Pet Peeves

9/8/10 recently edited, changed the date.
3/15/10 So, it's only fair to reveal my biases.  Here is a list of my pet peeves in romance novels, things that automatically prejudice me against a book, even if otherwise it's pretty good.

1. The hero is staying away from the heroine "for her own good" (or vice versa).  So, unlike everyone else on the planet, I couldn't stand Derek Craven (in Dreaming of You Kleypas).  and the 2nd Twilight novel?  HATED.
2. The central conflict between hero and heroine could be resolved if they just sat down and talked.  Ideal Wife (Balogh) for example, or Heartless.  And even though I know I'm in the minority here, I'd include Bet Me.
3.  The heroine has a child by the hero and doesn't tell him. That's just not right.  Especially since in every case, she ends up together with the guy, so he couldn't possibly have been so awful, and she's kept him away from his child all these years.  I read a Linda Howard where the kid was 15 and the dad didn't even know he existed.  The only one I've read that sort of worked was one where she got pregnant on a tropical vacation and didn't know the guy's last name, so there was no way she could find him.  But it wasn't that great a story overall and I can't remember the name of it.
4. Paranormal.  This one I'm sort of iffy on.  I've enjoyed a few-- Dogs and Goddesses, for example, and The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes.  But usually this is a turnoff for me.  Major turnoff when the heroine is an angst-ridden psychic who is carrying the burdens of everyone around her and no one understands how difficult it is (Carolina Moon. Dream Man. nuff said. and worse: Uncertain Magic, which also had pet peeve #2 in spades.)  Don't know why that bugs me so much but it does.  The whole martyr thing, you know?
5. Public denouements.  This one is just me.  The other ones I can make up some sort of rational argument to support, but this is just my personality.  To me, romantic relationships are private.  Sure there are plenty of novels where the supporting cast of characters are intertwined and mixed up in the plot (I actually love that), but the central resolution should take place when it's just the two of them.  Hated the end of 27 Dresses.  Why the hell did she need to declare her love for him over a microphone at an event with a bunch of strangers?  Same for Just One of the Guys (Higgins)(although the crowd wasn't all strangers at least, in that case).
6. And the corollary to #5:  exhibitionism.  Of course if you're a private sort of person, exhibitionism is not going to do it for you.  That would be me.  Crusie has several novels which tend this way, unfortunately.  Phin and Sophie in the middle of the night in her driveway out in the country I'm OK with.  Nick and Tess in the pool in his backyard are not a problem.  But Tell Me Lies, which I really loved up until about three-quarters of the way through it, has this one scene where the heroine shows how she has decided not to let other people's opinions run her life by scooting herself up onto the back of her boyfriend's convertible as he's driving down the road and pulling her shirt and bra off, and then making love to him by the side of the road.  At the time I was reading it, I was still driving my son and four of his friends to softball practice every afternoon.  I couldn't get over the huge cringe factor involved in me driving by in my minivan with all my 8- to 10- year-olds in tow, while they're going at it by the side of the road.  And Strange Bedpersons (the Nick and Tess referred to above), don't even get me started.  She finds a guy she's crazy about, and then she breaks up with him because he won't make love to her in the front seat of his car in a public parking lot?  and she seduces him on a piano in a museum?  I hated Tess--which is unfortunate because I should have loved her:  someone who has had to come through the same transition as me from being an overly idealistic 22-year-old to joining the real world.  But I still loved Nick, and his secretary, Christine, and Tess does change over the course of the novel, so I'm giving her a pass on that one.

So there you have it.  I'll probably think of more, so this may get edited.

What I love?  well, good grammar is sort of mandatory (although one might point out that my own grammar often leaves something to be desired), and surprisingly often there are pretty huge errors in published novels.  Love humor and snappy dialogue.  Love Jennifer Crusie and Loretta Chase, mainly. :-)  I wish they wrote more often.