Good-bye Heathcliff: Changing Heroes, Heroines, Roles, and Values in Women’s Category Romances

This was reviewed by Carol Thurston (the review's not visible here unless you can log in to JSTOR) but here's an excerpt of the review (in NWSA Journal 1.4 (1989): 736-737):

Mariam Frenier, author of Good-bye Heathcliff, presents evidence to support two important conclusions: sex-role portrayals of both heroines and heroes in series romances published between 1970 and the mid-1980s underwent significant change, and important differences now exist between American and British portrayals of heroes and heroines in this type of romance. Frenier devotes a third of her book to thirty-one pre-1982 Harlequin Romance and Presents titles written by British authors, then follows with an analysis of post-1982 American authors and series titles (including some Harlequins, but not Romances and Presents). She finds that Romances and Presents - which are still generated primarily in England by English authors and editors - exhibit "more hackneyed plots" and fewer role reversals, along with wider differences between heroines and heroes when it comes to status, age, and sexual experience, not to mention heroes who are physically threatening. (736)

Thurston, also a romance scholar, does not seem to dispute these findings, but nonetheless points to "ubiquitous errors in substantive information" (737) about romance publishing in Frenier's work.