One Week as Lovers, Two ARCs

One Week as Lovers I ended up with two ARCs of Victoria Dahl’s One Week as Lovers, her August release from Kensington. (Thanks, Kensington!)  Given that Dahl’s heroines are usually on the neurotic, often-stalked side, and her heroes are often a bit tortured, let’s talk damage, shall we?

What’s your favorite or most enjoyed form of heroine neurosis, or hero damage? Conversely, what tortured devices make you want to throw things?

Me: I’m a total sucker for forbidden attraction, when one character’s personal code, no matter how flawed that code may be, will absolutely not allow them to act on what is one hell of a smoking case of the hotty mcwantingpants. If it’s based on pedophillic overtones, ick no thanks – same with really stupid foundation for said personal code. But when it’s done right, forbidding hotty mcwantingpants is deeeelicious. So if the neurosis/damage is based on trying to resist something that’s proving more and more difficult to ignore, and having to choose between predictably duty or breaking everything for the chance at the object of said wantingpants, I’m all over that.

Variations on the theme make me giddy, too, for example any Beauty and the Beast-type “Oh, noes, I is too ugly/scarred/well-endowed for her!” angst is always fun for my readerly eyes.

What about you? What’s your favorite angst? Leave a comment and you’re entered to win a random drawing for one of two ARC bound galleys of Dahl’s book. Comments are open for 24 hours. Ready, set, angst!


One Week as Lovers is available for preorder at IndieBound, BN.com, BAMM and Amazon.

Comments are Closed

  1. Melissandre says:

    I’m a sucker for Beauty and the Beast as well, the kind that has the hero hiding in his shadowy castle, manor, etc.  Good times.  Loved Goddess of the Rose, when the hero was a literal beast. 

    I also really love it when the hero comes back from war, all tortured and everything.  Only magical sex with a good woman can make him forget his pain.

    The conflict I absolutely hate is the whole, “I can’t love you because I’m a vampire” cliche.  Since when is that a problem?! 
    She obviously doesn’t have a problem with you biting her neck for all eternity.  And what’s the problem with turning her into a vampire?  Why would that be a bad thing?

  2. Stacey P. says:

    I, too, find that I’m a sucker for the hero being the one with some kind of hang-up that makes him think he doesn’t quite deserve the heroine—as long as it’s not completely debilitating and can be overcome to give them both their HEA, of course! Whether that’s Beauty and the Beast type stories or just something in the hero’s past that has affected the way he sees himself, I’m pretty easy to please, 🙂

  3. Reha says:

    @Jackie:

    I really wish one of these books would have extra shitty hair. Like “holy crap, I have limp/frizzy/ass hair and no one will love me because my hair clingstomyface/lookslikepubichair/smellslikeass” and then through the magic wang, they discover shampoo and hair conditioner and hair spray and everything is suddenly better.

    Ah, you have clearly not read enough Snape/Hermione fanfiction!  I swear to God this is the plot of at least 20% of the fics I read before I got into slash.  Woo, bad!fic. 😀

    I am a total sucker for a hero with a real, permanent, physical issue.  Simon’s stutter in the first Brigertons book totally made it for me (we’ll be silent on the issue of the forced-baby-making…).  I’ll take nasty facial scars, missing limbs, you name it.  It’s twice as nice if the heroine helps him learn to live and be happy with his life without any magical (hoo-ha or otherwise) fix-its.

    (My favorite forbidden relationship was probably Karen Robards’s Scandalous: we’re not actually brother and sister, but we have to pretend to be while meanwhile we’re totally hot for each other and could ruin everything and completely squick the entire cast if we got caught.)

    I cannot abide a heroine who’s jaw-droppingly gorgeous but angsts about being ugly despite all evidence to the contrary.  Have a little self-awareness, honey.

  4. Stephanie says:

    Beauty and the Beast all the way for me

  5. Lori S. says:

    I love Beauty and the Beast-style angst.  Gets me every time.  I also love me some wounded heroes.

    The one that drives me crazy?  Secret babies.  Never fails to be a wallbanger for me.

  6. Lita says:

    I’ve always loved the damaged hero – whether its a physical injury or a psychological, so long as the author doesn’t feel compelled to fix the problem, deus ex machina, within the last five pages, e.g. hero leaves heroine because he’s too damaged for her goodness, has super-dangerous or super-experimental surgery, and comes back completely healed.  Harlequin in the 1980s and early 1990s would have all sorts of interesting, but damaged alpha male heros that would get the miraculous cure, or were tragically misdiagnosed in the first place.

    Jennifer Ashley’s “Madness of Lord Ian McKenzie” has to be my all-time favorite book that uses this trope.  The hero is extremely damaged, and nothing can be done to fix him – and the author makes no bones about the fact that it’s going to be a difficult HEA, but it still will be a HEA – all the sweeter for the difficulty.

    Another great one was Julia Quinn’s “The Viscount Who Loved Me” – the damage here was unique.  The hero, Anthony Bridgerton, suffers from a very real psychological problem – he is certain that he will die before he’s 35 (not positive about the actual year, could be 40), because his father did.  Julia Quinn did her research on this one, and it shows.  And speaking of damaged heros in the Bridgerton series, let’s not forget that the Duke in “The Duke and I” was a stutterer.

    Another personal favorite trope is the Cinderella heroine – but these are difficult to pull of.  It’s all too easy to make the heroine a perfect Mary Sue who is also TSTL.  Many of Mary Balogh’s early Signet Regencies did a great job with this type of heroine.  They weren’t necessary suffering at the hands of abusive family members, but were forced to keep their light under a bushel and the moment when the hero discovers the heroine’s true greatness (not necessarily beauty) are real money shots for me.

    Of course, forbidden attraction is a great appeal too – I love the Jane Eyre type (he’s all wrong for you) rather than the Romeo & Juliette style (he’s from the wrong family/clan/race).

    But probably my most favorite mcwantingpants moments are reserved for the hidden/secret relationship – which is a subclass of forbidden attraction.  I like these the best because it puts hero and heroine on a level platform.  Probably the best Cynster novel, “A Rake’s Vow” featured this type of relationship.  There was also a book from the long-vanished Loveswept line (I think it may have been a Delaney book) where the hero and heroine were conducting a clandestine affair (during the mid 1800s).  She wouldn’t marry him because she was afraid that her father’s insanity was heriditary – and it turned out that the father was in the final stages of syphilis.

    Anyway – I’ve been a little too prolix, as usual. 

    If we’re still doing spamwords, I’ve got “makes33” – as “in that makes 33 times she’s orgasmed in the last 10 minutes.”

    Lita

  7. Esri Rose says:

    I like a hero who has a naughty, naughty past and really believes he’ll be a playboy for ever, so he hasn’t bothered to keep a nice reputation. And then he meets some smart, sparky gal in dire straits who very much needs to keep a good reputation. And it turns out that suddenly he’s ready to grow up and settle down with this woman, only her life will be mortally screwed by associating with him. Jo Beverly writes a lot of those kind of guys. Also Diane Gaston.

  8. GrowlyCub says:

    I have to agree with Becky, The Rake and the Reformer is the best ever, closely followed by Silk and Secrets.

    I also love redemption stories which is really funny because no way in hell would I ever take a guy back after what some of the guys in my favorite books have done.  Paula Detmer Riggs has written some of the most moving ‘second chance at love’ contemporaries out there, lots of them with babies which really aren’t my cup of tea in real life.  Go figure!

    I also love tortured hero stories and reformed rakes, but the latter have to be done right.  I really want to see Lord Quence from Enoch’s ‘Notorious Gentlemen series’ get his own story.  I’d love to see how such a love story might have played out in Regency England.  Does anybody know if she has any plans for him?

    Balogh’s A Precious Gem and The Secret Pearl are frequent re-reads (and I only discovered her in January of 2008) with very damaged heroes and heroines.

    And I get a kick out of bad boy younger guy, older woman stories like Karen Robards’ One Summer.

    I *love* angst and for the longest time there wasn’t any being written.  I’ve found a few gems here and there lately, so that gives me hope that maybe that light, fluffy stuff is on its way out the door for a few years.

  9. Tili says:

    I’m seeing a lot of love here for the Wounded Hero, which I totally agree with – my personal favorite iteration is Dag from the Sharing Knife series. But what about Wounded Heroine? Don’t women ever suffer? It seems a little weird to throw all the love on stories where the heroine brings life back to the hero, but ignore those where the hero is the healer. Not everyone likes a strong, silent, tough alpha; some of us have a soft spot for nurturing types! I haven’t seen many of those in the bookstore or library, but I think I’ll buy those that I do see just to encourage it. An example just popped into my head, also from Bujold, because of everyone talking about this in relation to the Beauty & the Beast archetype: Miles Vorkosigan and Taura totally have the gender-reversed thing I’m talking about, albeit in a necessarily somewhat time-compressed form. Bujold and playing with gender roles, they go together like peanut butter and Nutella.

  10. I’m amazed that no one’s mentioned the Dangerous Career meme—the firefighter/cop/spy/daredevil who Just Knows the job will be fatal sooner or later, and therefore won’t commit because they know that the prospective spouse will be Utterly Lost without them. 

    Angsty Dangerous Career heroes are a dime a dozen; angsty Dangerous Career heroines seem to be a lot thinner on the ground. And then there’s the version where both protagonists are in the same Dangerous Career, and keep circling each other warily until the forces of the Mighty Wang and the Magic Hoohoo combine to persuade them that facing ultimate danger together is the most romantic and satisfying possible outcome.

  11. Jess says:

    I was looking for a good place to buy titles by this author this month and I stumbled across this website: http://www.booksonboard.com They .have really reasonable prices and I have come to enjoy the convenience of eBooks. They carry a lot of romance titles too, a couple by Victoria Dahl. Here’s the link in case anyone is interested:

    http://www.booksonboard.com/index.php?BODY=viewauthor&AUTHOR=Dahl Victo,ria

  12. Esri Rose says:

    And I should say that the opposite scenario, where the guy would lose family favor, property, inheritance, whatever, by marrying an unsuitable woman is equally satisfying. Pride and Prejudice being the supreme example.

  13. Cyndala says:

    LOVE the Beauty/Beast thing (physical, emotional, too well-endowed, etc.)-hehe-

    HATE the “can’t be together because the heroine needs a intimate outpatient surgery” plot.  I refuse to read Diana Palmer anymore for that reason, though there have been a few other authors as well.  *Definitely* a wall-banger (bad).

  14. Kathy says:

    I like historicals where the heroine is usually decent looking, but her intellect and smart ass mouth are what truly attracts the hero to her.  And of course, I like the hero who thinks he’s Mr. Cool on the outside, but just emotionally broken on the inside.

  15. JoanneL says:

    @Cyndala: *snort!* My ‘no more Diana Palmer’ is due to all the males’ having hairy chest syndrome.  Gad, all of the men in Texas? All of them?

    LOVE: Oh a hero that was injured either mentally or physically in war. Rachell Lee did one (or some) returning Vets and Julia Quinn & well, many others, have written some male characters that were injured by war and I love to see them getting a HEA.
    Love It.

    Absolute (secret, don’t tell anyone) favorite heroine neurosis: fading away from not eating due to lost/forbidden love. Every woman I know who was in the middle of emotional turmoil heads for the frozen food department or her candy stash so a heroine who is waif-thin for want of love is real fantasy reading for me.

    Most likely to not even buy the book but in case he/she shows up later in the story: PRESUMED DEAD. If a character is dead then stay dead. Dead to me. Gone. Out of here. Not in this story. You Are Dead. Yeah, that one drives me a tad bonkers.

  16. Thalia says:

    The scarred hero, especially when he was scarred by prior love either leaving or dying, gets me every time.  I like heroes that can admit to having loved before.  I don’t like those heroes that were always rakes/had tons of affairs but have “never felt love before.”  Bleh.  Emotionally available men FTW.

    For heroines, I love Plain Janes.  Especially the ones with a gorgeous best friend/sister who always outshone them.

  17. I love the Romeo and Juliet one. I read a Harlequin recently with that theme and loved it.
    The “our families are at war but we’re secretly in lurve” thing. All that sneaking around. But the families really have to be at war. And I’d love to read one where the couple have different ethnic backgrounds, you know, the West Side Story thing.
    I say I hate secret babies, but occasionally a good one comes along where it seems reasonable. I read one where she thought he’d died in the military – Afghanistan I think – and his family kept his survival from her.
    There’s an old Linda Howard – White Lies – where the hero is learning to walk and the heroine is his therapist. Awesome. He doubted he was sexually capable until she proved him wrong.
    But when the angst is the box of kittens, and the secret is contrived, I’m out of there. I don’t particularly enjoy blackmail or revenge stories, either. Petty, not romantic. Don’t like contemporary Prince and Commoner stories very much, I just can’t believe them because the heroes always talk and act like Englishmen or Americans, and the heroine thinks she isn’t good enough. Give me a break.
    But I love a good sheikh romance. Go figure.

  18. Elaine C. says:

    I have always loved the rough, alpha male that is a bit too rough, maybe even a bit of a bastard or from the lower class that feels he’s not good enough for the gentle female that later proves very strong minded and able to see beyond that seperation of classes/lifestyles. Lisa Kleypas writes these themes very well. 

    I despise novels where the guy is wimpy and waits for the female to take the lead. Ugh. . . boring!

    I also love the sexy paranormal shape-shifter that almost kidnaps or believes he has to keep his future mate with him at all costs… I never thought a male desperate for a woman could be that sexy, but Susan Krinards early werewolf books and Nalini Singh, Karen Marie Moning, Rhyannon Byrd etc. . .  all use this device to some degree and make it yummy, not creepy.

  19. Celia says:

    I love the ‘loved since a child’ theme, usually, particularly when it is manifested as the ‘faking love to cover up heartbreak at ex’s wedding/etc but then it becomes real.” sort of thing.  (It’s usually related to the best friend soon to get benefits theme, which is another favorite.) 

    At the same time, there are some SERIOUSLY creepy variations of that thing, such as too much of an age gap (more than 5 years unless well done, and more than 10 if it’s the older loving the younger.) for example) or, most squickworthy, raised as siblings.  I apparently have a bigger problem with social incest than the genetic incest issue.

  20. Lori says:

    I am a sucker for a bad boy, a broken bad boy.  All the hot chicks love him but he wants the one goodie gal on the block.  She has to be a little bitchie in return however, I do not like frail women.

    Hot bodies, with a flaw…??  Yummy.

  21. Nita says:

    While I easily become incensed with angsty whining males

    I have to agree with this statement.  I really, really hate whiney ass males with too much angst.  However, I love the ones where the hero and heroine can’t be together, because the hero is married to a woman who is mentally ill, physically ill or both and he feels he must stay with her because he made a commmitment…..

    Just love those!!

  22. Lisa richards says:

    What I hate is where one of the “family members” is not a blood relation, and they have been nursing a crush since they were kids, but no! they can’t be “in love” cause they were raised as siblings and this would be incestuous. Give me a break. They probably know all the best and worse in each other but aren’t suppose to love each other. If most couples knew each other that well they probably wouldn’t get married in the first place.
    What I love is where a younger guy, usually a real hottie, falls for an older woman, and he has to work so hard to convince her that, yeah, he really, really loves her.

  23. Miranda C says:

    I love bad boys.  And alpha males.  And even more when they can be found in the same character.  I enjoy the tortured pasts or the belief that they aren’t good enough or gentle enough for the heroine.

  24. The Diving Belle says:

    I love the clever, sassy, interesting and gutsy heroine that starts out as SO not the hero’s type and winds up. . .well you know how that story should end!

    Can I admit that I love the PIXAR film, “UP”, ‘cause it’s SUCH a great romance?  Ellie and Carl’s relationship—told in many pictures and few words—was one of the most grownup, enviable, loving screen marriages to come out of Hollywood in years.

    *sigh*

    OK, things that drive me wacky?  Whiny heroes/heroines, most secret babies, and Big Misunderstandings, subcategory Had I But Known!

  25. Like others, I am a sucker for the scarred hero.  Physical and emotional scars, the ones that make him go “she can’t really love me, she must be faking it for some reason” are always good!

    Captcha: must48 there must be at least 48 kinds of tortured heroes I love!

  26. Moth says:

    What’s your favorite or most enjoyed form of heroine neurosis, or hero damage? Hmm… I can’t really think of anything… I guess I don’t mind the “I’ve got a big secret I can’t tell him” as long as the heroine tells the hero once it becomes obvious she can trust him. Like in Faking It. Once it becomes ridiculous for her to keep holding out she tells Davy what’s up.

    Conversely, what tortured devices make you want to throw things? I really hate the “bad blood” trope. “oh noes, my family were all violent assholes, so I MUST be a violent asshole (even though I’m actually a sweet, protective nurturer type), and now I shall dump the wonderful heroine to protect her from my evil self”. Bleck.

    Of course, as with every story, how these things are handled matter a lot. If a writer can pull it off more power to them!

    I really loved Talk Me Down so I really, really wanna win one! Please! 🙂

  27. kinseyholley says:

    Brilliant, rational, locked-my-emotions-up-a-long-time-ago-and-threw-away-the-key alpha males get me all the time.  I’ve been doing paranormals recently, so off the top of my head; Lucan, from Lynn Viehl’s Darkyn series (Dark Need), and V from the BDB.  They’ve got just enough sneer to be badass, but not so much as to be utter bastards.  And I love brilliant heroes who get blindsided by equally brilliant heroines.

    Also like heroines who aren’t perfect.  There’s a Jayne Ann Krentz (yeah, she’s formulaic, but the formula works) heroine who has curly, hard to tame hair, and when she gets caught in the rain it goes all frizzy and shit; and I read a Regency long ago where the heroine is not especially beautiful – can’t recall the title, but the term she kept using for female beauty was “diamond of the first water” and the hero was the Earl of St. Ives.

    Can’t stand heroes who hurt (psychologically or physically) the heroine at the beginning, or heroines I judge to be just plain stupid.  Weakness I can forgive, because by the end of the book they usually grow a backbone, but stupidity is usually incurable.
    Also don’t like beta male heroes, but that’s purely a personal preference.

  28. R says:

    Hi 🙂
    My favorite angst must be Richelle Mead’s Succubus hero Georgina who cannot sleep with her love because she will steal his life if she does. *sigh*
    🙂
    Love From Canada
    xoxo

  29. Maureen says:

    Beauty and the Beast is a favorite of mine along with the soldier returning home from war and trying to find normal.

  30. san_remo_ave says:

    I love the wounded hero—emotionally or physically—who finds himself again with the heroine’s help.  Absolutely hate TSTL plot devices and heroines.

  31. Teresa Cox says:

    I like the heroines who think that they have family that is just too quirky, weird, demented, etc. for any “decent” man with half a brain to be able to put up with.  I like heros who have something wrong with them that doesn’t get fixed.  Whatever it is, remains and he continues to have to live with it while he tries to make his woman happy.

  32. DS says:

    There’s one really angsty book I love:  Return to Night.  Set in Great Britain during WWII, contemporary to the writing.  Heroine is older woman who is a doctor.  She saves the hero’s life when she performd an emergency trepan on him.  Hero is a younger (not jail bait)member of the local squirearchy, extraordinarily talented as an actor,  but who hates his own good looks.  Lots of things to overcome: difference in age, difference in social strata—ordinary doctors were sort of middlish, middle class in England then—his overly possessive mother and other things I probably have forgotten.  I think I need to reread it.

    Now for what I hate—must make you fall in love with me to redress some injury your family did my family—especially if it involves the person realizing they are being an idiot but have to go on because—wwwhhhaaa, their father made them swear on some mouldy sacred family heirloom so they cannot be forsworn. 

    captcha:  Appear72—probably not quite that old but the heat and humidity in the Ohio Valley is making me feel about that age.

  33. CupK8 says:

    @Nita: Ooo, the “Jane Eyre” angst! Yeah, I love that too.

    I think my favorite hero/heroine angst is the Uber-Emotion-Control freak who is afraid to lose their sense of self by losing control, a la Not Quite a Husband.  I think I especially like it when it’s the woman who feels the need to control herself and then realizes that by handing over the reins to the right person at the right time, she can be an even stronger version of herself.

    I am with several others in my dislike of excessively whiny heroes AND heroines.

  34. Obskuretris says:

    I despise revenge fantasies: ur dad stole my dad’s company so now i’m gonna make u my mistress and destroy ur life.
    I especially also hate the, “all women are evil, gold digging bitches bcuz my ex-fiancee/lover/mother/girlfriend/whatever was an evil gold digging harlot who walked out on me/mydad/my uncle

  35. Diatryma says:

    Like: “Lo, I am wrong for her, for she is good and pure and I am made of sewage, and also a commoner, woe,” as long as it’s genuine.  Lisa Kleypas does this a lot, and I think she managed to pull it off… once?  There, it was more, “Lo, if I make a move on her, she will leave, and life will suck, so I’ll just go on as I am YAR KISS SHIT I SCREWED THAT UP.”

    Like: hurt-comfort.

    DO NOT WANT: ugly heroines who are beautiful at the end.  Every single time, it annoys me.  Every time.  It reinforces that looks are everything, it reinforces that looks are *really* everything for a woman, and it means I don’t get as much interesting and meaningful dialogue.  “You are so beautiful!” is boring. 

    DO NOT WANT: power dynamics.  I like Bujold’s Dag and Fawn, but the middle two books are weak because Dag is made of awesome, and Fawn is made of supportive background character who will just love him enough to be special herself… and the worldbuilding is such that Fawn can only be awesome in the absence of Dag.  I dislike a lot of Asaro for the same reason.  And Twilight.  It is almost always the man who is powerful and the woman who is not, which just makes it worse.

  36. ClunyBrown says:

    @Tili: You might try Sweet Memories by Lavyrle Spencer. The heroine is overendowed, and very embarrassed and shy about it. The guy is her brother’s bff, younger than her, and very sweet (oooh, that hits several favorites here).

    @Lynne Connolly: It’s not White Lies you’re thinking of, that one’s the spy with amnesia. I think Adam’s Fall is the one you mean.

  37. Vanessa says:

    “forbidding hotty mcwantingpants is deeeelicious”

    *snorts her latte*

    Love the Beauty/Beast angle as well…but not the hidden I’m-going-to-pretend-I’m-scarred/deformed-to-drive-you-away thing.

  38. Jess says:

    Physical scarring with a side of “who would want me now?” gets me EVERY TIME. Variations on a Beauty & the Beast theme, with extra angst pls!

  39. Linsey says:

    I love and adore Beauty and the Beast romances, especially when someone plays around with what constitutes beauty and what constitutes beast. I will probably read anything if I know it plays off this theme.

    As for tropes that I hate, I’m willing to give pretty much anything (pedophilia/incest/etc aside) a try if the writing is good, but I have a really, really hard time with romances in the first person POV. I go out of my way to avoid them.

  40. Put me down as another B&B fan, but it’s really hard to top almost any Kinsale hero.  They suffer from PSTD; emotional trauma from sexual abuse; religious vows; strokes; deafness and inner ear problems; religious persecution and more.  Love ‘em all.

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