Heh. I'm boggling that anyone would automatically equate taller with "more manly." I mean, haven't they looked at men like the ones I named? Humina humina....

including the one with the feeder hero

Que?

I think that description is good, though you do repeat words too closely together for my personal tastes (because it's a HUGE tic of mine), but I like it.

But, another personal thing, Julius's - I think this discussion has been had before, but I would use Julius'.

Oh, Jayne Ann Krentz writing as Amanda Quick had a chubby heroine who got lost in the antartic or some place very cold like that, and got all slim and ethereal. The faux hero liked it and would frown at her if she reached for a second dinner roll. Our manly (and jaw-droppingly gorgeous) hero would offer her the roll, butter it for her and add more jam because he liked her with an incipient double chin, erm... a softness to the lower jaw and thought she needed feeding up; though, of course, he was bad for her and couldn't marry her. He showed his love with food. I feel like I should do a, "thereluvissopure!1!" thing here, though Ms. Krentz is all about the female orgasm, usually before she knows such a thing exists. She learns at the hands (inadvertent pun) of the hero in most of those books, I believe.

I have read her only as AQ, and, somehow, the thought of the feeder hero is just as creepy as the disapproving starverer faux hero.

But, another personal thing, Julius's - I think this discussion has been had before, but I would use Julius'.

I can't find my copy at the moment, but I'm 99% sure I'm doing it the way Strunk & White say you should.

As for repeated words, that's something I'll need to look for carefully when I'm editing this thing, because I'll be writing slowly, or get distracted or take a break between one paragraph and the next, and will honestly not notice I've done it. Just a bad habit of mine.

I'm going to go try to sleep, though I doubt it will go well, since this house is too damned hot. Sigh.

She has three names, JAK, JA Castle and AQ. The feeder hero was a little creepy to me. That was AQ. Castle is a different planet with psionics and marriage contracts. I like them, though they're definitely not great literature. I believe there are only three of them, all named after flowers. The Krentz books (her real name, I believe) are like the Quicks but contemporary. They're fun too, though I've gotten tired of her naive, touchy-feely heroine/grumpy, vulcan hero thing.

But, another personal thing, Julius's - I think this discussion has been had before, but I would use Julius'.

I can't find my copy at the moment, but I'm 99% sure I'm doing it the way Strunk & White say you should.

I prefer the way Elena recommended, but I think Susan is right - that style guides say to include the second s. However, (to me) because it appears in first person narration, either is allowable. Susan is only transcribing the heroine's thoughts and the heroine thought Julius's.

Indeed, I suspected that the reason this man galloped about the countryside on an elegant little Arabian rather than a rangy hunter like Hal and Julius favored was yet another species of male vanity. A short man would not show to as good advantage on a seventeen-hand hunter.

Heh. I like this. It does a nice job of letting us know a little bit about the way the narrator things along with feeding us description of the hero.

Susan, the quanitity of descriptive seems basically fine to me, because it's a Regency. Georgette Heyer is the gold standard, and you know precisely what everyone's wearing, down to the pink rosettes in their hair. Regency has its own language, I think.

I'd add one comment to the above:

He looked at me properly for the first time, and I noticed his vivid, dark blue eyes. I had never seen such a color before.

This is the only thing in there that pinged me, and only in the presentation. For me, that first bit is awkward, and reads as telling; a rephrase along the lines of

He looked at me properly for the first time, and I noticed his eyes. I had never seen such a color before - they were a dark, vivid, blue.

I don't know why that reads so much more true to voice, but it seems to. Maybe because I dealt with the "long gleaming dark brown tresses" earlier in the week, or possibly because I'm undercoffeed.

I like that--thanks, deb.