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Gaze lovingly, then look within

From the covers of most romance novels, the casual reader would think all romance heroines are magazine-cover beautiful. But what's on the cover and what's in the pages are often worlds apart.

"Inside, it's about finding someone who loves you completely just the way you are, even in your puppy-dog jammies," says romance blogger Sarah Wendell, co-author of Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches' Guide to Romance Novels.

And the depiction of heroines as impossibly perfect beauties is an outdated image that "was always unbelievable and has changed and changed quickly," Wendell says. "The standard has become much more sophisticated and diverse."

As a romance fan and writer, Maya Rodale says much more emphasis is now placed on "feeling beautiful instead of just looking beautiful." That makes the books "much more fun and more relatable," says Rodale, 28, of New York, whose books are set in Regency (early 19th-century) England.

In A Tale of Two Lovers, the latest installment in her Writing Girls series about female newspaper writers, Lord Simon Roxbury is attracted to statuesque society writer Julianna Somerset not because of her physical features but "because of her devilish curiosity," Rodale says. "He admires her boldness and sense of adventure."

Says writer Nalini Singh: "People often forget that in romance novels, you're seeing the heroine through the eyes of the hero 90% of the time. Beauty becomes a very individual thing."

When two characters meet, "they may not be attracted to one another at first, but as they get to know each other, you see them fall in love. In the end, he sees beauty in her.

"That's part of the joy of romance novels, to see that journey," says Singh, 33, of Auckland, New Zealand.

Writer Beverly Jenkins prefers not giving a very detailed description of physical beauty when crafting her heroines. Their beauty is in "who they are and how they live their lives," says Jenkins, 59, of Bellevue, Mich. Her books range from historical romances that highlight African-American life in the 19th century to contemporary suspense romances, to young-adult novels and inspirational women's fiction.

Her latest historical romance, Midnight, is set against the American Revolution and tells the story of black men and women who contribute to the rebel effort.

"I have women who are the first African-African doctors, journalists and business owners in my stories," Jenkins says. "I don't really do that whole physical beauty thing, whether it's 10 tons of hair, big boobs or whatever else men are supposed to be attracted to. My heroes are attracted to what she's got going on underneath all that.

"We are more beautiful under the surface than we are on the surface. I try to tap into that."

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