She trembled at his touch

Author
Publication year
1981
Journal
Quarto
Volume
May
Pages
17-18
Comment

I have not been able to locate a copy of this myself, but Nickianne Moody (1998) reports that McNeil identified "the five plot types in Mills and Boon fiction of the 1970s" (144) and includes a substantial description of McNeil's findings:

In the main her plot types are derived from literary romances e.g. 'Pamissa' which is a combination of Richardson's Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740) and Clarissa Harlowe (1747). The plot acknowledges and resolves the different interests between genders which can be expressed economically or spiritually. The desirable, often working class, heroine has to resist the hero's advances until he has proposed marriage. McNeil's first plot type, the 'Cinderella', is purely a fantasy of class. McNeil sees the 'Cinderella' narrative as a derivation of the governess plot found in Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847). The heroine for this plot type is intelligent but poor, and McNeil suggests that before 1970, Mills and Boon featured many worthy shop girls who made good marriages. Moreover, the doctor/nurse romances so popular before that time also reinstate the governess plot. The 'Rebecca' plot, named after Daphne du Maurier's pre-war novel, is also a fantasy of class. The second wife or girlfriend is a quiet mousy type who has to live up to the sexual aggression of her predecessor. The narrative expresses both social and sexual unease. Such embarrassment and social anxiety is also found in the 'Masquerade' plot. The heroine finds herself in a situation where she pretends to be engaged/married to her social superior. The 'Bartered Bride' plot reverses marriage and courtship as the heroine is traded, usually by her father, to a man she hates but eventually comes to love and respect. (Moody 144)

Moody adds more detail regarding the

fifth plot type which she [i.e. McNeil] calls 'Masquerade'. Once again the narrative is class oriented. The heroine lays claim to a man above her station by pretending or being forced to act as the wife/girlfriend of the hero even though she is not. The significance of the 'Masquerade' plot is that the heroine has to be humiliated in the process of this farce before the happy ending can take place. (146)