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Just a little anecdote: Usually I'm on the side that a romance novel can take its time getting to the love interest, because I've hardly ever encountered a book where that was a serious problem. Yet this week by coincidence I ran into two romance novels (different authors) that seemed to take way too long to get to the hero. In both cases he didn't show up until more than 10% into the book, which corresponded to the 4th chapter in one and the 5th chapter in the other. In both cases when the hero did show up he was presented as mysterious and no insight into his thoughts was given. Perhaps in both cases the authors got a bit carried away with trying to keep secrets from the reader - that seems to be a common thing for writers to succumb to the temptation of in other areas, like plot and worldbuilding, so I can imagine how it might happen in the area of characterization too.
I just mention it because this was a bit of an eye-opening experience for me. It felt like the books just couldn't carry their own weight when it was just the heroine encountering the initial problem and ensuing complications. I'm not sure if that's because I just didn't find either heroine to be that interesting, or if the writing was overall lacking in descriptiveness and didn't create immersion, or what. Maybe it wasn't a pacing problem at all, but instead the appearance of the love interests just added some pleasant romantic character interaction that distracted me from the books other problems.
I just mention it because this was a bit of an eye-opening experience for me. It felt like the books just couldn't carry their own weight when it was just the heroine encountering the initial problem and ensuing complications. I'm not sure if that's because I just didn't find either heroine to be that interesting, or if the writing was overall lacking in descriptiveness and didn't create immersion, or what. Maybe it wasn't a pacing problem at all, but instead the appearance of the love interests just added some pleasant romantic character interaction that distracted me from the books other problems.