Category Archives: All About Romance

Hey, you. Yeah, you. Do you read historical romance novels? If so, are there certain time periods in which you love for stories to be set, and certain ones that are an automatic turn-off? How about geographically speaking? Do you prefer your love stories to take place in England? More exotic locales? Are some regions likely to increase your desire to read the tale, or to make you set the book back down?

Inquiring authors want to know. And yes, I ask this question as an author, but I also ask it as a reader, because I have some definite opinions/feelings/biases about those very questions.

I love Regency romance novels. They’ve been my thing for a quite a while, and are the setting in which I intend to write most of my own romances. Give me a Julia Quinn, an Eloisa James, a Sabrina Jeffries book any day! Some people would say, “Boring. Been there, done that. There are already too many Regency romances on the market.” Not for me. I can’t quite explain it – the Regency period is NOT one of the time periods I studied while a history major in college or a history grad student. More’s the pity – what a help that would be for my research! But there’s something about the Cinderella-esque fantasy of the aristocracy – of dukes and earls and viscounts and the like. Especially if those dukes and earls and viscounts are falling in love with the spinsters and governesses and quirky blue stockings to which many of us feel we can relate (O.K., I assume given the high sales of these kinds of books that I’m not the only modern reader who finds something in that period that resonates, at least.). I’d love to think I would have been born a duchess had I lived in the 19th century, but I’m pretty sure I would have been that duchesses’ chambermaid, if anything.

You’d think given my focus on medieval history as a doctoral student that that would be the time period most likely to reel me in. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. I love almost everything written by Lynn Kurland, whose time-travel romances often zip between the medieval period and today. Jude Devereaux‘s A Knight in Shining Armor is in my Top 5 Romances of All Time list. There are numerous fabulous authors of medieval romance, including early favorites of mine, Julie Garwood and Virginia Henley. Still, I don’t go for this time period as much as I used to, and I don’t quite know why. Maybe it’s a guilty reminder of how much I’ve forgotten from my (allegedly) intellectual days. Of course my current addiction to the BBC series Merlin *has* reignited the flame for knights and castles and damsels kicking ass, so perhaps that will induce me to set a future story in Arthurian England.

A third favorite is the American west in pioneering days, although I admit I read more of these (and saw more of these) in the 1980s and 1990s. Nothing like the school marm and sheriff to set the sparks flying. LaVyrle Spencer comes to mind here – boy, are her books wonderful! Linda Lael Miller, Johanna Lindsey, Elizabeth Lowell… oh yeah. Are fewer of these published now, or has my Regency fixation kept me unaware of the newer authors in this genre?

Those three eras in history are the ones most likely to catch my notice when browsing the romances in a store. Eras likely to turn me off? I don’t tend to care for most 20th century romances – and by this, I mean historical, not contemporary. Maybe it feels too close to our current day. If my grandparents were alive in the time period during which the main characters lived, well, that seems to keep me away. Not that there aren’t brilliant works of romantic fiction set in WWI and WWII eras – they’re just not for me. I’m also not as interested in Renaissance/Early Modern era romances (1500s-1700s), although again, I don’t know why. I studied this period a lot in grad school, so why doesn’t it trip my trigger? *shrugs*

I’m a little embarrassed to talk about my geographical preferences, since they are very western-Civ in nature. Maybe it’s because it’s the culture and background with which I’m most familiar, but I do seem to gravitate toward books set in England or America. I’m less likely, to my everlasting shame, to pick up a romance set in Asia or Africa or South America. *hides head* I’m sorry, world! I’m going for painful honesty here! Although I did read a few of Mary Jo Putney‘s romances recently that had her heroines and heroes racing all around the Middle East, and yes, they were excellent. And I’ll take a Lisa Kleypas novel no matter when/where it’s set! I’m just talking general preferences. 

O.K., having given you my answers, I’d love to hear yours.

Would you read romances set in ancient Rome? Medieval Germany? (Yeah, I ask about those two because they are the two areas in which I used to be the most learned, and which still fascinate me – and in which I could consider setting future stories.)

What historical time periods and geographic regions do you feel are underrepresented in the romance genre?

I’ve talked recently about what makes a great romance novel hero and heroine for me, but I want to throw it out to you today on an absolutely superficial level and ask, what kinds of men and women do you find most attractive on a purely physical basis? Do you like a hard-bodied man with big, rippling muscles, or do you prefer a lankier type? Do blonde women really have more fun, or are brunettes the stunners that catch your eye? How about faces? What do you notice first about them? Eyes? Lips? Proportions? Expressions? Do you think thin, angular women are sexier, or those with curves and a little meat on the bones? When you watch a man walk, are you checking out his shoulders, his legs, or, ahem, somewhere in between? Does size really matter?

Girls like me wanna know.

I’ve heard red-headed heroes don’t fare particularly well as romance leads. Is that true for you? Flaxen hair seems more common on heroines than ebony tresses – or do I maybe just notice that more? And do heroes or heroines EVER have rich chocolately eyes instead of those the color of the sea in a storm?

I myself prefer the tall, dark, handsome, and somewhat lanky hero type, a la Robert Pattinson or Ralph Fiennes. With gorgeous blueish-greenish-grayish-yummyish eyes. I guess that’s more medium than dark. Whatever. As a teen in the 80’s I thought there was no one sexier than a blond-headed man. Yet now? Not so much. With exceptions, of course, including my beloved, sexy, snaggle-toothed (at least before he fixed them) Bradley James, who played Prince Arthur in the recent BBC series Merlin. Whoah, mama, he’s fine. But most of the time it’s the tall, chestnut-haired, light-eyed, leanly muscled fellows that are gonna start me drooling. Especially if they have nice mouths. I notice mouths a lot. Is that kooky? If so, blame my mother – she’s the one who taught me to focus on lips and such because she always talks about them herself.

As for women, I admit it, I tend to think of blonde-haired blue-eyed beauties for romance heroines. Bad Margaret. Bad. (In my defense, of the 5-6 additional stories I’ve sketched out, I’ve made sure to have 3 of the heroines have darker locks – and two have darker eyes, as well.) I like my women to have curves, too, because, well, I do (although they don’t need as many as I have, unless they’d like to help me out by taking a few of these pounds off my hands. And my hips.).

Hopefully as I get farther down this writing path I shall challenge my own preferences, because certainly there must be people out there hankering after fellows with straw-colored hair and walnut eyes, just as there have got to be people for whom anything less than a raven-haired vixen with mahogany orbs just won’t do. And I haven’t even mentioned people of other ethnic backgrounds, although there are certainly many men and women from all over the world and all sorts of heritages that I find super sexy. I guess when reading romance, because I read Regencies, perhaps, most of the characters are white-skinned. Most, not all. Have you read romances featuring a broader selection of ethnicities?

In any case, let me know what gets your juices flowing. And if you need a little eye candy to help you out, here’s my Pinterest board full of people I find attractive. Which of course I have purely for research. Right? Right.

A few weeks ago, I mused on what makes a great hero – and asked for your own definitions of the ideal man.

Today I’m wondering, what characteristics in a heroine appeal most and least to you?

I’m pretty sure I read somewhere once that romance novel heroines are intentionally less well-defined and sketched out than the heroes are, because authors know that we the readers want to be able to imagine ourselves in the place of the heroine. At the time, I balked at that notion, thinking of all the descriptions of flowing hair and heaving bosoms that I’ve read over the years. I certainly was never a diamond of the first water with an enviable waist size and the ability to outride, outshoot, or outfox the handsome devil determined to stir up trouble (and my hormones).

And yet, I think there is some truth to it. Or at least some truth to the fact that I want heroines who feel like someone I think I could be – or would want to be. Perfect heroines don’t interest me. Neither do perfect heroes. I like flaws. I like challenges. I guess most of us do – perfection may seem fine for models in a magazine, but for characters in a book, give me depth, give me quirks, give me faults and foibles and challenges to be overcome.

But a heroine with spunk? Yes, please. Anxiety rules my own life, so it’s fun for me to pretend, if just for a little while, that fear doesn’t dictate my every action, that I would be willing to sass the Duke, to defy the Viscount, to seduce the Earl. An adventuresome, bold heroine can make me feel like I’m behaving in ways that I’m not, just because I’ve immersed myself in her story and taken on her identity, if you will.

Yet there are definitely things that make or break a heroine for me, some character traits or idiosyncrasies that can make a heroine really pop – or really turn me off.

Maybe it’s because I’m, um, getting older, but I don’t usually care for the super-young heroines. In the 1980’s, when I first started reading romance, it seemed every hero was 32 or 34, and every heroine was 17 or 18. When I was 9, 10, 14, 16 (don’t tell my mom I started reading romances at 9), this sounded hot. Now it sounds creepy. So I’m grateful that many of the newer authors are giving us heroines in their 20’s, and sometimes – wait for it – even in their 30’s.

On the other hand, I’m such a traditionalist in romance that I still prefer my heroines not to have slept with everyone in town. Yes, it’s ludicrous as a feminist in the 21st century to want less sexually-experienced women to star in my beloved stories. Yes, it’s a double-standard in that I don’t expect the same of the heroes, but hey, I’m just being honest. That doesn’t mean I think everyone has to be a virgin – I definitely like that sexual purity is not the sole thing that defines a “good” woman anymore. And I appreciate the authors who throw in a virgin hero every once in a while, just to shake things up.

But I’m still not wild about novels featuring women who are courtesans or experienced mistresses or former prostitutes. Maybe because I’ve never felt the desire to be a courtesan, even a reformed one. For me sex and love are intimately intertwined, in real life and in romance. Not everybody feels that way, and that’s fine. Just a personal preference.  You can bet that fidelity between the hero and heroine is also a must for me. Rakes make great heroes as long as they’re reformed – or reform for the heroine.

My favorite heroines are the quirky ones. The ones who don’t quite fit the norm. I want them smart – very smart. Give them a love for books. Make them fascinated with bugs or maps or ancient history. Have them be less than physically perfect – maybe they need glasses, or walk with a limp, or have a darling lisp. Perhaps they’re even, *gasp*, slightly plump. When a heroine has something that marks her as a little different, a little more of an outsider, I immediately fall for her. Because *I* have always felt a little different, a little on the outside.

Stick those little differences on a beautiful, daring, witty, alluring heroine, and I’m enthralled. It’s like I get to be the weird me and the sexy seductress, all at the same time. A little Velma and a whole lot of Daphne, instead of the other way around.  And the best part? The hero is going to fall for it, all of it, the whole package. If he can fall for that, he could fall for ME, right?

How about you?

If you’re a lover of romance like I am, you know a lot of the enjoyment of any given romance novel hinges on the hero: if he’s not appealing, chances are you won’t get into the book and may even set it aside in search for the next great fictional man of your dreams.

But of course what appeals to you may not appeal to me. This is evident whenever I talk with friends about what and whom we find attractive (in the physical sense as well as in discussing desirable personality or character traits), and has become even more obvious when I look at pics of guys that other romance writers have pinned up on Pinterest or posted on Twitter. I see a lot of big, beefy, muscular-but-with-zero-fat men covered with tattoos. Huge biceps, huge shoulders, and sometimes chins and cheekbones so over-chiseled I’m sure they’ve been surgically enhanced.

I’m glad that those guys are appealing to whomever pinned their photo, but they don’t do it for me (here’s who does). Too many muscles are quite simply a turn-off. I seem to go for the slightly quirky type – in looks sometimes and especially in who they are as a person. Yes, in my novels (the ones I read, and the ones I write) I like for them to be lean and slightly muscular – but I always imagine the guy looking more like a runner or a swimmer than a bodybuilder. I prefer the pairing of darker hair and lighter eyes. In fiction, at least – my husband’s chocolate eyes make me melt every time. Blond heroes in books don’t cut it for me – they make better villains. Neither do completely dominant or perfect-sounding heroes. I like flaws. I like rawness. I like hidden secrets. I like emotional pain that no one else other than I… er, I mean, the heroine…can help the hero overcome.

The description above matches many of the descriptions of heroes in the books I read. Go figure. But the vision I conjure in my head is probably different from the one you conjure in yours. And that’s what makes romances so great – we can make the hero be whomever we want him to be, within the parameters set by the author. Or heck, we can even defy those. My cousin read my draft of “A Man of Character” last year and said she always thought of the Grayson character as being blond and looking somewhat like Alexander Skarsgaard, although I’d described him as having darker hair and, in my mind, he was obviously Robert Pattinson. It was fun to hear that the character had taken on a completely different look for her than I had intended. Ain’t imagination grand?

Do I like wealthy heroes? Sure. It’s a glorious fantasy to imagine never having to worry about money, and to be able to have whatever you wanted – grand houses (and servants to clean them!), the best-sprung carriages (I AM a Regency lover, after all), the dearest ball gowns. Is my head turned, figuratively at least, by the sardonically raised eyebrow, the cocky attitude, the rakehell behavior? Um, well, yeah. But only if there’s more depth to the character than that. I don’t know if that’s because it soothes me to hope that other people are as anxious and uncertain in life as I often am. Probably. Perfect people – if there were such a thing – are too intimidating anyway. Give them scars, emotional and physical. Give them hindrances to overcome. Give them quirks that make them not quite the norm. Give them something that pulls me in and makes ME want to be the heroine of the story.

I’ve actually enjoyed the trend in romances toward less idealized and (slightly) more realistic men. At least I feel it to be a trend: the romances I read now are quite different from those I read in the 1980s. There are heroes now who are virgins, and heroines who aren’t! There are men struggling with PTSD and women struggling with anxiety. I like that – to a point. It’s still fantasy and escape that I’m after, after all. Although I would like to read about more heroes who wear glasses. Men in glasses are sexy!

So I’m curious: What makes a great hero for you? Is it all about looks? Personality? Do you like serious flaws? Minor flaws? Does he have to be wealthy? Would you read a romance about a Regency miller as well as a Regency duke, or a contemporary grocery store owner over a company CEO? And what sours you on a hero-wannabe?

Enquiring writers want to know.