Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

In Christine Feehan’s Shadow Game, the heroine has a severe limp.  I would classify the book as contemporary with paranormal elements, so not actually very SF/F.  It’s the first book in her military GhostWalkers series.

The heroine is Sandra Brown’s Unspeakable is deaf.  But to be honest I don’t remember enough of the story to say if SB cops out on the ending. 

answer72.  Hmm, I can think of about 7 books where the hero has a handicap, but only 2 with the heroine.

It’s not SF but Raeanne Thane’s story, Dancing in The Moonlight, has a heroine who was a military nurse who lost the lower part of her leg in Afghanistan. The story focuses on her recovery and coming to terms with her loss - permanently. No magic cure. It is one of the free Silhouettes on Amazon.

It’s a Regency Historical and not SF/F, but Amanda Quick’s Reckless has a heroine who walks with a limp due to a childhood accident.

(And now I wish I had it at hand for a reread…)

Heather, If you haven’t read any of Catherine Anderson’s books I highly recommend that you do.

You can start with Annie’s Song - an historical where the heroine is deaf and her hero helps her overcome the prejudices she faces in a hearing world. After that read Phantom Waltz - the heroine is paralyzed and despite the fact that she will never walk again finds a satisfying HEA. In addition Anderson’s other handicapped heroines include a woman who is brain damaged as well as a woman who goes blind.  Yes, Anderson does deal with handicapped heroines quite a bit and their HEA never requires that they are miraculously cured. Instead they find happiness with heroes who love them and accept them as they are.

Oh, I like this question - will definitely be keeping an eye on this thread!

Just an aside: Shouldn’t it be ‘disabled heroines’ or ‘heroines with a disability’ (although obviously both the British and the American usage destroy the handsome alliteration…)?

In Marjorie Liu’s The Fire King, one of the big issues of the novel is that the heroine has to learn to cope with the loss of her arm (which happened before the book began).

Mouth to Mouth by Erin McCarthy has a deaf heroine who is still deaf at the end

Diana Palmer’s Fearless is a contemporary romance featuring a disabled heroine. She walks with a cane and at times has a pronounced limp. She may have one or two others, but the names escape me at the moment.

Having disabilities myself, I’ve really been playing with the idea of writing the disabled heroine lately in a future work. I also primarily write SF, so after reading this and seeing there’s an interest, it’s moving higher up on my to do list.

How about Elizabeth Bear’s Jenny Casey series (Hammered, etc.)? More sf than romance, but there are romantic elements. Including, if I remember rightly, a sex scene on a space elevator- the biggest phallic symbol ever conceived? Although I’m not sure whether you’d call Jenny “disabled” or “enhanced”- she’s partly bionic as a result of war wounds, but her bionic parts are failing.

I’ll second or third Catherine Anderson’s older books (it appears she converted or reaffirmed or something recently and newer books are heavy on the Catholic ideals which might annoy some)

I’ve a heroine disabled via accident in Tea for Three (mmf, set in NZ) from Loose Id.

(And ps I was told off recently for the use of handicapped… not pc these days, apparently. Disabled/differently-abled I believe is the current phrasing)

Out of the Blue by Sally Mandel.  Heroine has MS which she has been previously diagnised with prior to start of the book.

Also, the heroine of “What a Scoundrel Wants” by Carrie Lofty is blind, and an alchemist!

I have a disability myself (in fact, 2) since birth and I can tell you that a limp is not a disability so that in itself is a cop-out IMHO.  Having said that I do recall Danielle Steele’s book, Palomino, which featured a paraplegic heroine.

A very early Christina Dodd - Candle in the Window - is I think a lovely medieval where at the end the heroine keeps on being blind (she was born blind), although the hero regains his eyesight.

Lady Saura of Roget lived a lonely life of servitude—her fortune controlled by her unscrupulous stepfather—until she was sumoned to the castle of Sir William of Miraval. The magnificent knight had once sworn to live or perish by the sword. But that was before his world was engulfed in agonizing darkness.

They came together in a blaze of passion—the raven-hared maiden and the golden warrior who laid siege to her heart. Yet danger awaited them just beyond the castle walls. Saura and William soon found themselves fighting for their lives, even as they surrendered to an all-consuming love.

There are lovely side characters, like a dog and the hero’s son and father and the heroine’s older confidante (who gets together with the father) and a villain you really enjoy hating.

I’m trying to remember which of Katie MacAlister’s Dark Ones books has a heroine with various problems following a car crash. I do remember that when she’s made immortal, she’s annoyed that her problems aren’t cured, and she’ll have a wasted leg for eternity.

I’m going to mention The Spymaster’s Lady by Joanna Bourne, because although the heroine’s blindness is cured, she tackles it in such an awesome way. “I’m not blind,” she snaps, “I just can’t see.”

I’ve written a blind heroine, but confess I negated it by giving her second sight. I’m in the process of writing another, and can occasionally be found wandering around my own house with my eyes closed, bumping into things in the name of research.

Christine Feehan has another heroine in The Carpathians series (sorry, don’t remember the name). She is a blind pianiste and after bonding with her mate, discovers she is a shapeshifter who can see shapes of the objects with her animal senses.

I recall reading years ago a Silhoutte where the heroine was in a wheel chair.  She had some sort of condition where her legs could not support her body, but she was able to carry a child(and got pregnant in the book).  If I remember it was a cute, fun story and I did a quick Google search and found A Little Bit Pregnant http://www.amazon.com/Little-Pregnant-Silhoutte-Special-Readers/dp/0373245734

One of my all time fav romances is Erin McCarthy’s Mouth to Mouth.  The heroine in this story is deaf, but has learned to adapt to the world around her.  The hero is an undercover officer. There’s a lot that goes on in the story, but I love the way they learn to communicate with each other with and without words.  It’s sexy, and emotional, and at times suspenseful.  I LOVE it, it’s one of my fav reads!

Then there is also Beth Williamson’s newest historical romance The Stranger’s Secrets.  The heroine in this one is handicapped (something wrong with her leg).  I haven’t had the chance to read this one yet, but it’s at the top of my wish list

Not a heroine, but a disabled hero: India Grey’s HQ Presents. ‘Mistress: Hired for the Billionaire’s Pleasure’ features a hero becoming blind and having to come to terms with it through the book.  What I really liked was the way that there is no suggestion at any point of a possible cure - instead he has to deal with the fact that this is now who he is and stop feeling sorry for himself.  And get on and win the girl.

The heroine in Ride a Storm by Quinn Wilder had been injured falling from a horse, which result in her having restricted movement and limited physical activity. The injury happen prior to the start of the novel and prior to when she met the hero. There isn’t a cope-out at the end, but the hero does convince the heroine that her injuries aren’t as restricting as she thinks.

And then there’s LaVyrle Spencer’s THE GAMBLE.  The heroine has a badly cripple leg/hip that causes her to limp badly and be in pain a lot (I can’t remember if injury is from an accident or whether she was born with the disability—must go re-read- now).  This is one of her historicals, set in Kansas, Victorian era.

Hmmm spamword married34 (well, actually a bit longer than that)

@Cat Marsters - the Katie MacAlister book is Sex and the Single Vampire.  And I remember when she was annoyed she wasn’t healed as well as a scene with the Vampire along the lines of “wait, is that the only reason you wanted to be turned, you didn’t really love me?”  Which I thought was nicely done.

Mouth to Mouth gets a thumbs up from me.  I really enjoyed it.  Plus, the fact that the heroine is deaf is dealt with, but the relationship and it’s issues are NOT about her deafness.  If I remember right, she’s pretty rich and he’s pretty working class, with a kid.  Very good book.

Can severely disfigured stand in for disabled? I’ve read a few books with horribly scarred protagonists, though I can only remember one clearly—one of Kresley Cole’s Highlander series, with a hero who had his face pretty much mutilated before the story starts. Not as dramatic as a truly disabled character (loss of a sense or the ability to move around normally) I suppose, as all you really need is for the other protagonist to not be too shallow.

This isn’t necessarily a romance book, but did any of you ever see the heavy flirtation between Joey Lucas (deaf) and Josh Lyman (not deaf) on the West Wing Season 2?
The writers never let it go so far, but Josh was completely smitten with Joey, and the flirty conversations between him, her and her interpreter Kenny were sweet and adorable. The fact that she couldn’t hear was never an issue.

On oldie but a goodie:

Palomino by Danielle Steele - The heroine is actually injured in the book, not before the story starts, and the resolution of the story is very HEA tied up in a big frickin’ bow, but I loved the way she didn’t end up being held back by it. No, I won’t give spoilers, you’ll just have to find out how it affects her twue wuv. *wink*

The only book I can think of has already been mentioned: Candle in the Window by Christina Dodd.  The only other I’ve read that might qualify is Infamous Army by Georgette Heyer.  The handicap doesn’t happen until the end of the book, and it’s the hero not the heroine.

Among historicals, Mary Balogh’s Dancing with Clara and Eloisa James’ Fool for Love both feature heroines with a severe limp. There’s another one I can’t remember, but I think it was a Jo Beverley.

I definitely remember reading a Regency trad years ago in which the heroine becomes blind as a child after being hit by a carriage which the hero is driving—he doesn’t realize anything is wrong and drives off after being assured she’ll be fine.  They meet again years later.  I don’t THINK she miraculously recovers at the end.  Does anyone know what book I’m talking about?

I’m not really sure this is a “disability”... yet it’s a true inability to communicate. This is SF.

Sarah can’t speak—except in quotes. Plus?

“Sarah can never truly assimilate, for she possesses wild talents. Walls tell her their secrets. Safes tell her their combinations. And a favorite toy dragon whispers dire warnings about those who would exploit her for their own malevolent purposes. There’s no place Sarah can hide, from her pursuers or from her past…”

It’s called Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls
the author is Jane Lindskold

PS: I guess it is a disability—she’s a high-functioning autistic who views herself as insane.

there was one just recently that Harlequin offered for free in December. I got it from the allromanceebooks.com.  The woman was an amputee after being hurt by a roadside bomb in Afghanastan.  She came home and a boy she grew up with is now a doctor and he’s been secretly in love with her forever.  No detail of the amputee discomfort or limitations is spared in this book.  I enjoyed it even more for that reason alone.

P.C. Hodgell’s Kencyrath Series (God Stalk, Dark of the Moon, Seeker’s Mask, To Ride a Rathorn) features a heroine/protagonist who is cursed in such a way that she’s physically altered, marked, and reviled by her own. I simply ADORE this series and am really excited to see that there’s a new book due out this year!

oh—and how could I forget the Jani Killian books by Kristin Smith? This is definitely SF, slightly hard of center. The five books are: Code of Conduct, Rules of Conflict, Law of Survival, Contact Imminent, Endgame

Jani Killian is a veteran of a war that was neither lost nor won. Left for dead, and then rebuilt using both technology and alien DNA, her mechanical legs often fail her, her soldier implant interacts badly with her new physiology, and she’s constantly finding things she is now allergic to, or can suddenly be around. Her medical issues are a constant drumbeat behind her life. There’s a sort of HEA in book four. I haven’t gotten to book five yet….

Simply Love by Mary Balogh features Sydnam Butler, the hero, who was tortured so severely in the Napoleonic Wars by the despicable French (ptui!) that he is blind in one eye, has only one arm, and has severe, disfiguring scars down one side of his face and body.

There is no copout, he will always have these physical handicaps, plus he is psychologically frozen up, dealing with the way people react to his visible scars.

All about Romance has a great listings for exactly this type of heroine and disabled heroes as well.  http://www.likesbooks.com/disabled.html and http://www.likesbooks.com/lessthan.html

I’m on a Sarah McCarty kick right now, so I’d suggest Promises Linger by Sarah McCarty.  The heroine Jenna limps from an accident that the hero saved her from previously and she still limps at the end of the book.

Not sure if it counts, but I remember the heroine of Lisa Kleypas’s Again the Magic (historical) having had her legs horribly burned in a fire.  If I recall correctly, her legs are awfully scarred and her walking/dancing ability is impaired.

Suzanne Brockmann’s Into the Fire has a deaf heroine and, as best I can recall, avoids cop-outs related to her deafness.

I cannot find which Julia Quinn it is that has a heroine with a lifelong hip weakness leading to a limp and, she thinks, inability to do a lot of things—she can walk, carry things, but doesn’t dance and thinks pregnancy and childbirth will kill her.  The hero, after some book, persuades her to try things, and by the end, she’s affected by it but not disabled, if that makes sense.

Patricia Brigg’s story in Strange Brew is about a blind witch and a werewolf.  It’s not one of her best—it relies a lot on the reader already knowing that they end up together—and she can ‘see’ with the help of the werewolf, but it’s something.

I’m really not thrilled with the pattern I’m seeing here.  I have read so many historicals with PTSD, scarred-up, limbs chopped off heroes, and okay, it’s not like that many women were at Waterloo, but *still*.

I haven’t read this book (had to look through AAR’s special title listings to find it because I couldn’t remember the title) but it’s supposed to be good. “Lord St. Claire’s Angel (1999) by Donna Simpson - Celestine Simons is plain and has disfiguring arthritis.”

I came across this one while looking.  “Prospero’s Daughter (2003) by Nancy Butler - Miranda Runyan is scarred and confined to a wheelchair.”  I haven’t read it either, but I really like Nancy Butler.

I definitely remember reading a Regency trad years ago in which the heroine becomes blind as a child after being hit by a carriage which the hero is driving—he doesn’t realize anything is wrong and drives off after being assured she’ll be fine.  They meet again years later.  I don’t THINK she miraculously recovers at the end.  Does anyone know what book I’m talking about?

Juliet Blythe’s The Parfit Knight.  Very unusual, actually, the flavor’s quite different. 

There’s also Elisabeth Fairchild’s The Counterfeit Coachman for a hero with a stutter—not physical, but it definitely impacts his life.

Home Before Dark by Susan Wiggs.  The heroine is going blind and no, there’s no cop out.  The story was gripping, despite - or perhaps because of - a tricky, often unsympathetic, complicated heroine.

@JaneO I thought of Dancing with Clara too, but if I remember rightly (and I might not because it is a LONG time since I read that book and I don’t have a copy of it), it fails on Cop Out #1.  Doesn’t Clara get over her disability, at least to some degree, because of the hero’s help? 

@Diatryma, I know which Julia Quinn you mean and I can’t think of the name of it either, but I also think that fails on Cop Out #1 because the heroine finds she can do all sorts of things that she previously assumed she couldn’t.

Jo Beverly’s Hazard.  The heroine has some sort of club foot or foot deformity and has trouble walking.  It is never healed but the hero never has any problem with it.  Though someone above said that just a limp is a copout, so YMMV.  I love this book though - I just reread it a few weeks ago!

Tanya Huff’s Blood books have Vicki Nelson, who left the Toronto police because she has a degenerative retina thing going on and is slowly going blind.  Since one of her partners is a vampire, night-blindness is thematically interesting.  In the first book, I don’t think it matters, but in the third, she loses her glasses and has to navigate hostile territory without.  In the fourth book, there’s a potential copout (rot13d): fur vf ghearq vagb n inzcver gb fnir ure yvsr, juvpu svkrf gur jubyr ivfvba guvat nf jryy nf bgure zbegny pbapreaf. 

(rot13.com or Leetkey will decode for you.)

Fool for Love by Eloisa James has a heroine with a handicap that stays a handicap. It’s got a lame heroine (apparently a limp is the handicap of choice).  I really enjoyed it, especially since there was no magical fix (I also hate magical fixes).

Annie’s Song by Catherine Anderson had one of the best disabled heroines I’ve ever read. She’s deaf.

Also Phantom Waltz by the same author has a heroine who is paraplegic and in a wheelchair. I thought that romance was handled very well also.

Homespun Bride by Jillian Hart has a blind heroine.  I actually really enjoyed the book, particularly because she DOESN’T get cured of her blindness in the end, and I thought both characters were mature and likable through most of the book.  Other readers thought it was boring and predictable, but since I was expecting huge, dramatic blow-ups and a lot of juvenile sniping, I was surprised.

My thoughts on the book in case anyone is interested.

*praying for no HTML failure*

Lynn Kurland’s historical This Is All I Ask features a permanently blind hero and an emotionally scarred heroine who thinks herself ugly and unworthy. Parts of it are so very poignant that it’s one of my all time favorites.

I can’t remember which book this is, but the heroine was thrown from a horse and seriously injured as a young woman and now has a limp from the hip injury.  She doesn’t think she’s able to have children.  She is an heiress who is content not to be married since she believes she can’t have children.  A guy kidnaps her to force her to marry him for her money.  She gets away and escapes after the carriage wrecks in the rain to a cottage.  A English lord, a marquee or earl I think, is also escaping the rain from an attempt to rescue his step sister.  The young lady and man don’t know each other’s in the cottage until the next morning when they are caught in a compromising situation by her father, brothers, and some local gossips. They are forced to marry.  He didn’t want to remarry due to his horrible first wife.  Anyway, they marry, move to the country.  There’s a serial killer she’s telepathically linked to and sees the murders taking place in a local dungeon.  Turns out to be his cousin.  She wasn’t thrown from her horse years before, but from the cliffs after she wittinesses the murder of her husbands brother?  More books follow up on the cousins.  Serial killer back.  I’m thinking regency England.

I have a book on my keeper shelf called (if I remember correctly) A Man Like Mac - can’t recall the author right this moment - where the hero was a college track coach who became a paraplegic after being shot while trying to break up a domestic dispute between two strangers.  The heroine was at one time his student, then an olympic-class marathon runner who is both physically injured (after being hit by a car while running) and emotionally scarred (from a troubled childhood).  The story is engaging.  The hero is amazing.  The heroine…you want to slap around a little through much of the early part of the book, but she eventually becomes less slap-worthy.  Their HEA does resolve some of her emotional issues, but both of their physcial challenges remain.  It’s a pretty enjoyable read.

I haven’t yet read beyond Cordelia’s Honor, but I know Lois McMaster Bujold’s character Miles Vorkosigan is pretty disabled.  The book is SF, and I don’t know how much of his disability is changed through technology, but it might be worth checking out.  I think the compendium Young Miles is the first to pick up after Cordelia’s Honor, and I don’t think you need to read the first to enjoy the rest of the series.

I think his “official” book is still forthcoming, but isn’t John Matthew from the Black Dagger Brotherhood also hearing impaired?  Wrath is supposed to be nearly blind, but he kicks too much ass despite that fact for me to really count it. 

I’ve also got to second This is All I Ask and Candle in the Window.

get78: I hope you get at least 78 good recommendations!

@Melissandre In the BDB books John Matthew is Mute you must not forget that Zadist is horribly scarred and tattoed with slave symbols and his brother is missing a leg.

In the latest book Love Avenged the king goes totally blind and has to start using a seeing eye dog.

BTW, dont care what anyone says I still love that series.  :0)

Precious Bane is a novel by Mary Webb, first published in 1924.

Prue Sarn has a harelip, which is seen as a mark of sin and possibly witchcraft. So not only is she disfigured, but her neighbors fear and distrust her. She is also saddled with a selfish, arrogant brother, Gideon, and a father.

Only one person can see how kind, generous and beautiful Prue is.

I LOVE THIS BOOK. Love it. Back in 1989 the BBC made a movie version with Janet McTeer as Prue.

I second the Catherine Anderson early works - Annie’s Song was amazing. The new books are extremely religious. WAY too religious for me.

A book that features a disabled heroine and a temporarily disabled hero that I have absolutely loved and adored for over 20 years is Only Love by Susan Sallis. It’s a young adult novel. There is no easy fix for either of their disabilities. The heroine stays in her wheelchair. The hero is temporarily disabled due to a motorcycle accident and has to cope from going from a highly active teenager to in a wheelchair. There are quirky disabled and non-disabled people at the home they’re all at (ie - there’s a guy who constantly loses his teeth just so the heroine can find them and spend time with him).

It’s realistic and touching. There is no HEA. Instead, the ending is bittersweet. I found that that made it a better book because the author didn’t come up with a magic cure for the heroine’s disability and disease. She dealt with the ramifications accurately, realistically and poignantly.

I cannot go on about this book enough. It’s an amazing read.

Just an FYI - one of Anne Perry’s mystery novels featuring Thomas and Charlotte Pitt has an ancillary couple that always intrigued me. The story is set during the Victorian era and the ancillary female character has some sort of gyne condition which leaves her in pain all the time and unable to have sex therefore quashing any marriage opportunities for her. The ancillary male character was beaten and raped and left paralyzed below the waist, also quashing his hopes for marriage. They are introduced for some reason - can’t recall why, exactly - and although the story does not follow where this pairing might lead, it leaves you with a poignant hope for them to find happiness in their restrictive society.

CANDLE IN THE WINDOW by Christina Dodd. Heroine is blind.

TO PLEASURE A PRINCE by Sabrina Jeffries.  Heroine is dyslexic.

A PRINCE FOR JENNY by Peggy Webb, a Loveswept from 1993 features a Downs Syndrome heroine. Nicely handled and recommended.

I just wanted to say how much I appreciate this topic. 
I also wanted to ask if anyone can recommend any romances where the disability isn’t as obvious?  There are a lot of suggestions for limps, deafness, blindness, and loss of limbs.  I have several “unseen” disabilities, as do most of my friends.  The only book I’ve recently that included my disease (or other “unseen” disabilities) ended with the heroine being magically healed by fairies!  Do you know of any books like this or has anyone considered writing this type of heroine?  I can speak for myself, my friends, and a lot of women in my support groups that would be thrilled.  I would love to see this in a book as it would be wonderful to see the disease and social stigma, as well as the emotional tole, used as conflict instead of the usual contrived type that is typical in many books I’ve read recently.
could62

Mary Balogh’s Red Rose has a heroine dealing with pain and a limp after a riding accident.

@Leslie H.  I think Jenny is the daughter of one of Webbs earlier heroines.  A Rose for Jenny???????  It was an Intimate Moments books that is on my keep shelf also.  WOW, didn’t realize Jenny’s book might be out there, I remember in the epilouge of the first one thinking that Jenny’s story would be wonderful.

Great topic.
Ditto on Mouth To Mouth by Erin McCarthy - one of the sexiest sweetest books ever and Catherine Anderson’s books.

Halfway To Heaven by Susan Wiggs

Heroine has a ‘wasted’ foot and has to wear specialty boots, walks with a limp, etc.  No cop-out, special powers.

Historical and not SF/F at all, but nice.

James F David wrote several brilliant books among which was BEFORE THE CRADLE FALLS.  It’s part scifi, part murder mystery chock full of time travel weirdness topped off with a touch of romance.  The heroine is a brilliant scientist who lost both her legs in an accident and who remained handicapped all the way through to the HEA and beyond.  The hero is a scrummy and wonderfully tragic police detective whose scars may be inside, but run just as deep.  Oh, and it takes place in one of my favourite cities (and my hometown):  Portland, Oregon.

Note: While James F David is a Christian and a professor at George Fox College, this novel is non-relgious, as are all but one of his novels.

These might be a bit difficult to find but they’re all good reads:

The first is Mary Balogh’s “Silent Melody” - its a sequel to an earlier book, “Heartless.”  The heroine, Lady Emily, is the sister to the first book’s heroine and she starts out as both deaf and dumb in the first book.  Over the course of the books she painstakingly learns sign language so that she can communicate.  What I liked was that she wasn’t bothered by being different; she was very confident in herself and what she could do, especially by the end of the book.

Another lovely one is Susan Mallery’s “A Little Bit Pregnant.”  The heroine is in a wheelchair, which doesn’t slow her down a bit.  Mallery includes alot of the details of how she organizes her world and her space in order to be independent.  I liked how Mallery wrote the book so that, even with showing the compromises the character made to her disability, it really wasn’t about that; instead her personality drives the story.

Iris Rainer Dart’s book, “When I Fall in Love”, deals with a hero, rather than a heroine who’s disabled.  Lily, the heroine, starts out with a really wonderful life which goes off the rails when her son, Bryan is shot and becomes a paraplegic.  Her new boss, Charlie, has cerebral palsy, and she tries to get him to spend time with Bryan to show him that life still goes on even if he has to live a little differently.  As things go on, she begins to see Charlie in a new light as well.

The book Lyn is thinking of is Scandal Becomes Her by Shirlee Busbee. Heroine had a limp.

Lynn Kurland also has a short story, To Kiss in the Shadows in the anthology Tapestry. Lianna (heroine) has been severely scarred by smallpox.

Based on all the heroines-with-limps listed above, it seems like a limp is the popular way to make a character disabled while not affecting their conventional attractiveness.

Meg. Thank you.  Scandal Becomes Her is correct.

Meg wrote> Lynn Kurland also has a short story, To Kiss in the Shadows in the anthology Tapestry Lianna (heroine) has been severely scarred by smallpox.

To Kiss in the Shadows is a good short story and comes after and related to This is All I Ask.  Another good book with heroine dealing with some PTSD from past abuse, the hero is blind in this book.

An older medieval historical romance, Winterbourne by Susan Caroll, has a heroine with a club foot which causes her to limp. The disability is part of the story, she doesn’t get a magical cure either.

I thought of a few more.  Night into Day by Sandra Canfield about a woman with rheumatoid arthritis.  A Soldier’s Heart (SIM 602) by Kathleen Korbel about a nurse with PTSD.  Lucy Monroe’s Blackmailed into Marriage about a woman with vaginismus.

Based on all the heroines-with-limps listed above, it seems like a limp is the popular way to make a character disabled while not affecting their conventional attractiveness.

I imagine in the past limps would’ve been a big deal for women since grace and beauty were considered some of their most prized attributes.  So maybe not a complete cop-out.

Kristina, you’re right about John Matthew; it’s been too long, and I’m forgetful about the details.  Lover Avenged is in my pile to read, so I guess I’ll soon learn about Wrath and his ass-kicking deficit (though I’m sure the usual perks of being a vampire help make his blindness a little more bearable).

There was a HaBO book a year or so ago that had a dyslexic hero.  He was a sea captain or something, and the heroine was the postmistress of Bath.  I read the darn thing after that, but I can’t remember the title or the author.  That was another good one, and certainly a more “hidden” disability.  It also went outside of the limp/blind/scarred trifecta.

Oh, now I can’t remember either author or title (my bad—and most of my books are packed away because we’re trying to give that “uncluttered” impression while our house is on the market), but the heroine was going blind at the beginning of the book, and there was NO miraculous cure, and she’d lost most of her vision by the end. I enjoyed the book and feel terrible that I’m slighting the author by not being able to remember which of the myriad books I’ve read over the past few years should be credited.

The hero in JQ’s The Lost Duke of Wyndham was also dyslexic.

If you consider mental health issues due to past abuse or trauma a hidden disability, that’s a good chunk of the market. Heroine in most need of therapy that pops up in my head is from Anne Stuarts’ A Rose at Midnight, girl was seriously tormented.  And Eve Dallas, of course, dealing with her tragic childhood.  Sometimes there’s an actual breakdown, like the heroine in NR’s Sanctuary (who was being gaslighted, but still).

~~lurking and writing titles down frantically~~

Thanks for this thread!!!  I, too, hate cop-outs—makes for a more interesting story when the characters have to deal with and accept the disability of one or both characters.

time01:  time to buy yet another bookshelf for my books!!  (hope the bf is cool with another IKEA Billy clogging up the condo!!!)

“Just an aside: Shouldn’t it be ‘disabled heroines’ or ‘heroines with a disability’ (although obviously both the British and the American usage destroy the handsome alliteration…)? “

I hate this crap. It all means the same thing. I go by cripple, personally. Fewer syllables and letters and gets right to the point. I use a walker or scooter depending on my mood, can’t write with a pen or pencil and can’t speak very clearly. I’ve got the cripple merit badge and wear it proudly. It gets me good seats at hockey games.

I have not read many novels with disabled heroines. It’s sort of like reading books set in Boston - they’re too close to my own existence so I end up furiously taking issue with how they handle it. For instance, Sally Mandel’s Out Of The Blue was a big hit for people, and I was red in the face screaming at the heroine for being a big fucking whiner. Anna’s a 29 year old diagnosed with MS 5 years prior who was an excellent athlete before her diagnosis required her to use canes and wheelchairs. Replace MS with HSP, and that’s exactly how you can describe me. When she started pushing the hero away because she didn’t want to be a burden, I had a fit. Why do disabled characters in books always do this? Do the able-bodied see us as a burden? Should I feel guilty about accepting my husband’s help and love? This trope is incredibly hurtful to me and I really don’t understand it. Being disabled isn’t really all that bad. I’m just as worthy of love and sex as anyone else.

I’ve also read Again the Magic and hated it, for the same reasons, but scarring is not a disability, please. Girl should’ve built a bridge and got over it.

Marin Thomas’s Samantha’s Cowboy had a woman with cognitive and emotional issues after a head trauma in her teenage years. No quick fix at the end. Good handle on how she was practical about moving forward and her reasonable qualms about being responsible for children.

That’s it for me. I haven’t really cared for how authors have treated disability so far, so I kind of avoid those stories. I will try Catherin Anderson, though, before I quit entirely.

Lisa Kleypas - Again the Magic - heroine has horrible burn scars on her legs, but still mobile.

Elizabeth Hoyt - To Beguile A Beast - the hero is horribly scarred on his face and missing an eye if I remember correctly

Laura Kinsale - Prince of Midnight - hero has inner ear problem causing problems with his equilibrium / balance

Laura Kinsale - Flowers From The Storm - hero has a stroke or something that compeletly ruins his ability to speak and is put in an insane asylum, gets speech back but nothing like previous abilities were

Okay, I guess I mostly knw about disabled heros, so I will stop the list there…great topic, though…many new reads to check out from this list.

I forgot Steve’s Story by Jess Dee
Very brave of the author to write an unusual HEA.

Meg from What a Scoundrel Wants, by Carrie Lofty.  Meets all non-cop out requirements, easily.  And to boot? It’s a fabulous book.

I have nothing to add, because while I’ve read quite a few romances with disabled heroes, I’ve never read one with a disabled heroine. I wonder if that’s just coincidence, or if disabled heroines are written less often than disabled heroes.

Very good topic!  I was thinking about this recently, and I love all the examples here!

Lois McMaster Bujold has done it thrice, although they’re all male. The Curse of Chalion’s hero, Caz, has a damaged hand due to his time as a POW.  He doesn’t consider himself disabled, but his handwriting is terrible and it hurts to grip a pen, and at one point he tries to hang off something and his hand starts cramping up, causing him to fall.  No magical fix. 

The Sharing Knife’s hero, Dag, has an amputated hand long before the story begins.  He has a wooden cap on the end of his wrist into which he screws a hook, a spork, a bow, etc.  It’s a masterful portrayal of a disabled person just getting on with their life without diminishing the effect that the disability has on their activities.  Dag doesn’t mind his missing hand, his family doesn’t mind, and the heroine quickly gets over it, but throughout the story he is acutely aware of how strangers judge him and treat him differently.  There are some magical ramifications of his missing hand, but there is no magical cure.  He stays an amputee from start to finish.

Miles Vorkosigan (probably start with The Warrior’s Apprentice) was poisoned in the womb; as a result he is a hunchbacked, manic-depressive dwarf with brittle bones and all kinds of medical complications.  Future medical technology eventually replaces his bones with plastic, but he immediately turns around and develops a seizure disorder to make up for it.  It does not feel like a copout at all.

I felt like I knew more examples of this trope, but upon perusal of my shelves most examples are of the “magical disability” variety, where an amputee receives cyborg limbs or the disability is a side effect of the superspecialawesome powers used to save the world.  And it is rather disturbing to see that most examples are male: probably so that the heroine can be nurturing and maternal to the brooding, wounded soldier. *eyeroll*

There’s a longish short story by John Varley called, I believe, Blue Champagne. At least it’s in the collection of stories under that title. It’s SF, there is a romantic plotline, and it includes a heroine with full-body paralysis. I have to hedge about whether her condition violates the 4th item in your list: she certainly doesn’t save the world in any way, but she does acquire a very unique compensation for her disability that makes her famous. Several other characters in his stories have what might be called disabilities, although in the worlds he creates they are really just “other” attributes.  At any rate I would always recommend anything by John Varley to anyone anytime.

P.s. I think her character shows up once more in another short story, but I don’t remember if it’s in the same collection.

Oh, thought of another heroine:  Donna Kauffman’s Let Me In - heroine is ex-spy who’s body was seriously damaged in her last mission gone awry.  She’s recovered fairly well, but I thought it was well done how the heroine’s body was not the same after recovery from such physical trauma, and she had to work with that in her daily life.  So often, especially with the Alpha male warrior types, yeah, they get injured and then they are back to normal in no time - but the body isn’t always that resilient. 

Also thought of a couple of hero examples:  Cindy Gerard has a black ops hero who takes a permanent physical hit in Show No Mercy;  Brockmann’s Frisco’s Kid has a SEAL who’s trying to figure out what’s next after he’s been injured too much.

In Bujold’s The Sharing Knife series, the heroine is handicapped in the hero’s community by not having the magical powers that are typical for adults there, and the hero is physically handicapped (missing his left hand.) 

Their limited abilities, and how they compensate and learn to deal with the other’s weaknesses is quite central to the story, and handled in a respectful way.

Dark Symphony by Christine Feehan had a blind heroine who could play piano.  I really enjoyed the book years ago, but I can’t remember if she becomes immortal and can then see.  Hmmm…  She may have been healed in the end, but I’m not sure…  I remember her being blind but never a “victim” mentality.

Hope that helps!

I seem to remember a Carla Kelly (Elizabeth Fairchild?) Signet Regency about a blind heroine who is wooed by a two men - one of whom wants to wrap her in cotton and keep her away from any chance of hurt and another who supports her need for independence. The latter is the hero, of course, and gets the girl.

I particularly remember a scene in the book where they are all touring the Tower of London and, with the hero’s help, she ascends to the top and he holds her while she hangs out a bit to feel the air way up there…or something like that, it’s been a while since I’ve read it.

Another mention for both of Jess Dee’s stories in the Circle of Friends duo. Only Tyler is book one, Steve’s Story book two. The first book…I don’t want to post spoilers…the issue is potentially there and in the second the…

Okay, totally can’t tell what the stories are about without giving spoilers. But Ms Dee doesn’t give easy cures to the characters, and I think she still manages a HEA.

Hot books too, BTW.

I’ve read a few of the mentioned above.
Aside from that, I can only come up with “Sisters Found” by Joan Johnston. It features a set of triplets, one of whom is missing one of her hands - birth defect, not an accident -.
I think she started developing the character in one of her earlier books (part of the Whitelaw series), but I can’t remember which one.

Not entirely sure this counts.

Nicole Camden’s “the Nekkid Truth” (novella in Big Guns Out of Uniform), the heroine was in a car accident and can’t recognize people’s faces.

Best story in the book, imo.

Definitely Hazard by Jo Beverley and Dancing with Clara by Mary Balogh.  Also, Simply Magic (?, it’s one of the Simply books anyway) by Mary Balogh - the hero was horribly tortured and has had an arm amputated, is missing one eye and had horrible scars on one side of his body - but that’s the hero not the heroine…).

The other one I can think of is Palomino by Danielle Steel - I should probably hang my head in shame at admitting this out loud but I read it ages ago and my teenage brain thought it was pretty good at the time.  During the course of the story, the heroine becomes paraplegic.  There’s still a HEA but there’s no magic cure or anything.  I can’t vouch for how good the novel would be if I were to read it again, but it does meet the criteria!!

While not necessary disabilities, I’ve recently read two titles that deal with diseases that (obviously) can’t be magicked away.
The first is Bright Hopes part of a series of titles that deals with a young, athletic woman’s struggles to have a normal life while not wanting to burden a husband with her physical problems. The second is Red’s Hot Honky-Tonk Bar by Pamela Morsi which is a older woman, younger man romance and he is sick (I won’t reveal with what).

I should clarify: Bright Hopes is part of a series, but it’s not all about the same person. It’s from the series “Welcome to Tyler.”

I went about half-way through the comments and didn’t see An Accidental Woman, by Barbara Delinsky. Poppy Blake is wheelchair-bound, runs an answering service, and catches the romantic attention of a journalist. She is disabled for life, no cop-outs. One of my favorites…

This probably won’t fit the Bitch in question’s requirements, but I wanted to put in a plug for Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love. It’s not a romance and the disfigurements and disabilities dripping off the pages are—bizarrely—orchestrated to create a family freak show (Dunn’s term, not mine.) It’s not really the ticket for this thread but it’s a lovely story, unlike anything else I’ve read, and I still remember it vividly even ten years later.

Don’t read on if you don’t like the idea of freak shows, but here’s the plot summary from Wikipedia:

The novel is the story of a traveling carnival run by Aloysius “Al” Binewski and his wife “Crystal” Lil. When the business begins to fail, the couple devise an idea to breed their own freak show, using various drugs and radioactive material to alter the genes of their children. Who emerges are Arturo (“Arty”), a boy with flippers for hands and feet; Electra (“Elly”) and Iphigenia (“Iphy”), the Siamese Twins; Olympia (“Oly”), the hunchback albino dwarf; and Fortunato (“Chick”), the normal-looking telekinetic baby of the family, as well as a number of stillborns kept preserved in jars in a special wing of the freak show.

Perhaps 20 years ago, there was a Harlequin Presents book, where the heroine was a painter who had gone blind, the hero helped her work through her issues (including giving her an ivory cane, since she didn’t want a typical white cane), and she ends up becoming a sculptor.

Someone already mentioned one of my favorites, Sandra Canfield’s Night Into Day (rheumatoid arthritis), but she also wrote Star Song, in which the heroine was Deaf and the heroine’s “little sister” (Big Brothers/Big Sisters Program) was deaf. Also Bobby Hutchinson’s Draw Down the Moon (heroine uses a wheelchair, trying to finish a marathon—the hero initially thinks she needs to be “saved”  and ruins her first attempt, she is hella pi$$ed), and Hutchinson’s Sheltering Bridges (child of deaf adults [CODA] becomes a tutor for a deaf boy, falls for the dad, porntacular mustache on cover!) Caroline McSparren’s Listen to the Child (heroine deafened by gunshot in line of duty, eventually seeks a cochlear implant). Nightshades and Orchids by ??? (PTSD), Make Me A Miracle by Ruth Glick (heroine is a pediatric pulmonologist, strong CF subplot, hero may have Huntington’s). All of those books are Harlequin Superromances. There’s a Harlequin Historical, Sweet Annie, where the heroine has a significant limp.

Oh, and in SF/F, do read John Varley’s Persistence of Vision—awesome short story about a utopian community of deaf-blind people. Samuel R. Delany Jr.‘s fiction often features disability in some way, whether physical or perceptual/learning disability.

One point I feel should be made about Catherine Anderson’s Annie’s Song: IIRC, Annie’s hearing is miraculously restored via pregnancy—hormones or Annie’s body matures, something—and by the end of that book, she can HEAR. I threw that sucker across the room. Anderson also tends toward the “money conquers all” panacea—yes, her disabled heroines are feisty, independent, spunky, whatever, but they also know the alpha hero will pave paths everywhere for their wheelchair or install fences and intercoms on their ranch to guide the blind heroine so the heroine can be as independent as money will allow.

Awesome to see this topic covered at Smart Bitches—as a woman with a pre-birth disability, I’ve sought out books with realistically disabled heroines since I first got hooked on romances back in the early 80’s, so this list is going to be a treasure trove. Disability pride—that’s how I roll!

One more to add:  Liz Fielding’s The Marriage Miracle.  Heroine in a wheelchair from start to finish - and I think that book went on to win the RITA that year.

“Sweet Everlasting” by Patricia Gaffney had a mute heroine.  It’s been years since I’ve read it, and I remember enjoying it, but I don’t think remember there being a miracle cure at the end.

“The Portrait” by Megan Chance, although it’s the hero in this one.  The hero suffers from manic depression.

An older medieval historical romance, Winterbourne by Susan Caroll, has a heroine with a club foot which causes her to limp. The disability is part of the story, she doesn’t get a magical cure either.

I have that one. Also, the heroine is treated like crap by her family through most of the book and manages to persevere. The king thinks she is malformed because she is evil so he tries to kill her. And her husband is a douche through, oh about 3/4 of the book. I still liked her though.

I’ve read a ton of heroes with disabilities, but few heroines. I can’t think of any not mentioned here. Except for a Loveswept I read years ago and can’t remember the title. Heroine had a limp and was carried into a hot bath by the hero then given a foot rub.

I have C. P. so I can recall thinking that this was my dream date LOL!

Amazing! Simply amazing. Can’t wait to read all of the comments here. Thank you, Sarah, for facilitating this discussion and thanks to everyone who contributed titles. I appreciate it so very much.

Ann Rose

One point I feel should be made about Catherine Anderson’s Annie’s Song: IIRC, Annie’s hearing is miraculously restored via pregnancy—hormones or Annie’s body matures, something—and by the end of that book, she can HEAR. I threw that sucker across the room

This does not happen in my copy of Annie’s Song by Catherine Anderson

Are you all reading the same Catherine Anderson books that I am? Cause I certainly don’t pick up on any overly Catholic bents at all. I am definitely not religious, and not Christian or Catholic, and none of her recent books have struck me as such. I particularly enjoyed her newest one that just came out about a month ago (forget the name of it, of course). As far as I can tell, the closest she leans towards a Catholic bent is by describing the family or the heroine as Catholic, that they pray, and attend church—nothing wrong with that. It kind of helps shape the characters. If you read closely enough, she usually has a supporting character somewhere that tempers the Catholic views of the main character—especially when they get in a snit about something. Maybe you’re just being overly sensitive…

In regards to Annie’s Song, she doesn’t regain her hearing through pregnancy or by outgrowing it. At the end of the story she travels to Boston to have an experimental procedure done (a very early version of the Cochlear implant surgery) that allows her to hear CERTAIN sounds only, but she cannot hear conversation. After the surgery she attends a special school for the mute and deaf for intensive education to regain speech (deaf people CAN talk w/ the right therapy), learn sign language, and lip reading. With the right education and training, it almost seems like a deaf person can hear, especially when they are reading lips, and you would never know it.

spam-o-meter: reading87. Damn, I think I did read 87 books in 2009.

It’s been awhile since I read it, but one of Dee Henderson’s O’Malley series deals with a blind girl (I think she falls in love with the paramedic). I think she becomes blind due to a car accident. It is definitely not explained away in any way. Christian romance (lots of angsting about giving oneself up to God) with some sort of suspense element.

addendum: Although I think God is part of what helps her cope with being blind.

I never really thought about it before, but it does seem that for the most part, if a disability is involved, it’s the hero who has it. Hmn. Curious.

Kristina,  Touched by Jenny is a sequel to Webb’s Touched by Angels.  The book you are most likely thinking of is actually called A Rose For Maggie – an absolutely wonderful tale about a single mom with a baby with Down’s Syndrome, by Kathleen Korbel (aka Eileen Dreyer).  It won the Rita, for those who are into those, and should, IMO be required reading for all.  The heroine is an editor, and the hero is one of her authors. He writes children’s books about monsters…among other things.  Fantastic book!  In fact, I think it will have to be my bedtime reading tonite! LOL

Betsy, the book you are thinking of is The Ivory Cane,  written (perhaps?!) by plagiarist Janet Dailey.

Sandra Canfield’s   Night Into Day is indeed a wonderful story about coping with RA. Ms. Canfield passed away a few years ago from the disease, so my guess is that it should read pretty true to life.

Myrna McKenzie’s Hired: Cinderella Chef has a heroine who’s a paraplegic, who lives in a sort of halfway house that the hero has funded. She comes to work for him as a chef.

Nancy Butler’s regency, Prospero’s Daughter, has a scarred heroine in a wheelchair.

If badly disfigured counts (and even if it doesn’t LOL), then Deborah Smith’s The Crossroads Café is an absolutely amazing read.  The heroine was once the most beautiful actress/model in the world, horribly burnt over half her body in a car accident – and filmed by paparazzi as she burned. The hero is a restoration architect whose wife and son were killed when they jumped from one of the towers on September 11th . Both have come to the Crossroads in the Appalachian Mountains to hide out from the world.  Watching these two incredibly damaged people come together is a wonderful and memorable tale.  To quote the bailiff from Night Court, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, it will become a part of you. Seriously. It will.  You will crave biscuits if you read it, tho.

Diane :o)

I have a pair of young adult books, written in the ‘60s, about a young girl who goes blind and has to learn to adjust. They were written by Beverly Butler, the first is Light a Single Candle and the second is Gift of Gold. They may both be out of print, I know I bought mine used. Light a Single Candle is one I remembered getting from the elementary school library, and it stuck with me to the extent that I had to find it. (My library must have been horribly out of date, considering the age of the book and that I read it in the late ‘80s)

With regard to Annie’s Song, the heroine is not cured from her deafness. Her family had always assumed that she was mentally disabled (this is a historical) and didn’t realize she had been deaf most of her life. I don’t recall any surgery, although she does attend a special school, but the essence is that she did not have 100% hearing loss, and could hear certain sounds that are high pitched or with the aid of an “ear horn” for amplification. It is the hero who realizes she is deaf and begins to teach her sign language.

Not entirely sure this counts.

Nicole Camden’s “the Nekkid Truth” (novella in Big Guns Out of Uniform), the heroine was in a car accident and can’t recognize people’s faces.

Best story in the book, imo.

I love that story!  Wish she could get more stories published.  And I definitely think it counts.  Not being able to recognize people causes her a lot of mental anguish and to have a fear of crowds and strangers.  (It’s a real disease, by the way - Prosopagnosia.  Who knew?)

Wow, there are a lot of books in this thread I need to read. 

Ms. Canfield passed away a few years ago from the disease

And, double wow, I did not know RA could cause death!

I’ll second Catherine Anderson’s Phantom Waltz with the caveat that it does have a bit of a cop-out at the end with the hero.  I don’t want to say too much but I thought the ending was lame.  When I reread this book, I only read the first 3/4!

Justine Davis did a Silhouette which involved a super-active man in a wheelchair as a result of a heroic action. The heroine eventually overcame his reluctance to accept her love.

Dance with the Devil has blind Astrid who sees through the eyes of her wolf/werewolf/friend Shasha… Astrid is the nymph of Justice so it goes quite well as a “handicap.”

I’m tempted to include Dagmar Reinholdt from What a Dragon Should Know. She is quite near-sighted and has the unfortunate nickname “the Beast.”

Although in that story, Gwenvael the Handsome is the more handicapped of the pair because he can’t get over himself.

The Justine Davis/Justine Dare has a series of related books featuring protagonists with various disabilities, mostly amputees. The book about the super-active hero—who lost his legs at/below the knees after rescuing a stranger—is Morning Side of Dawn. I just loved this book.

A related (and earlier) title is Left at the Altar, which has another amputee hero, though I don’t remember the specific circumstances of his injury.

Second Chance Hero has a heroine with an amputated foot, if I remember correctly. I don’t recall her having any particular difficulty because of it—she has a great prosthetic foot, I think. The hero was involved with the accident, and that is a bigger problem in their relationship.

the heroine in brenda joyce’s “the perfect bride” suffers from PTSD (and eventually alcoholism).

For Kelly L.
Jennifer Ashley’s The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie has a hero who suffers from Aspergers.
In Laura Kinsale’s Flowers from the Storm, the hero has a stroke and is unable, which results in him being institutionalized.
Also, both completely awesome books.

I really appreciated the poster who made a remark about “invisible” disabilities. I think that while addressing or creating heroes and heroines with both physical and mental disabilities are admirable qualities, I have to say that most of the time I find a hero/heroine with a physical disability **not that there is anything wrong with that! So for anyone looking for a good book where the disability might seem “invisible” pick up Mozart and the Whale: An Asperger’s Love Story, this is non-fiction in a fiction thread I know, but it’s also an important perspective on what life love and living with a disability truly means.

For all the people on this thread who have “invisible illnesses” you should visit But You Don’t Look Sick, particularly the Spoon Theory and the Message Boards! Welcome Spoonies! 

Sorry no books to add though.

Roxanne

Are you all reading the same Catherine Anderson books that I am? Cause I certainly don’t pick up on any overly Catholic bents at all. I am definitely not religious, and not Christian or Catholic, and none of her recent books have struck me as such. I particularly enjoyed her newest one that just came out about a month ago

There have been a few reprints of early work lately - the one that came out a month ago was one of them I believe. Her true new books versus new reprints go from mentioning faith/finding love/having sex, to practicing faith (some heavily)/finding love/no sex until marriage.

These are awesome!

There was a book I read years ago. Victorian era. She couldn’t use her legs at all and he carried her a lot.
I want to say that he rescued her from a fire when she was young, but there could have just been a fire somewhere in the book.
If I remember right, she never joins him as a vampire, but they live happily until she dies of old age…
Ahhh!!!! It’s going to drive me nutty!
It was a REALLY good book. Maybe someone will have better luck finding it with google than me…

Nicole Camden’s “the Nekkid Truth” (novella in Big Guns Out of Uniform), the heroine was in a car accident and can’t recognize people’s faces.

Oh, cool—I’d love to read that. I believe that disorder (or a very similar one) was included in Oliver Sacks’s The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Not a romance, of course, but for anyone who hasn’t read it yet, you’re missing out. Your library will definitely have a copy.

Anne D:

“There have been a few reprints of early work lately - the one that came out a month ago was one of them I believe. Her true new books versus new reprints go from mentioning faith/finding love/having sex, to practicing faith (some heavily)/finding love/no sex until marriage.”

Her new book, Early Dawn is not a rerelease. It’s brand new with a first copyright of 2010. It actually was released right after New Year’s. It’s a historical, not a contemporary.

With her contemporaries: The Kendricks and Coulters are not that much into practicing Catholicism, so it doesn’t thread very much through the story. The new contemporary family she’s introduced are the Harrington’s, and they are practicing Catholics, but the Catholic thread is tempered by other supporting characters. Also, the whole “no sex before marriage” thing rarely stands in her books. The H&H eventually succumb, so that’s pretty much not an issue. I don’t see the Catholic threads as a big deal, and it certainly doesn’t dissuade me from reading her books. A good read is a good read, and her books are good reads. I repeat: I think you’re too sensitive on the Catholic issue.

I’d like to recommend my Regency, BLIND FORTUNE.  It’s based on my experiences with my late husband who lost his sight to diabetes.  One of the side affects was he often misunderstood conversations because he couldn’t see the speaker’s body language or facial expression.  I thought this would be an excellent premise for a romance.
In BLIND FORTUNE, Lady Fortuna Morley has been blind since birth and remains so through the book.  But because all she can go by is what she hears, she misinterprets the hero’s intentions toward her. 
For excerpts, go to my website at http://www.joannawaugh.com and click on “Joanna’s Books.”

Someone mentioned a book about a hero with dyslexia (I think) and the heroine was the postmistress of Bath. I believe that book was by Arnette Lamb (I can’t remember the title to save my life). The cover had a woman with blond hair. Hope this helps.
This is a great thread!

Make Me A Miracle by Ruth Glick (heroine is a pediatric pulmonologist, strong CF subplot, hero may have Huntington’s)

I’m curious about how this works out with the Huntington’s - is it an HEA? I can’t help thinking that would be very tricky to pull off, since most people with Huntington’s die relatively young, and often through something as undignified as choking on their food, plus there’s the possibility of dementia. I will admit that my dubiousness is partially the result of my fear that I do have the gene (it runs in my family, though thankfully very late-onset and slow-acting). Has anyone else read this book?

I repeat: I think you’re too sensitive on the Catholic issue.

What an incredibly rude and condescending thing to say.  You don’t find this an issue.  Somebody else did.  Who are you to tell others how they are allowed to feel or that their feelings are invalid?

What’s with people lately?

Lindsay,

yes that was my reaction as well.

On a personal level: I hope the gene skipped you!

Not really a romance, but Sharon Kay Penman’s When Christ and His Saints Slept features a blind heroine.  (It’s actually a historical novel about the 12th century civil war between Stephen and Maude; Penman mentions in the Author’s Notes that she was so depressed by writing about real people who came to bad ends that she created a couple of wholly fictional secondary characters for the first time in that book and gave them a happy ending.)

One of Barbara Cartland’s novels features a WW2 fighter pilot hero who is blinded about 2/3 of the way through the book.  He becomes severely depressed and contemplates suicide until his wife’s pregancy and a new career as a BBC writer give him a new lease on life.  I don’t recall the title, but it’s quite possibly the best thing Cartland ever wrote.

“What an incredibly rude and condescending thing to say.  You don’t find this an issue.  Somebody else did.  Who are you to tell others how they are allowed to feel or that their feelings are invalid?

What’s with people lately?”

Honey, this is a free society. People can feel and say what they want, but if I think they’re being flakey, I can say they’re being flakey. Too many people feel things and have issues with stuff where they have no idea why it bothers them. Instead, they end up dismissing something like a book, a piece of artwork, a piece of music, or a movie because it triggers something inside them. It seems to me that too many people are overly sensitive about many things these days. I’m only questioning why she would even have an issue with a Catholic theme in a book…

I never once claimed her feelings are invalid. If she feels it, she feels it, but she has to question and wonder why. It’s not a question of validity. It’s a question of why it colors her opinion of a book, and why she’s very close to dismissing the current body of work of an author. This happens again and again to writers and artists.

Is there some valid reason why I should let her opinion of a book and an author go unchallenged? Why? Because it might hurt her feelings? Really?

Instead, they end up dismissing something like a book, a piece of artwork, a piece of music, or a movie because it triggers something inside them. It seems to me that too many people are overly sensitive about many things these days. I’m only questioning why she would even have an issue with a Catholic theme in a book…

And, likewise, why should your comment go unchallenged? :)

Because I’m only questioning why you would even have an issue with someone who doesn’t want religion in her romance novels…

“And, likewise, why should your comment go unchallenged? :)

Because I’m only questioning why you would even have an issue with someone who doesn’t want religion in her romance novels…”

Sure, let’s go around and around. Because it could be never ending.

Deciding that Christian romance novels are not your cup of tea is one thing, but Catherine Anderson’s books are far from Christian romance. I don’t read Christian romance because, not being a Christian of any flavor at any point in my life, they do nothing for me, and I can’t really relate, but I don’t claim they are offensive to me. To that end, I don’t claim they are not good books because they are Christian romance.

Take that one step further..why would a minor Catholic theme in a romance be offensive?  It’s like claiming some other book is offensive and is not a good book because one of the main characters practices Wicca. I bet we would all be up in arms if someone said that.

Do you see the double standard?

Just out of curiosity . . .
Why do you have to be condescending to make a point, Roxanne?  It’s surely your right, but I’m curious, what benefit do you get from it?

@ MaryK Thanks for the name of the condition—prosopagnosia. Sadly, I didn’t have time to look it up yesterday before I posted.

IIRC, Dark Lord by Patricia Simpson has a heroine with rheumatoid arthritis. I can’t be sure, though, on that or any cop-outs since it was a DNF for me.

And I swear I just read a story with a blind female hacker in it, tracking a serial killer, but I could totally be smoking crack too. *sigh*

Do you see the double standard?

It seems to me that the double standard creeps in when one shifts from talking about what one likes or dislikes in books, and starts talking about what other posters like or dislike in books, and whether their opinions are reasonable or somehow wrong, as in being “overly sensitive.” 

Books are published with the purpose of being read and evaluated by readers.  Which is what happens here.  Saying what you dislike in a book (such as having even a hint of religion) is part of that process.  It’s useful to know that the hint is there, for any other readers who may share the same tastes.

But knowing whether commenter A thinks that commenter B is “overly sensitive” or otherwise wrong shifts the discussion from books to commenters. 

“Unlike you, I found the religious themes in the book to have been applied lightly and unobtrusively” is a reply that is about the book.  “You’re oversensitive about the religious themes” is about the commenter.

Why do you have to be condescending to make a point, Roxanne?  It’s surely your right, but I’m curious, what benefit do you get from it?

Interesting how that term is pandered about in disagreements. Everyone has opinions. It doesn’t mean they’re necessarily good opinions, especially those born of faulty reasoning or hipshot emotions. If my pointing that out to someone means I’m being condescending, oh well. Unreasonable opinions or faulty logic should never be embraced, or tolerated. Blame it on my philosophy background.

Not liking a book because it contains Catholic threads is not a good enough reason, for me, for someone to pan it. If you think otherwise, fine, but you better have a good counter argument to convince me otherwise.

Ursula, good points. Thank you.

Thanks for being a peacemaker Ursula.
I am as frustrated as Roxanne, though,  with the many misconceptions I’ve read in the comments about Catherine Anderson’s books. I heard it best described elsewhere when someone asked if they were religious. Their religion is a part of them like blue eyes or blonde hair but the books are not preachy. I am sensitive when people are out in cyberspace with incorrect info that could lead to lost sales for authors. After all, that’s why we surf blog land: to get more recommendations, not state misinformation. If they are not your cup of tea then that’s all you need to say.

There was a book I read years ago. Victorian era. She couldn’t use her legs at all and he carried her a lot.
I want to say that he rescued her from a fire when she was young, but there could have just been a fire somewhere in the book.
If I remember right, she never joins him as a vampire, but they live happily until she dies of old age…
Ahhh!!!! It’s going to drive me nutty!
It was a REALLY good book. Maybe someone will have better luck finding it with google than me…

It was an Amanda Ashley novel called Embrace the Night. I think I still own a copy of that one…

There’s another Katie MacAlister novel where the heroine has oddly colored eyes, but I don’t think that counts.

In Kathryn Smith’s Be Mine Tonight, it’s implied that the heroine has some kind of cancer. She gets better thanks to her Vampire hero. Same with L.J. Smith’s Night World series. In the first book, part of the reason the hero decides to turn the heroine is because becoming a vampire will cure her of cancer.

There’s also a Susan PLnkett time travel/body switch, Remember Love, where the heroine switches bodies with the hero’s wife. In doing so, the wife goes from being “childlike” (I think they mean to say she’s mentally handicapped) to being a fully mature woman with a fully functioning brain that’s very indignant that everyone treats her like a simpleton.

Last one I can think of is a novel entitled Once in Every Life, which is another time travel/body switch. This time a deaf woman gains hearing, a husband, and a family after she “dies” and her soul goes into the body of the hero’s wife who just so happened to “dies in childbirth.

Their religion is a part of them like blue eyes or blonde hair but the books are not preachy.

That is part of the point.

If you live within the author’s religious tradition and community, then a story set in that community will have the distinctive elements of that culture within it, as naturally as someone born in Northern Europe will take blonde hair and blue eyes as being unremarkable.

But if you aren’t part of that community, those same elements are obvious and exotic, the same as if you dropped someone with blonde hair and blue eyes into a rural village in India or Africa.

So if you are Catholic, or Christian, or raised that way, the religious aspect may seem minor to you, just background detail, while if you aren’t accustomed to that culture, it will be obvious and perhaps intrusive.  And it is completely accurate to describe it as intrusive, if that is how the story works for you.  The Catholic/Christian perspective isn’t any more “normal” or right than the perspective of someone who isn’t part of that culture.  And someone who is disturbed by having Catholicism/Christianity treated as “normal” and neutral background isn’t “overly sensitive”, just differently sensitized.

In the category of mentally challenged heroes, Lord Dolphinton in Georgette Heyer’s Cotillion was, in today’s parlance, a fairly high-functioning autistic.  Granted, Freddy was the main hero, but Dolph did find love with a nice working-class gal who could take care of him and keep him away from his awful mum.

Interesting concept Ursula & one I hadn’t thought of. I read a lot of books of all kinds. I guess looks, religion, nationality and occupations (unless central to the plot like a spy novel) are background stuff to me and do not interfere with my enjoyment of a book if I like the author & the premise.
I’m sure not everyone feels that way.

This is on-topic but not quite what the reader asked for.

John Varley’s short-story anthology “Persistence of Vision,” contains a story of the same name and it is a jaw-droppingly wonderful. It can actually make a sighted person understand how a blind community might flourish, grow and surpass those with vision. Additionally, the story has some very nice sex!

I stopped enjoying Catherine Anderson books because I thought her endings were too pat.  I remember reading one, it was very compelling, it might have been the one where the heroine is deaf and she gets preggo by some cowboy she picks up in a bar or something like that- but the conflicts between her and the hero were pretty much resolved because her best friend told him the truth about what the heroine was going thru. nobody grew in that story. they just didn’t talk. too ridiculous for words, i assume??? bleh

If you live within the author’s religious tradition and community, then a story set in that community will have the distinctive elements of that culture within it, as naturally as someone born in Northern Europe will take blonde hair and blue eyes as being unremarkable.

But if you aren’t part of that community, those same elements are obvious and exotic, the same as if you dropped someone with blonde hair and blue eyes into a rural village in India or Africa.

So if you are Catholic, or Christian, or raised that way, the religious aspect may seem minor to you, just background detail, while if you aren’t accustomed to that culture, it will be obvious and perhaps intrusive.  And it is completely accurate to describe it as intrusive, if that is how the story works for you.  The Catholic/Christian perspective isn’t any more “normal” or right than the perspective of someone who isn’t part of that culture.  And someone who is disturbed by having Catholicism/Christianity treated as “normal” and neutral background isn’t “overly sensitive”, just differently sensitized.

I think there is some truth to what you say, but I also think it may be too generalized (remember, I’m not Christian, nor was I raised Christian). I think it comes down to a person’s attitude. I know I have a “will read, see, and do anything” attitude towards life. I read all kinds of stuff, some of it I absolutely love, while others I can just appreciate. There is only one thing that causes me to dislike a book: bad writing. For example, I recently was given a book that had one of the strangest plots I’ve ever seen in a vampire novel, which intrigued me, but after 3 pages of nothing but simple sentences and juvenile writing, I was done and happy to get rid of it. I don’t recommend that book to people because it’s badly written, not because of it’s plot line that has Jewish boys celebrating their bar mitzvahs by offering themselves to the neighborhood vampire (I’m not kidding).

In the case of Catherine Anderson’s newer contemporaries, panning an otherwise stand-up, well written book because one of the main characters is Catholic really just has me scratching my head and wondering wtf?

So I guess the real question I’m asking is why do people pan books for those kinds of reasons? I just don’t get it, doesn’t seem logical to me.

What I don’t get: the point of this was to give recommendations and what I’m reading is comments about books the commenters “think” they remember & plots that may or may not be accurate and saying negative things anyway. All we should be saying is this is what the book is like if that’s your cup of tea. If you’re not sure of the plot, author or book don’t say anything. If you’re going to trash a book be a “smart” bitch.

There was one story I remember I think was written by Mary Balough (that is who I have associated with it) where the heroine was deaf, and was institutionallized, and was taken out to be a ‘companion’ for one of the gentry. I remember it clearly because she becomes determined to ‘hear’ to the point of going to a quack Dr who brutally tries to ‘clear’ her ear passages.  In the end she does not regain hearing. 

Miles Vorkosigan is a great example, and there is an implied cultural defect that you also must take into account. He is short in a culture where men stand six feet tall, he does not top 4’10” due to his birth ‘defect’. The interactions within the society (which has a great fear of mutants) with his height alone reflects how some visible birth defects/physical differences can be a ‘disability’ simply because society forces them to be.  This is not politically correct, but our society can do this.

So I guess the real question I’m asking is why do people pan books for those kinds of reasons? I just don’t get it, doesn’t seem logical to me.

Well, what one likes or dislikes is an emotional, not a logical reaction. 

The things that can drop people out of a story can be quite odd.  If the story assumes familiarity with the setting that you don’t have, it can be a problem.

For example, many people who read books in English set in or about different cultures are reading books written by people with native knowledge of English and coming from a English-speaking background.  The way that a British or USAian author would write about, say, a village in India is quite different from how a native Indian, who grew up in a small village, writing for an Indian audience in an Indian language will write the same basic story.  If you translate the Indian’s story faithfully, it probably won’t work for most readers in the US, because it assumes cultural knowledge that they don’t have.  Metaphors will be wrong, things that need explaining won’t be explained, things that are explained may not need it, etc. 

When you say:

In the case of Catherine Anderson’s newer contemporaries, panning an otherwise stand-up, well written book because one of the main characters is Catholic really just has me scratching my head and wondering wtf?

You’ve drawn the conclusion that the book is “otherwise” stand-up and well written.  And it is, for someone who thinks like you. 

But for the people doing the panning, it isn’t “otherwise” stand up and well written.  It is a book that has problems, and one of the problems stems from the Catholicism of the character doing things to the text that keeps it from working for them.

It may be that they find actions of the characters that are based on the character’s Catholic beliefs to be implausible, perhaps because they don’t share those beliefs, and presenting them “naturally” doesn’t give the background to understand the action if you don’t know the character’s Catholic mindset.  It may be other things. 

But if you start by assuming the book is “stand up and well written” for everyone, then you won’t understand the reasoning of people who don’t find it stand up and well written.

Ursula,

exactly.  Thanks for articulating things so beautifully and easily understandable!

OMG—the commenters themselves mentioned the Catholic thing as being the deal breaker - nothing else.

They had better not read romance then. Sometimes the H & H get married in the end & sometimes it happens in a church.

Hardly any of the negative comments had the plot right.
Trash all you want but be accurate. No one is addressing that.

Hardly any of the negative comments had the plot right.
Trash all you want but be accurate. No one is addressing that.

Well, in a thread like this, people aren’t commenting based on having just read a book and having it fresh in their memory.  They’re commenting on what they remember about a book, without necessarily looking things up.

If the book is written in such a way that what they remember is implausible Catholic stuff and very little other detail, that’s their experience of the book. 

It is quite common, when remembering a book that you didn’t like, to remember the details that stuck in your mind as bad, while not remembering much else. It’s part of the experience of reading, that different books stick with you in different ways.  With a book you love, you’ll reread and remember much detail, while with a book you don’t like, you’ll remember that you didn’t like it, and a bit about why, but you won’t feel much like dwelling on it and analyzing what you disliked, unless you’re the sort of person who does in-depth literary analysis for fun.

I cannot find which Julia Quinn it is that has a heroine with a lifelong hip weakness leading to a limp and, she thinks, inability to do a lot of things—she can walk, carry things, but doesn’t dance and thinks pregnancy and childbirth will kill her.  The hero, after some book, persuades her to try things, and by the end, she’s affected by it but not disabled, if that makes sense.

This one sounds familiar to me, too, but I didn’t write it.

JQ

I can’t believe I forgot Mary Balogh’s Silent Melody!  It’s a great book - Emily is deaf and marries Ashley - Emily is the sister of the heroine in Heartless (which is my favourite Balogh evah) and Ashley is the hero’s brother in the same book, so we get to meet both characters in that one and then they get their own story.

Emily’s deafness is part of the book and Luke (the OMG to die for hero (IMO) of Heartless) teaches her to read and write and Ashley helps her develop a type of sign language so they communicate better but there is no miracle cure or anything.  It’s not just a story about Emily though - Ashley has his own journey too.  And, it’s a great book, - well, I think so anyway!!

Its Fool For Love by Eloisa James (brilliant, as the rest of her books). I’ve read it only recently.

Sorry, previous comment was about the limping heroine :) in reply to JQ

I’ll second the recommendation for Lui’s The Fire King.  She’s a kick-ass heroine who can take care of herself, thankyouverymuch, and she does it all with only one arm.  Spoiler: no, it does not magically grow back by the HEA, thank goodness.  Lui is above that crap.

Um, I meant “Liu.”  I misspelled it.  Twice. 

What. A. Moron.

Carry on.

LaVryle Spencer - The Gamble
Sandra Brown - Above and Beyond (I wanted to slap the heroine)
JR Ward - John Matthew (his book comes out April “Lover Mine”)
        - Wrath (from Dark Lover on..)

I’m reading the suggestions and I’m glad that there are more out there..thx :)

you know what really irks me? and I’ve seen this TWICE in recently published romance: the heroine/hero is blind, but a thwack on the head cures his blindness.

I have a few blind friends and believe me, if a knock could fix their problems they wouldn’t have asked me to bean them by now.  but more importantly, why can’t a person be both blind and happy in these novels?  Yes, living with blindness would suck, but it shouldn’t stand in the way of true love. why do these authors make it so important that you can only be with the one you love if you can see the one you love?

This is the comment thread that will not die!  I love it!  I have one more:Enchanting Pleasures by Eloisa James.  It’s a Regency where the hero has a horrible head injury (I think from the war, but don’t remember).  He gets blinding headaches after vigorous activity, so sex with his new bride is off the table.  Oh noes!  While he’s not magically cured by the end of the book, he and his heroine do find…a happy ending (couldn’t resist).  It’s the last in a trio of connected books, but I don’t think you have to read the first two to enjoy this one.

I’ve seen this TWICE in recently published romance: the heroine/hero is blind, but a thwack on the head cures his blindness.

Ouch!

Pity that the authors and publishers of this idea can’t be sued when some fool starts going about hitting blind people thinking that it will “help.”

Am coming to this excellent discussion late, and I recognize lots of the books mentioned. Thank you, Sarah, for talking about this subject.

A contemporary romantic suspense, FIRST TO DIE by Cris Anson, has a heroine who is a BTK (below the knee) amputee. This gives her a chip-on-the-shoulder attitude when it comes to men, and there are some fiery clashes between her and the older of male twins. It’s set in the Pinelands of New Jersey. While there’s lots of sexual tension, the actual act doesn’t happen until late in the book when he finally convinces her that she’s beautiful with or without her prosthesis. Her website is www.crisanson.com

BTW, I especially want to second the Joanna Waugh book, BLIND FORTUNE, as a great read.

The Heroine of Mary Jo Putney’s SILK AND SHADOWS has a badly damaged leg from a childhood riding accident, and cannot walk without pain.  People who want to be nasty call her a cripple.  The hero encourages her to ride and to dance, both of which she was afraid to do before she met him.  Its an excellent book, quite aside from her disability ( which doesn’t play all that much part in the plot).

@tshara -

There was a book I read years ago. Victorian era. She couldn’t use her legs at all and he carried her a lot.
I want to say that he rescued her from a fire when she was young, but there could have just been a fire somewhere in the book.
If I remember right, she never joins him as a vampire, but they live happily until she dies of old age…
Ahhh!!!! It’s going to drive me nutty!
It was a REALLY good book. Maybe someone will have better luck finding it with google than me…

Someone up there beat me to the title, however I remember this had a cop out. After he rescues her he gives her some of his blood which heals her. She grows up to become a ballerina. Then after she dies she’s reincarnated as a woman who barely remembers him - she’s all upset at their meeting because her husband and child from this life had died. Really rushed ending too. They try to find a cure, as a result other vampires attack them, so she decides instead of him becoming human, she’ll become a vampire. The end.

Teresa Medeiros’ Yours Until Dawn has the hero’s blindness cured by a thwack on the head.  His blindness was caused by a wartime head injury, and the author presents it that perhaps a blood clot was messing with his eyesight and it was loosened by the second thwack.  Don’t know if any of that is medically possible, but at least he wasn’t cured of a congenital or birth condition.

The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie has a hero with a sensory integration disorder; and it works!

What a Scoundrel Wants by Carrie Lofty features a blind heroine, and I really loved the way Lofty conveyed that—I could find no breaks in the sections from Meg’s point of view that, for example, described the way things looked.  This is one fantastic book.

The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly features a secondary romantic hero who ends up paralyzed from the waist down; another secondary romantic heroine has a leg amputated (it’s one enormous epic novel!). 

In all of the above novels, the disability is part of the characters’ lives, but not the ONLY part of their lives, and there were no magic fixes.

Josh Lanyon regularly writes lead characters in his M/M stories who have chronic illnesses, eg. Adrien English suffered rheumatic fever as a teenager and has a heart condition and asthma. His heart surgery in the latest book is a major driver of the story’s plot as he goes through cardiac rehab and convalesces.  In ‘the ghost wore yellow socks’, the young hero has severe asthma and has an asthma plan but can’t afford his medication.  One of the things I love about LMB’s Miles Vorkosigan is that she doesn’t shirk the difficulties of Mile’s life in living with his health problems and the influence and affect his health and disabilities have on the choices he makes.  Josh does this as well, the illness/disability is a part of the person.  ZA Maxfield’s ‘epistols at dawn’ has the lead hero living with panic attacks and OCD. 

To me these are much more realistic depictions of living with disabilities, especialy because they are outcomes of illnesses that we all may potentially have. I often find myself feeling that the depictions of deafness and blindness and limps or amputations as representations of the failing body are tokenistic:
- They are simply standing for, or symbols of the heroine/hero’s otherness or estrangement from society and the romance journey is about bringing them into the community. 
- Also as disabilities they are relatively fixed and once acceptance and adaptation has been made their affect on the hero’s life is less defining that it is for someone living with chronic disease who continually has to re-adapt and shape their reality to their changing health and capacities. 
- They are still a well person’s view of disability, looking from the outside.  Eg. I, like other commentators am very tired of the pushing away help trope.  You don’t live with chronic illness or disability without depending on other people and the challenge lies in how those boundaries are managed.
- I think disability/chronic illness gives you a much greater sense of the now because you have no control over the future ...as Miles Vorkosigan says it is about maintaining your forward momentum (despite it all)

Thanks again, folks! I’m compiling a list of most of these titles and will post them at The Galaxy Express tomorrow night.

Barbara mentioned Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls by Lindskold. I cannot recommend this enough! It is sci-fi/fantasy, not so much in the way of romance. The heroine is very neuro-atypical but learns to function in the world. I found it truly magical (well, felt stoned the entire time I was racing through it) and have re-read several times as well as forcing it on various acquaintances. I think it might help if you’ve read Jungle Book at some point in your life.

“A Curious Affair” by Melanie Jackson has a heroine who was hit by lightning.  She has problems with TMJ, when it is cold/rainy her jaw locks up.  She can also talk to cats.  She is also a severely depressed loner who is contemplating suicide, but her neighbor is murdered and she is forced to interact with the new sheriff.  All the Amazon reviewers (6) disliked it, but I really enjoyed it.

On the sf/f side Anne McCaffrey’s The Ship Who Sang is collection of stories about Helva, a person who is born with serious physical disabilities, but a sharp mind. Permanently encapsulated in mechanical life support pod, she becomes the “brain” of a space ship, while humans that are not disabled serve as co-pilot “brawns.”  McCaffrey wrote other stories in her “Brawn and Brain” series about ships, but the ones collected in The Ship who Sang are my favorites. And yes there are romantic relations between Helva and a couple of her co-pilots.

And don’t some of Catherine Asaro’s Skolian Empire heroines (and heroes) have various disabilities precisely because of all inbreeding and genetic manipulation that is at play in the ruling families (the Ruby dynasty and the Aristos)?

And for another Bujold recommendation—what about her books that feature the quaddies—Falling Free and Diplomatic Immunity? Quaddies are people who have two sets of arms and no legs, so in a situation where there is gravity, quaddies are physically handicapped because they cannot walk. But on space stations with no gravity they are graceful and quick, while it is humans with legs who are handicapped. Bujold I think is a person who is really interested in difference and disability in all their various meanings and permutations—her heroines and heroes usually are handicapped in some way (whether struggling with madness, depression, and guilt like Ista or physically disabled like Miles) but they are honorable and amazing people.

Touch Me by Jacquie d’Alessandro is about a “retired” 30ish mistress of an earl who has rheumatoid arthritis extremely bad.  She was in love with him but he supposedly didn’t want her anymore because of her disfigured hands. 

I haven’t read it yet since it’s a follow up book to Love and the Single Heiress which I need to read first.  It might stand alone though…..

I read an old old old old 80-something book about a lady who is anorexic (sp?) and contemplating suicide after unsuccessful rehab then she gets a new neighbor that is a teddy bear type of guy and he helps her to heal and they fall in love.  I remember really liking the book.  no cop-outs in this one.  It was one of those silver spined Harlequin American Romances, I’m pretty sure.

Also, there was a book where the heroine was temporarily blinded for some reason and while she is blind she meets a man who is very jaded and disconnected due to some very serious facial scarring or deformity.  He thinks he’s home clear when he meets her cuz she’s blind, then when she regains her sight he’s pissed and much angst ensues.  This was also one of those older Silver spined books.  So cop-out for her but no cop-out for him.

Anyway, if anyone knows these two I would love to re-read them.  :-)

@Diane/Anonym:  you are absolutely correct about A Rose for Maggie was the book I’m thinking of.  Unfortunately I have all my series romances in boxes cuz my sister and her family is living with me.  Darn I was hoping the girl in A Prince for Jenny was that baby.  In the epilogue for A Rose for Maggie, Maggie is a ballerina and is speaking publicly at her college graduation.  *sniff*  I love that book.

~~In the epilogue for A Rose for Maggie, Maggie is a ballerina and is speaking publicly at her college graduation.  *sniff*  I love that book.~~

Kristina,

I hate to disabuse you, but I don’t think we’re talking about the same book. I’ve read that story a hundred times, and have it in several reprinted versions. I’ve never seen it with that particular epilogue, and frankly I’m not convinced I’d find it believable if I did.  The epilogue in R4M takes place on umn, I think it’s their 5th wedding anniversary, with Maggie about six or seven at the most.  I’m too lazy to climb the stairs and get the book, but will check tonite and if I’m wrong I’ll post tomorrow. but that is definitely not any ending I’ve ever seen for this book.

Diane
confused… but that’s pretty standard for me.

Dancing With Clara by Mary Balogh is by far the most memorable book I have read about a disabled heroine.

I used to enjoy Catherine Anderson, but after reading Morning Light I promised myself never to go near another book by her. The heavy handed preaching and moralizing completely offended me. The morality beng preached also struck me as ridiculous. The hero goes on and on about the importance of chastity, has sex with the heroine anyway, and then tells her how sinful they both have been and how important it is that they wait for marriage. The heroine has psychic abilities, and the hero berates her, stating that these abilities go against his religion. Morning Light is probably the book I most disliked of any romance I’ve read.

Okay, I said one more earlier.  Now I think I really mean it.

The series is called The Emerald Dream by B.J. Hoff, and it sort of centers around three members of an old love triangle during the Irish Famine.  One is a cop now living in New York, one is a musician/Irish rebel, and their old love must decide whether to stay in Ireland or go to New York.  Much melodrama/romance ensues as the lives of these three and their families intertwine.  As I remembered more about this series, I was surprised at just how many characters in it end up with disabilities: someone has an arm amputated, someone was born with a club foot, someone becomes paralyzed, someone has amnesia (maybe) and is mute.  I think the last two characters are eventually cured, but not in magical, deus ex machina ways. 

The books are out of print, but it looks like you can still get them.  Here’s the order:
Song of the Silent Harp
Heart of the Lonely Exile
Land of a Thousand Dreams
Sons of an Ancient Glory
Dawn of the Golden Promise

I read this series as a 9th grader and loved it.  At 29, I don’t know if I’d still love it, but I certainly have fond memories.  It is Christian fiction, but I don’t remember that aspect being too intrusive to the story.

I suppose neither of these are technically disabilities, but I liked Mercedes Lackey’s The Fire Rose (a kind of Beauty and the Beast with Mages), where the hero whilst using magic becomes a part-beast like figure.  He does not become entirely human again at the end of the story.

I also remember reading a story years ago where the heroine had had a mastectomy, which was really sensitively dealt with.  Wish I could remember who it was by!

Again, not SF but medieval historical, The Darkest Knight by Gayle Callen was pretty close to the first modern romance I read back in the late nineties. The heroine has a crippled arm which never improves. It made her slightly clumsy but with the hero’s encouragement she learns to compensate. Excellent book.

A book I read as a teenager was Tell Me How The Wind Sounds. It features a sheltered (island boy) deaf hero and a heroine with a bit of ‘tude who drags him out of his shell and learns ASL to boot. (The way the author works the sign in this book is particularly good.)

Another teenager one (uh…yeah, I never grew up) is Long May She Reign by Ellen Emerson White. It’s the fourth in a (republished) series she wrote featuring the first female president’s daughter. In the third book Meg is kidnapped and has her knee smashed up, and later has to smash her own hand to bits in order to escape from where she’s been trapped. This is the fourth book, in which she slowly learns how to deal with life again while being handicapped, at college, and with media attention. She also has a romance with a guy who’s all too human—has his jerky moments and his good ones too, and they pretty much do “everything but” when it comes to sexuality.

It’s not romance so much as historical fantasy, but the heroine of Child of the Prophecy, the third book in the Sevenwaters series by Juliet Marillier, has a deformed foot and walks with a limp, and believes this is a curse upon her for being the child of an incestuous union.

She does have magical powers, but they’re completely unrelated- they’re the result of severely strict training since early childhood, she doesn’t always use them wisely, and her foot is never healed by them. The book is best if you read the other books in the series first (and may I say that in the first two are the two strongest and most sympathetic heroines I have ever read IMO), but I suppose it could be read alone.

I believe I also read a short story once in which the heroine was a very talented artist who ended up being blinded by… something I don’t remember, and the hero was a genie, and they fell in love and instead of wishing for her sight back, she wished for his freedom. For the life of me I do not recall the names except that hers _might_ have started with a D and his was, as usual, something ridiculously modern for a genie thousands of years old.

Oh, and I would like to put in my vote against Meg from What A Scoundrel Wants because she annoyed the crap out of me with her spontaneously-developed-in-six-months-mad-forest-ninja-skills. Seriously, I had to stop about four chapters in because I couldn’t stand her.

Alyssa: Meg annoyed the crap out of me too! returned that one.

Nadia: Yours until dawn was one of the ones I was thinking of.  maybe its possible but it still raises issues.

I remembered a couple more titles:  The ‘heroine’ of Patricia Grasso’s TO CATCH A COUNTESS is dyslexic.  However, since she is also extremely stupid, and the ‘hero’ is even stupider, as well as being an abusive SOB, I don’t recommend it.  The heroine of Elizabeth Rolls’ THE UNEXPECTED BRIDE has been blind ever since a fall from her horse, and yes, she gets her eyesight back when she gets another whack on the head, and the doctor speculates that a blood clot was blocking the optic nerve.  She also has an irresponsible twin sister and a seeing-eye wolfhound.  I quite liked it.

I compiled a most excellent list from the suggestions here and posted it at The Galaxy Express:

http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/2010/01/in-search-ofhandicapped-heroines.html

Thanks again!

Just remembered another title:  SWEET ANNIE by Cheryl St John.  The heroine’s family treat her like an invalid, even making her use a wheelchair, although she is capable of walking, but with an unsightly limp.  The hero has to rescue her from their ‘love’.  In the end, she still limps. Spamword Like69. I wonder if she does?

Not a romance, but 25 years later I think I want to reread it:

Why have the Birds Stopped Singing by Zoa Sherburne

This is about a girl with epilepsy who time travels substituting with her great(great?) grandmother. Both are epileptic but how the condition is treated has changed a great deal in the last hundred years or so. Epilepsy is seen as a major problem to her before the time travel but it seems much more manageable after the time travel adventure. (I think the people in the past believed the seizures were witchcraft.)

I feel like I have read books where the heroine had diabetes that she had to control, but maybe the only time was Primal Heat by Susan Sizemore which does have the magic wand disease fix.

Neither problem has to be crippling now, but both can be extremely damaging and in the past either epilepsy and diabetes both could be a death sentence.

My husband has epilepsy, it is really unnerving to be near someone having a seizure. It makes you very glad to live near a pharmacy and a neurologist. With a chance at a CT scan when you want one. Willow bark tea won’t do it.

This is a bit outside romance-land, but the Wine Country mysteries series by Ellen Crosby **might** work (at least the first three books). Pre-book 1 the heroine gets into a pretty severe car accident; the doctors tell her she’ll never walk again, but she manages to prove them wrong, although she has a cane for the rest of her life and can’t run or move very fast. The author does a good job or neither highlighting nor shoving aside her disability. It’s just there.

The overall plot: she inherits the family vineyard in Virginia; right before her dad died, he hired a new winemaker who is 180 degrees from everything she’s used to: major east (her) vs. west (him) coast culture clash. Normal murder mystery stuff ensues in the books—so if that genre is not your thing, skip it—but the atmosphere is great, and the slow development of her and the winemaker guy’s relationship is really good. It was a lot more realistic than love-at-first sight, but is still really enjoyable.

Don’t know if it will help the OP, but if anyone else is reading this post and looking for the something along those lines, it might be worth a look.

Sorry to be so late to the party and apologies if this has already been covered above (have to be somewhere shortly and don’t have time to read all the really great comments), but one of Deborah Fairchild’s Regencies has a blind heroine.  I don’t remember the title, but the hero is called “The Beast” (Beauty and the Beast?—that seems way too obvious).  The heroine will always be blind—but the hero finds some raised alphabet blocks for her so that she can learn a sort of modified Braile (prior to Braile inventing them, I suppose).

There’s a very old school western romance (possibly Shirlee Busbee or Rebecca Brandywine) where the heroine’s lower body was severely injured in an accident.  She has a distinct limp and also can never have children (I think this was mentioned a few weeks back in the infertility thread).

Great discussion above.  THIS is the sort of thing I always point to when any tiresome person says women who read romances are empty-headed nincompoops.

So I was told on twitter that I’d started some sort of kerfluffle here at SBTB about Catherine Anderson’s books.

What I’d said:

I’ll second or third Catherine Anderson’s older books (it appears she converted or reaffirmed or something recently and newer books are heavy on the Catholic ideals which might annoy some)

I’ve a heroine disabled via accident in Tea for Three (mmf, set in NZ) from Loose Id.

(And ps I was told off recently for the use of handicapped… not pc these days, apparently. Disabled/differently-abled I believe is the current phrasing)

And in reply to :

Are you all reading the same Catherine Anderson books that I am? Cause I certainly don’t pick up on any overly Catholic bents at all. I am definitely not religious, and not Christian or Catholic, and none of her recent books have struck me as such. I particularly enjoyed her newest one that just came out about a month ago (forget the name of it, of course). As far as I can tell, the closest she leans towards a Catholic bent is by describing the family or the heroine as Catholic, that they pray, and attend church—nothing wrong with that. It kind of helps shape the characters. If you read closely enough, she usually has a supporting character somewhere that tempers the Catholic views of the main character—especially when they get in a snit about something. Maybe you’re just being overly sensitive…

Where I replied:

There have been a few reprints of early work lately - the one that came out a month ago was one of them I believe. Her true new books versus new reprints go from mentioning faith/finding love/having sex, to practicing faith (some heavily)/finding love/no sex until marriage.

I’ve read over the replies, and WOW.

First I recommended CA books (because I love those earlier books, such wonderfully human characters), then I say that I’ve noticed a number of reprints recently (which would have her older style of writing- and yay for her on the reprint front) which, admittedly by inference as I don’t know how much back list of CA Roxanne has read, would mean the books she was reading were older rather than brand new and therefore the perception difference. I then said how I saw the difference between the older and newer works.

I stand corrected on the new/reprint front, the book I saw what I thought was a month ago, might well have been two months ago, so indeed there might have been a new book since. I just remember my disappointment at the book being a reprint vs new work.

No where amongst any of that did I get a hate on for Catherine Anderson, Catholicism or any other religion, other than to say I felt there was a difference from older to newer works that people who did take exception to religion being very prominent may not take to the newer books. I also briefly outlined the reason why I’d not enjoyed more recent works as much as past.

From reading through the thread I obviously wasn’t alone in noticing this change in CA’s work.

For the record: In my remembered and personal opinion, in the newer contemporary releases that I’ve read the protagonists religion had gone from being part of their background makeup, to being an active part of the storyline. So, for my reading preferences the stories had gone from ‘not quite an inspirational’ which I don’t mind reading (obviously, as I’ve rec’d CA’s earlier works often) to ‘Inspirational romances’ which I’m not always comfortable reading—there have been some wonderful exceptions, of course.

Roxanne, please feel free to accuse me of blatant self advertising and promotion on my own behalf, but the other… there really is no justification.

And back to the original topic - did I see someone had compiled a list of all the diff recs? There looks to be some interesting reading amongst them all

In Rachel Lee’s Involuntary Daddy, the heroine has diabetes.  It’s part of the Conard County series.

Lynn Kurland wrote a historical book and the hero was blind.  I think his name was Christopher but I can’t remember the name of the book.

I just read Entwined by Emma Jensen. This had the hero blinded though an attack.  Although not completely blind, he can just see a little bright color sometimes, nothing else.  And he even gets hit on the head in the end and doesn’t even regain his sight!

It was actually a good read.  Older book and might be hard to find.  I bought it on Amazon at a ridiculous price.

I just want to say thanks for recommending Catherine Anderson. I bought Candle in the Window in ebook format and read the whole thing last night.

Natalie:  I’m confused.  The book Candle in the Window I read about blind heroine was by Christina Dodd, not Catherine Anderson.  Does she have a book out with the same title?  If so, what is it about?

Thanks.

Megan wrote>

Lynn Kurland wrote a historical book and the hero was blind.  I think his name was Christopher but I can’t remember the name of the book.

I think someone already posted about Kurland’s book. It’s called This Is All I Ask.

Christopher of Blackmoor.

Thank you Juls for the two suggestions.  I will definitely check them out. 
Jasmine- I’ll check out the website and the message board.  Thanks!
Mezza- I will definitely check the list!  Thank you so much for compiling all of this for us!  Also, you expressed the differences between “visible” and “invisible” so beautifully!  In many books there truly seems to be a difference in the way these disabilities are handled as an element to the plot. 

Thank you all so much!

Sorry to be such a latecomer to this thread, but I have a couple of suggestions.

A trio of books by Sarah Smith features a visually impaired heroine and no cop-outs. The three books are as much mystery/history as romance, but the complex and satisfying relationship between the heroine and hero is a major thread throughout the three titles: The Vanished Child, The Knowledge of Water, & A Citizen of the Country.

There is also a pair of mysteries by Deborah Grabein featuring aging rocker J.P. Kincaid, who deals with multiple sclerosis as well as murder and mayhem.  Titles are Rock and Roll Never Forgets &  While my Guitar Gently Weeps.

For instance, Sally Mandel’s Out Of The Blue was a big hit for people, and I was red in the face screaming at the heroine for being a big fucking whiner.

I am way late for this thread, but I think this comment highlights different strokes for different folks. I am nowhere as disabled as Caligi, but I can totally relate to someone pushing people away and worrying about being a burden. I think Caligi’s attitude is awesome, and I wish I could feel the same. But personally, Mary Balogh’s “Simply Love” drove me up the wall, because the hero seemed to have limitless patience in his recovery, and didn’t suffer like do. And I get depressed, can’t cope with intense physcial therapy, snap at people when I am in pain, and hate to accept help. I keep going in fits and starts, and it was just depressing to read about someone who overcame the physical problems by sheer determination, and seemed to be able to just soldier through pain, when I struggle so much.

I think it’s my general complaint about the disabled hero’s/heroine’s that I read about - they may think that no one will want them for their deformity, but they seem to have adapted to their disability and learned to do what they need to; they also often have loyal servants who take care of them regardless how much the hero abuses them when he is in pain. Neither of this fits my experience, and I’d love to read more books which portray the kind of ongoing struggle which can come with becoming disabled, especially if the disability is invisible.

Does anyone know what book this is?  Long time ago I read a romance book about a man who falls in love with a paraplegic woman and later in the story at some point he saves her when she gets into a car accident and can’t get out.

@MD

I’d love to read more books which portray the kind of ongoing struggle which can come with becoming disabled, especially if the disability is invisible.

I don’t mean to say that I’ve gone quietly. I’ve had my share of crying jags set off by not being able to get a jar of mayo out of the fridge because my husband put a six-pack in front of it. I really, really miss going to Fenway on a whim with scalped tickets. I yell at people who take up the wheelchair seats who only need a cane and came with 4 of their friends.

But pushing people away? Not wanting someone to help me? Maybe I’m shameless? I don’t know. I just can’t imagine turning down orgasms and good company. I’m the same tart I was when I could run, hike and ski. I still go out and make no apologies for the hassle I am. Why should we? One of my BFFs turns into an ogre if she doesn’t eat, another is prone to insecure mood swings that flatten parties like a pin to a balloon and another is Catholic. We’re all flawed. So I make other people carry my beers at the game, take me or leave me, this is how it is now.

To be fair, I was initially diagnosed with ALS. After spending the better part of being 25 with the assumption I’d be dead by 30, gradual disability with all likelihood of a normal lifespan seemed quite agreeable. I’m not Yoda, but I don’t rage about what can’t be changed.

As for the debate over dismissing a book for background Catholicism - I totally would. I went to Catholic school for 10 years and it scarred me for life. Sure it’s wrong, but with the exception of my BFF and her family, I have no nice thoughts about practicing Catholics. I couldn’t like the hero and heroine and so the book wouldn’t be enjoyable for me. It’s a big deal to people. Catholic school can be an extremely traumatic experience. My experience is far from unique.

But pushing people away? Not wanting someone to help me? Maybe I’m shameless?

You are not shameless, you are actually better adjusted than many people. It’s a very good attitude to take. But since for me learning to accept help was a painful (and still ongoing) process, personally I think it would be a great romance. So much in romance revolves against the basic ability to trust each other and be emotionally vulnerable. It’s easier for me to be “weak” and accept help and care from people whom I trust, and who I know value me. I can easily imagine this being a problem in a relationship, because it was a very real problem for me. I would want to see the heroine (or hero, for that matter), grow this trust.

Not that there isn’t space for other options - I think “A Man Like Mac”, who has a paraplegic hero and an injured athlete heroine, was great. Mac is very well adjusted, but he felt real, and not just a superhero who overcame pain and impossible odds, like many of the historical disabled/handicapped heroes. And the heroine struggling with her new limitations (and refusing to accept them) fit well with how things were emotionally for me. Still, I wish for more heroes who are more realistically vulnerable this way - since I developed my own problems, many of the “grit your teeth and bear it” heroes grate, while they seemed completely realistic for me before I had to deal with pain on a daily basis.

As a total off-topic, don’t get too mad at people with canes in wheelchair seats. They shouldn’t take up all the space, sure, and especially able-bodied friends should make accommodation for someone in wheelchair. But sometimes it’s not “just” a cane. Recently I made a fuss on the plane about being re-seated from the front row where there was more space. They double-booked the seat for me and a gentleman with a foot in a cast. His need was greater on the surface - broken foot vs. me moving around freely, if with a cane. But sitting in a cramped seat on a long flight would have meant anywhere between 2 and 6 weeks flared up - i.e. being unable sleep because of stronger pain, taking stronger painkillers with nasty side effects. But no one would guess from just looking at me. In that particular situation, in the end they moved someone else as well, and so found me a seat that worked OK. I don’t know what I would have done if that seat wasn’t found - probably took the worse seat, in the end, and coped with the inevitable pain as best I could. Don’t know how it applies to sporting event seats, of course (probably doesn’t!), but it’s just something that people with invisible disabilities find particularly hard - asking for help and consideration when there is nothing visibly wrong. Another emotional topic for romance, I guess ;-)

@ Casandra:

Does anyone know what book this is?  Long time ago I read a romance book about a man who falls in love with a paraplegic woman and later in the story at some point he saves her when she gets into a car accident and can’t get out.

I think the book you are thinking of is one that has been mentioned above, Phantom Waltz by Catherine Anderson. She has an accident while driving home in snow and he comes to get her out. Quite a cute scene, if I remember correctly!

Very, very late comer to the thread, but no-one mentioned Lisa Marie Rice’s Midnight Angel. It has a blind heroine, and an ‘ugly’ man (or at least he thinks he is, and he’s definitely not described as handsome in any way). It does, however, lean towards a cop-out at the end. I can’t explain without giving away the ending, but I was a bit disappointed, though overall it was excellent. It’s a romantica/erotica book, so beware those that don’t read those. It’s the last book in a series of 3, though it is the only that deals with a disabled heroine.

If you want handicapped or diasabled heroines and/or heroes Lurlene McDaniel is the best way to go. She sometimes mentions God, but she doesn’t push it, and she does it in a way that fully compliments the story if she does it all.

In her books not only does she not cop-out, you can only hope that our hero or heroine will be alive at the end of the book, because some of her characters have aids, leukemia, etc.  They are all mostly love stories.

My favorite one is where the girl had a disfigured face and would cover it with her hair.  In the hospital was this boy who was temporarily blind and they fell in love.  He eventually got his sight back and she did get plastic surgery, BUT what makes it unique was that it wasn’t perfect.  She still had obvious disfigurmants.

She’s considered YA, but she doesn’t baby her books, or make them all like Gossip Girl speed.  She keeps them romantic, realistic, and