If there’s one night of the year that doesn’t suggest a happy-ever-after, it’s Halloween. On this ghoulish eve, any hint of sentiment is well and truly dead and buried, replaced with swollen, manically grinning pumpkins, crooked witches hats, stick-on warts, gruesome masks and thousands of terrifyingly realistic plastic spiders. It doesn’t really shout romance, does it?

 

Of course, ‘drop-dead-gorgeous’ takes on a whole new, rather redundant meaning, when the one man you’ve been crushing on for months turns up to the party in badly applied white face paint and fake blood dribbling from his mouth. Irresistible.

 

Frankly, for the week leading up to 31^st October, most of us are gibbering wrecks, terrified of every single knock on the door and convinced that the small child screeching ‘Trick or Treat?’ is an axe murderer in disguise. In fact, by the time the dreaded All Hallow’s Eve is finally here, we’ve managed to persuade ourselves that all those fantastical, nightmarish creatures must exist…why else would there be stories about them?!

 

Whilst our own books might not have sadistic grim reapers and zombie brides leaping from the pages, here at Romance HQ we’ve been getting into the Halloween spirit…and some of our editors have shared those ‘romantic’ descriptions that make their skin crawl! Of course, one woman’s fear is another woman’s fantasy…so here’s a few for you to make your own mind up over!

 

‘Waggling eyebrows – they’re not sexy, ever!’

 

‘Even, perfect white teeth, they’re just as bad as a heroine with small hands!’

 

‘A heroine running her tongue across her upper and lower lip. Really? Who does that?!’

 

‘Tongue in the ear, really…it’s just so unhygienic, and the noise! Utter turn off – and just as revolting as a tongue in the belly button.’

 

‘Manhoods pressed against the heroine’s belly. Pause for geographical information…’

 

‘The heroine slips and a strong arm reaches out to steady her. Where does this arm come from?’

 

‘Double denim. Just, no.’

 

‘Pubic hair. Shaving, waxing, trimming…the hero’s involvement with aforementioned. Never.’

 

‘The hero with the hairy back. No, real life werewolves just aren’t sexy…’

 

‘The use of the word ‘baby’ as a term of endearment. You met four minutes ago…!’

 

‘Nether lips. Enough said.’

 

‘Heroes who take themselves too seriously. There’s nothing less attractive than a sense of humour failure.’

 

‘Suckle. A description reserved for piglets and other baby animals, not for the bedroom…’

Evidently, as an editor, there are some things that are a whole lot scarier than Halloween. In a romance, you want to be trembling for all the right reasons – not the wrong ones!

So do tell us, whether it’s fear or fantasy…which ‘sexy’ descriptions make you jump as if you’ve seen a ghost?

By The Mills & Boon team