![]() ![]() The meddling, strong-willed older woman, in this case the Dowager Duchess of Claremont, appears in most of McNaught’s “classic” books. And then there are some of McNaught’s own typical plot elements. There’s the much older, alpha hero – and all of McNaught’s heroes are about as alpha as it’s possible to get – with a tormented past that makes him distrustful of all women, particularly sweet and innocent ones. There’s the sweet, innocent, extremely virginal heroine, a girl from an unremarkable upbringing who nevertheless suffers no real difficulty in transforming herself into an Incomparable. True, Once and Always utilizes many of the stereotypes of older romance fiction. Not so with Judith McNaught’s Once and Always. But viewed from the perspective of today’s shorter romances, many of those extra words seem superfluous – too much narrative, too much irrelevant description, and far too little action or character development. So many of the “classic” romances I read when I was younger seem dated now, relics of a simpler time when men were men, women were women, and authors could write 150,000-word novels and not get half of the words slashed out by ruthless, pen-wielding editors. ![]()
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