does not believe herself loveable enough to write a hero for? So I borrow a pair of cliches and swim into pastiche. I write a prim, virginal heroine. Her name is Lucy and she grew up in a mining town. Her chain-smoking mother worked nights at a toy factory to send her to private school. Lucy works for the Guardian, where she dreams of being taken off the dressing-up-as-a-fairy-for-Glastonbury rota, "and given a shot at a real story!

Either way, I hate her. And my hero is just a prat.

He is called Darcy and he is a billionaire media tycoon. He hates women because his mother died of a diabetic fit, when he was supposed to be looking after her. But he went out riding instead. Once I have Lucy and Darcy, I begin to write a ridiculously hackneyed plot in which my cliches get on and off aeroplanes and my cliches have sex and my cliches cry and my cliches get drunk and roll about on the floor, moaning and saying things like, "I always believed in you. I am pleased with myself when I have finished.

I am particularly pleased that at the end Darcy buys Lucy the Guardian and she installs herself as editor, with a pro-shoes agenda. I cannot believe this. It didn't convince me. I decide they said they loved it because I am a journalist. They get 4, submissions a year — and 10 will make it. The only link Jemima Barber has to her troubled late twin sister is her nephew. One delicious hook-up dealOne rule—no falling in love. Mia Abbott never backs down from a challenge—especially one posed by sexy widowed billionaire Kit Fau A guilty secret, and even guiltier pleasures!.

Reformed conman Xander King and his stepsister Poppy both sense their electric chemistry. A guilty secret……gives way to guilty pleasures! Reformed conman Xander King and his stepsister Poppy both sense the electric chemistry between them.

Inconveniently Wed by Yvonne Lindsay. You are viewing this site in an old browser or Internet Explorer compatiblity mode.

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