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.
I’ve loved the Jane Eyre plot for years (since I first read Jane Eyre, really), but it’s so rare to see it done well—it doesn’t work at all if the heroine is beautiful and just thinks she’s unattractive, or if she magically transforms halfway through. Anything that pins the attraction on something other than looks makes me happy.
Also, very fond of the friends-to-more-than-friends plotline, as it’s always felt incredibly realistic to me (it’s how I ended up with my fiancé), and I’ll admit to a weakness for a hero/heroine who fancies their sibling’s best friend. It’s such a fun dynamic to play with.
But when it’s done right, forbidding hotty mcwantingpants is deeeelicious.
I would have you know that I nearly spewed tea all over my computer from that.
I love the damaged hero, too. One who thinks he’s not worthy of the heroine. (I hate books where this makes him act like an a** to the heroine, though.)
Friends to lovers is a big favourite, too. When the hero suddenly looks at his friend and sees something different. *sigh* I love these kind of books.
I’m a sucker for guys who are perfectly content with their well-ordered lives. Good job, nice routine, a lack of emotional attachment that they view as a strength, not a weakness. Then another guy sweeps in like a tornado and whips Hero #1’s life into a frenzy, showing him just how fun chaos can be. By the end of the story Hero #1 can never go back to being content again. Content is blah. Content is empty. He wants *happiness,* and he wants it with Hero #2. 🙂
I don’t know that I have a favorite angst/trope. I’ll pretty much read anything as long as it entertains me.
But I hate! hate! hate! the Old Skool “Ugh! I am chest-beating-alpha-asshat, let me do your thinking for you and boss you around and treat you like shit because I know what’s best for you little-miss-doormat and might makes right.” Although it has to be laid on really thick for it to interrupt my reading because sometimes small amounts don’t bother me. (This comes from a personal history of reading what was at hand or not reading at all.)
I’ve also never really liked the revenge thing.
I really adore Beauty/Beast story lines. I love scarred heroes (and heroines, for that matter). I’m also a sucker for when either the hero or heroine are perfectly content with their life before the introduction of the other person and don’t want to change.
I’m partial to heroines with a very immediate and obvious flaw (pathological liar, witch with no control over powers, etc) that must be overcome or, better, learned to live with. I like childhood trauma that must be overcome to grow into a fully functioning adult. If it’s the hero who helps her with this, it’s a bonus.
May/December romances (particularly 25-30 year old women, 45-55 year old men) particularly make me want to swoon. 😀
Big43—I’m not touching that one.
Diatryma, I should not have taken a sip of coffee before reading that…
And I pretty much agree with your likes and hates, although my hate is for the girl that is pretty by todays standards but Oh noes! This time period didn’t value her stick-thinness/general awesomeness…
Right now I’m jonesing for a betaman. I’m keen to read Kate Noble, Compromised (just reviewed by Book Smugglers) and am liking the sound of that hero.
I hate heroines that are just too cool for society and continuously alienate themselves to the point of rudeness. It just seems to me like the author is trying to write a modern woman in a historical period.
I love the hero who shouldn’t be attracted to the heroine because of his role/ responsibility/ duty but just can’t help himself falling smoking hot in love with her. Good example: Kleypas’ ‘It Happened One Autumn’ which I loved, despite not liking some of the plot devices (e.g. seducing her after she’d been drinking).
Hate: secret babies, ‘I’m doing this for your own good’ and stupid misunderstandings.
Would love to win this book as I am a (new) Victoria Dahl fan-girl and can’t wait for this one and ‘Start Me Up’ which I have already pre-ordered and am hoping desperately that it arrives before I leave for my holiday.
I’m not a big fan of angst, especially if it’s a wallow. I like more subtle character-based conflict. However, I do like amnesia. I’m not consciously drawn to amnesiacs, but it happens that three of my favorite books/series involve amnesia, and whether the hero is rediscovering himself as he recovers his memory or revealing a different side of himself in his memoryless state, I enjoy seeing the layers peel back as he slowly recognizes that he’s standing right next to the Perfect Woman.
I loath and despise heroes who lecture their honeys and criticize their character flaws throughout the novel, and the heroines who fall into their arms at the end: yuck! I recalling reading something in the dark ages where the heroine had been committed to a mental hospital and stripped of her child’s custody by her inlaws, and a family friend lectured her throughout the book on how she should understand their point of view and give up all thoughts of revenge. When she ended up with this guy, I stopped reading the author forever.
Wow I hope these comments are still open. I -loved- Dahl’s last contemporary. I’m with you on the “must not must not” hotnesss trope, if only because of all the guilty fantasies on both sides. I love an active imagination.
One exception are historicals with a massive class difference- it just takes me out of the story. I spend the whole time thinking, “yeah but you really can’t do that. I mean not at all… ” And then the last chapter is, “It turns out she was a princess all along!/ He was a duke in hiding!/ he just inherited the Baronetcy…” whatever. Bleh. If you’re going to do it, go all the way. “They moved to Australia! Lived on a pittance! No one would associate with their children!”
Also, children in peril (unless it’s not just an obvious plot device- I’m a slave to my mom hormones, for the childbearing years at least, and nothing makes a book hit the wall faster. I had to watch the last season on BSG basically on my husband’s lap) And like everyone else – Alpha Mc. Rapes a Lot. No thanks. Not even with that so-thoughtful “cream”.
I didn’t see mention of the Underworld dynamic: vampire vs. lycan and the forbidden love that results in hundreds of years of fighting. So incredibly sad when these lovers can’t be together.
I’m yet another who loves the wounded/battle-scarred hero. It’s so nice to know I’m not alone in this!
I’m a sucker for the tortured hero—the best being two Dereks, in my opinion—Derek Sutherland (Kresley Cole’s Captain of All Pleasures) and Derek Craven (Lisa Kleypas’ Dreaming of You).
I love that they both have genuine issues, too. Sutherland is married and Craven is pretty emotionally stunted. Nothing hotter than a lusting man trying to talk himself out of the lusting, and failing miserably.
SBSarah, totally agree. I love the angst that is a GOOD reason two people shouldn’t be together. But if it’s not a good reason, I usually can’t stand it.
Also, I love the angst of one of them having screwed up the relationship and trying to make it up to the other.
And unrequited love on one or both parts.
But the best is when the sexual tension is totally there, but they have to keep denying it because [insert reason]. Often, I find the sexual tension so much more satisfying (hur) than the sex scenes.
I love when the heroine is fat. Jude Deveraux Wishes comes to mind. I also like when the heroine isn’t that pretty, or when the hero JUST notices her there.
My BIGGEST pet peeve is TOTALLY inaccurate historical romances. One example of this was a historical when the date was set at 1605 and they were talking about what Queen Elizabeth was doing at court. What was she doing? Pushing up daisies!!!! She died in 1603!
I’m totally in the Beauty and the Beast camp. Love scarred, wounded heroes, either physically or emotionally – as long as they can be healed/rehabed or functional (not physically, but emotionally) by the HEA. If still emotionally really damaged, don’t think the HEA would hold, and it makes it hard for me to buy in to the “off into the sunset” ending.
YES! The tortured hero, we love him. But said tortured hero must be completely free of self pity – they’re tortured, everybody was meeeen to them when they were vulnerable widdle children… people are *still* so meeen to them, but we and the heroines can see how full of win they really are. *sigh* My two favorite heroes (both of whom are tortured of course) are Harry Braxton from Connie Brockway’s “As You Desire” and Meredith Duran’s half (actually quarter) breed duke Julian Sinclair.
YES! Kinsale’s heroes are the BEST! But she doesn’t reserve her torture just for her heroes, which is why he heroines are probably some of the most interesting in Romancelandia. How great was it that S.T., the half-deaf ex-highwayman in “The Prince of Midnight” was the romantic while Leigh was the cold, hard-nosed pragmatic who needed the healing power of True Lurve ™ to save her. *le sigh*
“men87” – Give me 87 tortured men, huzzah!
I love a tortured hero too…but there is something intriguing about a heroine who has a deep dark secret and has a man willing to pursue her regardless of that. Again, nothing silly…I mean like really good deep dark secrets. I killed someone, I am a pirate/highwaywoman/thief etc. But then I like a strong heroine…someone who is as adventurous and captivating as her man.
I’m going to pipe up in limited favor of the secret baby here.
*ducks thrown shoes and books*
I mean, not the “oh, noes, I got pregnant and didn’t tell you and hey, look, you’re a daddy and have been for 5 years” secret baby. That’s bullshit.
But the idea that the hero or heroine had a child out of wedlock—in historicals, mind you, not contemporaries—and hides it to protect his or her reputation and to secure the child’s future? That’s awesome, especially if the other person steps up to be the missing parent.
(I suppose you could blame Jane Eyre for this, too. Rochester did step up for Adele, even though he wasn’t her father.)
It’s not the classic secret baby, but it’s still a secret baby, and it’s an angsty story that I like.
The tortured hero trope works for me. Also love the “you’re too good for me, but I want you anyway” thing going on. I especially love when both the hero and the heroine have issues and they save each other. Swoon…
I’m not sure what my fave angst is cuz I’m not really an angst kinda person, but I can say what my least favourite is!
I hate when characters (one or both, but especially the female) have had the worst lives imaginable (ie they were born in a dumpster to a crack addict then went through foster home after foster home and got molested each time then had every one they loved die then inadvertently started the apocalypse) and because of this they have no capacity to love whatsoever. I get really angry and just wish they’d move on damnit.
Kelley Armstrong’s Elena went through some awful shit but managed to get over that and be a super cool character. She didn’t let it hold her back. But Tayla in Larissa Ione’s Pleasure Unbound made me so pissed off. I get it, you had a shitty life, but that’s not the fault of the one decent person you will ever meet. Tayla held on to that awful life tightly, like it was the best she could hope for and there was no point in dreaming.
I read romances because they are not like the real world. I don’t want to have to deal with your terrible problems.
okay I’m done. whew! that all sounds so unsympathetic. I wish I could explain it better.
Sam D,
Might I suggest Wild Western Bride by Rosalyn Alsobrook. it’s about a man who marries a woman in order to give two orphans a home, but he is in a wheel chair and feels like a useless man and she helps him realize that he can still do normal things. he is also scarred from the accident that put him in the chair and doesn’t want to frighten her by letting her see the grotesqueness that is his mangled leg. it’s very sweet and fun (the book, not his leg).
My fave is probably some insurmountable obstacle, like age or injury, that can’t change but has to be met. And if the two can be combined, all the better!
Least fave is being mwahaha driven by revenge or dickish for its own sake. Meh.
Honestly, I can handle anything as long as it’s done well (and even, on occasion, when it’s not but I’m in the moment).
I hate when the barrier is dragged on too long though, or when the characters keep flip-flopping. A Harlequin Historical I read (I think it was His Lady Mistress) was like that. The heroine was beaten-down and a bit timid, but earnest, sweet, and honest, and had nursed a crush on the hero since he came to her rescue at the worst time of her life. He eventually married her (because, after not seeing her for years and being told by her relatives that she was dead, he had sex with her, thinking she was a maid, then went , oh noes, I have sullied your honour, I must marry you! when he figured out who she really was), then treated her like shit. He thought she’d tricked him into marriage, and then, as his feelings for her grew, continued to push her away because of a stupid promise he’d made to his mother, who he thought was a cow anyway. It turned out HEA, but drove me insane.
My favourite
has got to be Riley from Barbara Michaels’ Into the Darkness. That has a whole pile of forbidden hotty mcwanting, with a side order of stoic, scarred, melty hero.
I’m really digging the chemistry in Karen Marie Moning’s Fever series these days – the series as a whole has a romantic arc, but no resolution yet. However, I’m sure that our hero, while full of bastard alpha male-ness, is actually tightly containing his terrible, awesome love for our heroine and thinks he’s just too bad to love.
On the chiller side, I also have to mention the hero of Michaels’ Stitches in Time as an example of an amazing beta male, and Dag from the Sharing Knife series is both scarred and sweet. Love ‘em.
Ok I’m entering cuz of twitter pressure and cuz I want a book!
OH I love”The worlds going to end if we dont MATE!” stories. “We must make love, I don’t want you either but we MUST!” How is it that humanity hinges on you getting some? Oh heck I’m old. I usually cheer for them not to hook up, I’m not getting any so let’s just see what happens if they don’t do it!
Love, Love, Love: Overcoming addiction especially to opiates. There’s just nothing more hypnotically attractive to me than the druggie reformed by true lurve and forced to confront his weaknesses. A good example is To Rescue a Rogue by Jo Beverley.
Hate, Hate, Hate Heroines who feel shamed or soiled or something because they were raped, molested, or inappropriately hit upon. Jealous heroes who are cruel to the heroine because they think all women are sluts, untrustworthy or dishonorable also suck metaphorical ass.