and the hero is the most gorgeous man that ever lived.  Gag.  I'm 86 pages into Three Nights of Sin by Anne Mallory and I swear they've mentioned this at least 10 times.  It's ruining the book for me.  I don't expect my heroine's to be physically perfect but I can't stand the constant refereces to her "plain brown hair' and her "plain brown eyes" and the constant mention of how every woman who looks at him (including the heroine) ends up in some sort of trance because he's so good looking.  Gag me. 

If you've ever read Diana Palmer, her heroines are not only plain, but small-breasted (and reminded of it, over and over).  Oops, forgot...they are also not "modern-day women" (and also remind their love interest/others of this, over and over), and the hero is usually mean, nasty and a jerk.  I have read several of her books (same formula in each book that I tried), and  DP is now on my "gag me" list  ;)

Oh and it's worse when the hero keeps thinking to himself "I can't believe I'm attracted to this woman who is so plain" gag. 

Oh and it's worse when the hero keeps thinking to himself "I can't believe I'm attracted to this woman who is so plain" gag.

I know!..I hate that...what I notice is when the hero in plain and the heroin is gorgeous then the authors don't constantly mention how the hero is so plain..in fact they always talk about how physically he is great that all women forgets about his look and just looks at his body..*roll eyes*

Oh and it's worse when the hero keeps thinking to himself "I can't believe I'm attracted to this woman who is so plain" gag

The heroine needs to be psychic so she can kick the bum to the curb!  GAG is right!

I can't stand it when the heroine is considered fat or chubby (which is of course mentioned over and over in the book), and the heroine of course doesn't think she's good enough and how can the hero possibly love her fat self - and then somewhere in the story it is divulged she is like a size 8 or 10 or something. Yeah, what a fat cow..sheesh. Makes me want to throw the book across the room, or reach my hand through the pages and smack the heroine over and over for her whining.

MAry - then don't read Mary Balogh's First Comes Marriage (the start of her new series) cause that was the same issue that drove me batty!!!!

she is like a size 8 or 10 or something. Yeah, what a fat cow..sheesh

LOL -- Fat cow indeed!!

I would love to be a size 10 again.

The book did get better.  Once they started having sex the refernces to her plainness pretty much stopped. 

- then don't read Mary Balogh's First Comes Marriage (the start of her new series) cause that was the same issue that drove me batty!!!!

THANK YOU!  When I saw this topic that's immediately where my mind went so I knew I had to comment.  It drove me crazy too, making alot of the book a disappointment.  It went on and on and on about how plain and downright unattractive she was - with even the hero making direct references to her about it.  It was so distracting.  Then, all of a sudden, she was "beautiful" to him. I suppose that's meant to indicate her "inner beauty" overcame her physical deficiencies but by then I was so annoyed that such a big deal was made of her appearance. Annoying!

I also noted this emphasis in First Comes Marriage.  I'm now looking around me wondering, "Is that girl plain?  Or is that plain?  Or is she plain?"  What in the world is plain, anyway!  I don't think I've passed any woman in the last month whose looks would bring that word to my mind first if I were asked to describe her.  Is Mary Balogh channeling Betty Neels?

I have never been able to get over Evangeline being described as looking like a wax doll in Devil in Winter. It's such an unattractive image, I can never believe he actually desires her.

I'm guessing plain is meant to be those who are neither attractive or unattractive?  Maybe it those who aren't ugly, but aren't anything to write home about?  Although I'm looking around and thinking about women I know and there aren't that many who aren't one or the other.  At least in my opinion.  Most women I know are on the medium to low end of attractive to me (as a straight woman), although I do know some women who are gorgeous and a (very) few who I think are very unattractive. I don't know.  I never really thought about what plain means.  Now it's gonna drive me batty.

Crystal that's what I take to mean when author's use it.  I never hear anyone refer to someone as being plain in real life.  They use it alot in historicals.  Anyway he kept repeatedly thinking that there was nothing special about her-her hair was plain brown, her eyes were plain brown-no feature stood out on her-yet she wasn't completely unattractive.  He didn't seem to have anything nice to say about her looks until he had her wear a bunch of makeup to go undercover as a tavern wench. 

Of course very comment about him was how exceptionally good looking he was.  It was just very annoying.

I usually take plain to mean unattractive, though the other intrepretation does make more sense. I can see Susan Boyle described as plain.