What’s wrong with these books?

• The women step so fast that their skirts flutter about their ankles.
• A curl is forever falling over her eye (or sometimes his).
• The male love interest is invariably over six feet tall (in the early 1800s) with a chiseled body to rival Greek statues.
• Someone is often willing to “trade her [littlest] finger for . . .”
• Fingerfuls of brandy are splashed into glasses, which are usually then filled to the brim.
• Oh, so often, something really isn’t well done.
• Someone (usually male) often rubs a lock of hair between thumb and forefinger.
• Stray locks are often tucked behind her ear.
• People turn their heads so fast they wrench the muscles of their necks.
• Tense characters grip the edge of a table or the arm of a chair hard enough to leave crescent marks. (Sometimes those crescent marks are on palms.)
• People have thick dark hooded lashes.
• When angry, characters often grit their teeth or clench their teeth so hard that pain radiates or shoots up their jaws.

• his head reeling to the side
• eldest vs. elder when there are only two
• to not get
• two very entirely different
• where she was far safer to his senses
• there, with but the risk of a patron passing by away from ruin, he kissed her
• most unfavorable of light
• to their respective box (or chair)
• there is nothing unordinary
• little expectations
• still bore the blunt of his fist
• as always, entirely, too cheerful
• I came tonight at the bequest of my sister

So why is this a bestselling author?

• The heroines are NOT universally gorgeous, perfectly proportioned, and virtuous.
• Heroines are smart, active, resourceful, and brave.
• Often minor characters in one book become the principles in subsequent books, offering continuity.
• And there are usually breaches of the class lines of the period.