Due to a downturn in my dad's health, I'm a little scarcer than normal, but still hope to get some posting done in the midst of everything else.

This file was on the hard drive of the puter that got virusified, under the filename "manifesto"

• I like beautiful heroines. Not that there is only one kind of beautiful, but I want her to have impact.
• I like blond heroes. Or red-haired. Or bald. I honestly do not have a preferred hair color, but please, for the love of creamed corn, if hair is "dark," say dark what.
• I like stories that play out over years instead of weeks or months.
• I like stories that sweep across continents.
• I like it when beloved secondary characters die in the course of the plot.
• But not the dog, cat or horse.
• I want someone’s heart to break.
• I like long separations.
• I don’t mind if the hero or heroine has other spouses after meeting their true love, as long as they wind up together in the end.
• I like heroines who disguise themselves as male, and I like when they have to work to keep from being found out.
• I like it when they finally are.
• I like it when they transition back to being girly again.
• I like when hero and heroine clash.
• I want the highs to be worth the lows.
• I want my history to be an integral part of the romance.
• I want it to do that without turning into a textbook.
• I like it when the mores of the time affect how the hero and heroine deal with their attraction to each other.
• I want books to be real; sympathetic characters do, feel, and say not so nice things. They can have moments of being selfish, mean, fearful, dense, etc, and still be a hero or heroine.
• I want to break the box, take the risks, do something new.

Do you agree with any of these, or do they push your hot buttons?