So what’s your favorite flavor of hero (I don’t mean that literally)?
I’m a big fan of the tortured hero, but especially when he keeps it quiet and the narrator doesn’t spend a lot of time in his head. Somehow, being inside a personally tortured hero turns him rapidly into an angst-filled hero, and that just makes me want to send him to therapy, not to bed with the heroine.
But what kind of torture? Overcoming a painful childhood? Overcoming a painful loss? Not always my favorite, because mourning means that the lost person is almost always on the periphery, and it’s hard to maintain a romance between two people when there’s a third in diaphanous form lurking in the background.
I think my favorite kind would be the tortured hero who has shut himself off from everything remotely emotional, using work or something similarly lacking in personal engagement to shield himself from intimacy. Having the hero unable to resist his attraction to the heroine, despite wanting desperately to do so, is about my favorite kind of hero. I’ve written about that before – the hero who tries to resist for fear or loathing of intimacy is about my favorite kind.
Every character has something to deal with personally or within the relationship in order to earn their happily-ever-after. So what’s your personal preferene when the hero has to work for his – what do you love to read about when it’s time for the hero to earn his bliss?
I like the guy with damage. He’s had some trauma in his life, so rather than be a cock about it, he just avoids intimacy in general. The nice guy with a dark secret. The brooding one who lets the heroine in just a little bit, then freaks out. Love that.
Mmmm… Tortured and mysterious is always the best combination. You’re right, too much info can make him seem like a whiny prick, whereas a hint of mystery adds to the tormenty goodness.
One of my faves for a psychologically tormented hero is Lord Endicott’s Appetite by Emily Fairchild. It is a straight regency (no hard core action, damn!) and the hero is in a deep depression as a result of his wife’s death. As a result he has literally lost his appetite and is wasting away.
The heroine is a french emigre who lost her family in the revolution. She gets a job as his cook and has to try to save him from his self imposed starvation. An oldie but goodie!
So many writers rely on long, drawn out descriptions of manly chests, taut muscles, powerful abs, long, untamed hair, etc blechth.
You can’t just describe a guy by his body parts and have a modern woman transform into a primitive bed-slut. Thinking women need a little more substance to their guys. They need men who hold down a regular job but who don’t become their jobs. They need a guy who gets off the sofa to experience the world, who cares about the people around them and who don’t walk through life unscathed but still handle it and get up in the morning. They want someone they can build a life with, who will be there and love them when they are at their worst. That is sexy to me.
Oh yeah, butt descriptions and whorls of chest hair do NOT do it for me. I usually end up skipping those paragraphs altogether!
But multi-dimensional men who resemble my favorite real-life dudes? Yummy!
Definately. I like complex. I go for brains first every time.And my exes prove it.
Oh yeah – I once told this girl at camp, the summer I was mad for Hubby who wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do about that, that I liked my men short and dorky.
I love the heroes that are in love with the heroines and the heroines don’t know it. (Sometimes the heroes don’t, either.) Sometimes they love her despite what they *think* they know about her. Sometimes there were crossed wires so what he thought was making the big, bold move and declaring himself came across wrong to her and ruined his chances for awhile. Sometimes she’s oblivious and he’s trying to gently or not-so-gently steer her towards him without success until suddenly the light bulb goes off and she realizes how wonderful he is. Sometimes he thinks he’s never going to have a chance so does his best to just be her friend/boss/brother’s friend/etc. I think it’s the combination of his vulnerability towards the heroine combined with his otherwise strong (or invulnerable) personality that gets me.
::Sigh::
Love the ‘in love’ heroes.
All total Pride and Prejudice elements… Gotta love the totally stiff repressed and clueless Darcy!
I’m with Mistress Stef here – I like a hero with damage. Some traumatic event that he must work through. There’s a fine line here – brooding is fine, but he better not be whiny.
Also, I love me a virgin hero. And I also like a nice Beta. No Betas are not wimps (gawd I had that misconception!). Every now and then I just want to read about a nice guy who doesn’t behave like an Alpha asshole
😉
You are soooo right E.D’Trix! Darcy’s speech during his first proposal to Elizabeth is the quintessential example of what I was talking about. I adore the big heroes brought low by love.
Yup. There is something to be said for starchy british boneheadedness, LOL.
And Wendy, I think you would like Lord Endicott’s Appetite if you like good Betas. It’s a tortured beta-hero story done verra verra well.
I’m drawn to Cyrano variants—gallant, wickedly witty and arrogant in his integrity, but I like the addition of the HEA.
To me, the quintessential tortured hero is Samuel of The Shadow and the Star. First of all, his trauma isn’t pussy trauma. You know what I’m talking about. Judith McNaught’s books often feature super-angsty heroes whose traumas are usually pussy traumas (“my mom and dad had a loveless marriage, waaaaaah!”). Samuel? Dude was forced into prostitution as a child. That is some BAGGAGE. Second of all: He doesn’t whine about it or feel sorry for himself. Never. Ever. Third of all: He doesn’t take it out on others, he mostly takes it out on himself.
And I love how the one he THINKS he loves is not the one he really loves, because the one he really loves terrifies him in such fundamental ways.
An excellent hero who has suffered a lot of pain but instead of becoming angsty, goes right in the other direction and becomes rather flippant, is S.T. of Prince of Midnight.
All right, enough with the Kinsale love fest. For today.
I do like the occasional tormented asshole hero, but they have to spend a good portion of the book trying to make up to the heroine for their assholishness and treat the heroine like a queen.
A good beta hero is also hard to beat. Nice guys? Hell yeah. Nice guys with romance novel hero bodies? HELL YEAH. Christy of To Love and To Cherish is the perfect example.
I’m drawn to Cyrano variants—gallant, wickedly witty and arrogant in his integrity, but I like the addition of the HEA.
Oooooh, yeah, I LOVE a good, witty hero. And an evil sense of humor is such a bonus, both in fictional heroes and real-life men.
Oh yes, a Darcyesque “I am brought low by my inability to resist you” is just so breathtaking when done right. Especially because the heroine could very easily be insulted, and the hero has no clue that his resistence is potentially an affront to her pride.
Right, right. Serious baggage. And I love it when they cry.
I like both tortured heroes, and Kinsale excels at the breed, and I like more laid back guys who show up and get the job done. I have to believe that the hero would make a good husband and father to buy into the story.
I enjoyed Linda Howard’s CRY NO MORE partly because the super tough, scary hero always wore his seat belt and voted regularly. When it came to the end of the book I could see him settling down and having a normal life because elements of it were already there. He only took risks because he had to, not because he was a thrill seeker.
Sarah, I am so with you on the starchy Brits brought low. Much more fun to read about that than broad shoulders and hairy chests.
And that word “whorl” just sounds wrong.
Doesn’t it? Chest hair whorling around nipples? Thinning to a fine line that dipped below his waist line? I get it. Hair. Yeesh.
Oh, so easy: Devon Crandall from The Windflower, Ruck from For My Lady’s Heart, and Stuart Aysgarth from Ivory’s Untie My Heart.
I should say these are the heroes that *I* find most Romantic, which comprise the smallest subset of heroes I like to read about. But the basic characteristics are the same: hyper intelligent and generally somewhat intellectual; kind but not in a girly or solicitous sort of way; cynical but in the idealist-as-disappointed kind of way; masculine and not necessarily brawny, but definitely easy in his body and comfortable with his sexuality; honorable even if not fully law-abiding; ethically consistent, even if he’s morally ambiguous; tortured or traumatized, but not to the point of total self-absorbed and self-important brooding; slightly in awe of the heroine, or at least having a healhy dose of respect mixed in with his attraction to her; passionate; a man capable of actually *liking* women; a natural leader; perceptive and capable to communicating his insights in subtle ways.
Favorite heroes include Lord Winter from Kinsale’s Dream Hunter; Sheridan from Kinsale’s Seize the Fire; Graham from Ivory’s Black Silk; Christy from Gaffney’s To Love and Cherish; Sebastian from To Have and To Hold; Alan Wilde from Tom and Sharon Curtis’ Sunshine and Shadow; Lord Landry from the Curtis’ Love’s A Stage (actually, pretty much every hero Tom and Sharon Curtis wrote); Stacey Quinn from Susan Donovan’s Knock Me Off My Feet; Decker Thorne From Jo Goodman’s My Reckless Heart; Ethan from Goodman’s Wild, Sweet Ecstasy; Adam Serre from Susan Johnson’s Pure Sin; Rupert Carsington from Chase’s Mr. Impossible; Seth Mackay from Shannon McKenna’s Behind Closed Doors; Rejar from Dara Joy’s Rejar, and so many more I can’t remember!
“Yup. There is something to be said for starchy british boneheadedness, LOL.”
Speaking of which, did anyone see the BBC production of Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South? Ooohhhhhhh baby; lots of starch and some seriously deeeelicious British booty. It’s replaying on July 17th for anyone like me who has basically every cable service known to man (including BBC America) AND a DVR digital cable box (so I can tape Big Brother Whatever when I’m in England next week). Rent it, tape it, buy it, whatever; it was riveting and absolutely beautifully filmed.
My favorite kind of hero is a non-man slut (like Phillip from To Sir Phillip with Love who didn’t have sex for 8 years) who’s a little socially awkward with a gruff exterior, but a sensitive poet’s soul. I like a good alpha-beta mix. I don’t like heroes who are too domineering or too wimpy, but something in the middle.
Also, a hero who sees nothing wrong with “persuading” a woman a little too strongly to have sex with him? No thanks.
I also liked Sebastian from Duchess In Love, the fiance of the heroine, Gina. He was all stuffy and British and proper, but then he falls in love with Gina’s slutty friend Esme, and he just loses his cool and becomes this adorably adoring puppy… aww. So cute.
I like the hero who has a sharp sarcastic wit, is hiding a great loss of some sort (yes, tortured), but hiding it so well that the heroine is amazed by the revelation eventually, and grows to admire and appreciate him more for it.
I also love the quiet self-sacrificing heroic type, with “hero” used in the original sense of the word. Unrequited love, or secret love for the heroine is a huge plus.
Literary characters I love—Sydney Carton from A TALE OF TWO CITIES, many of the Victor Hugo heroes, Mr. Darcy, Mr. Rochester, and… ahem… my own. 🙂
I love beta heroes and troubled heroes. Hmmm, must give this some thought.
As I’m re-listening to “Welcome to Temptation” by Jennifer Crusie, I find I’m sooo in love with the tortured hero who doesn’t know he is: both Phin and Davy don’t seem to have anything eating their insides but they both (Phin explicitly in a conversation/argument with his mother, Davy’s needs are implied) want true and everlasting love but don’t believe they’ll get it. Hell, Phin can’t even recognize love when he’s looking at it/her.
Can anyone tell me what HEA stand for? Thanks…
HEA = Happily Ever After
Duh- thanks so much. I’ll finish my coffee now!!
Well, sheeit, this’ll teach to try and comment before 8 a.m. I’m moving my autobuy comment to, y’know, the post ABOUT autobuys instead of the post about heroes.
Sheesh.
My fave? The damaged hero seeking redemption. (As if you couldn’t tell.)
I like the idea of a man seeking to overcome his sins; I like characters that have done awful things and are trying to atone. That’s just my schtick.
I used to say I didn’t like tortured heroes. And then I discovered Kinsale and I love her heroes, especially Samuel. Though Ruck is pretty good, too.
I enjoy Crusie’s heroes, especially Phin, and I think of them as beta.
I can really enjoy a laidback, calm hero when the heroine has tons of baggage.
But, really, I suspect it ends up being, it all depends, for me and heroes.
Mmm. Heroes. A strong man who loves a woman despite himself gets me a-quiver. But, must also be strong, intelligent and proud. It’s the surrender of pride that gets me every time. Sigh.
I also love when they go out of character. Like in the movie Thunderheart. He’s all Mr. Lawman, but then he realizes it’s more than a job.
A good author can persuade me to like all different types of heroes, but for some reason the person sticking in my mind today is Heyer’s Duke from “These Old Shades”. Powerful, sarcastic (in a perfectly polite way), never ruffled, and dressed to the nines.
I think I need to read that book again.
The Duke of Avon _is_ a classic character. I loved it when he showed up in THE DEVIL’S CUB and politely listened to the heroine give her opinion of his character, all unknowing whom she was addressing.
Time to dig out the Heyers, again.
BTW, did you catch that in the earlier THE BLACK MOTH Avon was “Andover”, the villain? For some reason Heyer changed the names of the characters, but it’s the same person.