I'm only doing this because I love you

It's that time of year again, a time for love, a time for hearts and flowers, a time for showing affection through little, or not so little, tokens of esteem, a time for being sold overpriced tat by ruthless flint-souled commercial bloodsuckers exploiting your panicked need to conform to an artificially inflated non-festival.  And I know you feel that need to buy something, anything, no matter how pink, how tacky, to show you care.  So, yes, you could shell out thirty quid on six crispy roses and a card that will go straight in the bin because she really doesn't want to date a man with no imagination.

Or you could gift your beloved a copy of Looking for Buttons.

It's FREE to download from Amazon on February 14th, but I won't tell them if you don't.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Romance: the proof is in the reading

Writing a romance should be easy.  You take a man and a woman, throw in a few complications, shake it about a bit et voila!  Only I don't think it works like that.

I've read books that have made me swoon.  I've read a fair few more that have led me to consider lobbying for book-throwing to be considered an Olympic sport.  In almost every case, the problem was the same.  The protagonists were annoying.  In the far off days when I made a point of finishing every book I started, Wuthering Heights nearly brought on apoplexy.  Now I recognise that it is regarded as a classic, but Cathy and Heathcliffe irritated me beyond endurance (I was nineteen at the time, an age when I would have expected star-crossed lovers to appeal).  On the other hand, I've rooted all the way through an Alistair MacLean thriller for the hero to get the girl and had my heartstrings well and truly yanked when she didn't make it to the final page in one piece.

So is it just a matter of taste in the reader or is there something more to it?  What makes one pairing iconic and another moronic?

Anybody want to share their favourite couples here?