In a five-second IM conversation one night (because we Smart Bitches have yet to actually speak live to one another – ha!) Candy posited the following: what behavior from a heroine will we never, ever see in a romance novel?
Being who we are, we came up with a very organized list. Behold: our take on Romance Taboos, Heroine-style.
Consider it the romance parallel to the oft-debunked guide on How to Be a Good Wife.
A Romance Heroine:
1. Would never have had an abortion and harbor no guilt and/or regret about it.
2. Would never sleep around just for the sake of doing so, or actually enjoy casual sex (unless it’s erotica). There’s got to be some moment, if the heroine HAS done this, of “OH, my life had no MEANING and I was CHEAP for doing so!”
3. Would never be an atheist and remain that way throughout the book (she would have to Find God!).
4. Would never start out devout and then end up atheist or agnostic – and obviously be happier with this (non) belief system than the religious structure she started out with.
5. Would never be a close-minded conservative, e.g. make anti-gay or anti-working-women statements (or the like). It might be implied but it ain’t said outright.
6. Would never knowingly cheat on her husband, and even in the remote possibility that she does, he probably did it first. And if she cheated on him, they’d never, ever end up together again. This taboo is not held against heroes, of course—The Marriage Bed and Your Wicked Ways are just two books that involve adulterous heroes who get an HEA.
7. Would never admit to liking, or having had, pussy. Maybe in erotic romance, but gay/bi men are much more common (or so it seems to us, anyway).
8. Would never be impatient with and admit to not liking children. This applies to heroes too. Those heroines that don’t want kids (Min, for example) are never mean to kids, and are usually spendidly comfortable hanging out with them.
9. Ditto animals. If either character starts out not liking children or animals, by the end of the book she’ll have babies dangling off her teats and he’ll be covered in dog hair and they’re both Ecstatically Happy with that situation.
10. Heroine would never be physically stronger than the hero, barring a paranormal involving a vampire/werewolf/demon/alien/whatever heroine and a human hero.
11. When involved in a business deal, especially a takeover, the hero HAS to come out on top. If the heroine belongs to the company that’s initiating the merger, her company will portrayed as the Eeeeville Corporation trying to stomp out the plucky competition, and she’ll eventually side with the hero. If vice versa, her company will be portrayed as the incompetently-run business that is saved by the hero’s huge yet amazingly compassionate and ethical behemoth of a company, and again, she’ll eventually side with the hero.
12. Never exists without one nurturing aspect to her personality. She might be tough as nails business-wise, but she grows plants like a gardener on speed. She could be a toned, competitive athlete but she also has sixteen cats and four dogs.
13. If she’s run down, stressed out and unhappy in a small town, she won’t find happiness and fulfillment by running to a large city, revelling in the increased job opportunities and anonymity this affords her, then making a new group of friends who share many of her same interests and finding a new man—one who has never been her high-school sweetheart or childhood crush. In short, she won’t have to go back in time to find herself. (The reverse happens all the time in romance novels.)
Dude, you practically made a list of things I don’t like about traditional romantic heroines. Especially the part where they can’t have casual sex without destroying their self image, and especially especially #13, which would make a great book if she found new friends, a new career, and then sensibly chose the new guy over the old flame. Especially if the old flame was who everyone expected her to go with, and the new guy was some kind of paranormal monster.
This is a really fun blog, by the way. I really dig it.
I broke rule 2,3,8 and 12. So. Tara is not a Romance Heroine by this definition.
It doesn’t matter. My Friday was sucking completely anyway. No particular reason. I just pick random days and decide they suck for the variety.
Everyone else may now proceed to elevate the topic back to it’s formerly lofty heights.
Naw. From what I’ve read so far, Tara has two cats and coos all over a wee little kitten. If she hadn’t had any nurturing instincts, she would’ve killed or tossed the little sumbitch. So she’s broken only three rules.
Before getting to the book thing, I have to say I was amazed that the How to be a Good Wife thing was out there on the Internets…I came across that list in a cookbook I inherited from my husband’s mother. It made me laugh and I decided to keep it for that list alone. (Cracked me up how, if not for the word “wife”, one could assume they were instead talking about how to take care of a child.)
Anyway, on to the books. I have three books, all category Harlequin Presents books by Miranda Lee, that I thought of as I was reading your post. They are each pretty subtle in including these characteristics, but I think break the heroine “must do” mold. Funnily enough, I didn’t particularly like any of these books, but I admire this author because she always seems to include characteristics in her heroes and heroines that break the rules.
#8 not be impatient with kids: A Nanny Named Nick features a single mom who finds there’s no way she can be a stay-at-home mom. She just can’t take it; she has to be out in the world working. She displays a lot of impatience with her own child, which I found a brave choice for the author to do – making the heroine unsympathetic in this way.
#12 toned, competitive: Two Week Wife features an athletic girl that has a negative relationship with her mother and displays no domestic or other nurturing skills.
#13 run-down in small town: The Playboy’s Virgin features a heroine from a very small town who moves to Sydney upon learning she’s inherited a business. She takes to running the business like a fish to water, learns she can’t stand the guy she thought she had a crush on from her earlier life, and falls in love with her mentor in the city.
“The Playboy’s Virgin”
+ 10 points for daring to break a really, really tiresome romance heroine taboo.
-50 points for the worst. goddamn. title. ever. The only way it could be worse was if it was “The Sheikh Playboy’s Virgin’s Secret Baby.”
Don’t try to make me feel better or I’ll have to start my Blue Funk back from the beginning of the day.
“Don’t try to make me feel better (…)”
Heh heh. Actually, I wasn’t—I’d love to see MORE of these goddamn taboos broken. Even if I’m an animal lover, I’ve had it up to HERE with heroines who ooze Earth Mother compassion the way I ooze grease from my pores after a meal at Popeye’s.
Not that Tara can be said to ooze Earth Mother ANYTHING, much less compassion. But she has a nurturing streak, all right.
Hmm, I can think of a few more things romance heroines don’t do that women I know in real life often do:
1. They don’t swear. “Fuck this shit”, when having a bad day at work, or say “stupid asshole” when someone cuts them off in traffic.
2. They don’t take Paxil, Prozac, Xanax, or the like. If they’re depressed, they eat ice cream for a few days and that fixes everything.
3. They don’t use birth control, except for the occasional condom. They don’t worry about genital herpes.
4. They don’t weigh more than maybe 130 lbs. soaking wet.
Actually, I have to say that the one taboo I don’t want to see broken is the homophobia/anti-feminist taboo—mostly because I think people who think homosexuals are abominations tend to be irredeemable assholes. It would be interesting to see a homophobic heroine redeemed, though….
“They don’t swear.”
True, this is pretty rare. Betsy of MaryJanice Davidson’s Undead series does, though. It’s partly why I like her so much, despite embodying almost everything I hate.
Anyway, don’t you cuntmonkeys know that cussing isn’t ladylike?
“They don’t take Paxil, Prozac, Xanax, or the like.”
Good one! The aversion to anti-depressant usage in romance fiction is almost Scientologist-like in its fervor.
And speaking of anti-depressants: you will never see a heroine suffer through serious post-partum depression.
“They don’t weigh more than maybe 130 lbs. soaking wet.”
Back in the 70s/early 80s, this would’ve been true. If the girl started out chubby, she would’ve slimmed down before the middle of the book, almost definitely before fucking the hero. But I can think of several romances with chubby/overweight heroines, e.g. Olympia of Seize the Fire, Min of Bet Me, Whatserface of Suddenly You….
Actually, I don’t know that any heroine in a book I’ve read took anything stronger than Tylenol. Prescription medicine or conditions requiring prescriptions in general, even if the drug is not mentioned by name, are not mentioned ever in my memory.
I’ve got a heroine who loves casual sex. It’s her way of relaxing. But still in keeping with the taboo – after all, she can’t be a skanky ho – she doesn’t go into bars and pick up men whose names she doesn’t know. She always asks first.*g*
Oh, and she’s also on the Pill. She uses condoms for safe sex, but she’d never leave it up to a guy to keep her from getting pregnant. She doesn’t want to end up tied down with a bunch of kids hanging on to her ankles.
Oh, I broke another rule. Bonus!
I’ll never get her published.
Agreed – the Harlequin Presents line is extraordinarily tiresome in it’s usage of titles. It’s like they have about 4 wheels with a half dozen words each on them and they just spin each wheel and see what combination pops up to get their titles. Italian. Virgin. Tycoon. Greek. Baby. Love-child. Playboy. Mistress. Meditteranean. Wife. Boss.
::Spin::
[The] [Italian] [Playboy’s] [Love-Child]
We have a winnah!
The heroine of *Faking It* has asthma and uses her inhaler at crucial moments.
Re: heroine stronger than hero. One of the things I dearly, dearly love about the show *Farscape* is that the heroine can kick the hero’s ass into the middle of the next week. Not only do they both know that, but he relies on her in a crisis.
Eve Dallas from the JD Robb books does NOT like kids and everyone knows it.
And I remember some romance where the heroine left her husband for cheating on her- she lived in the UK and went to LA to stay with a friend who was writing a script- she had an affair and she and hubby do get back together at the end of the book and have a baby and live HEA. Can’t remember the name.
I am going to print out this list, damn it. And probably Sandy’s addendum. This list is why I blow off office work to visit this Web site.
I don’t know, Eve Dallas is getting pretty soft on kids lately, what with Mavis’s pregnancy and all.
Now I want to write a book about a slutty atheist bitch on antidepressants and some other prescription medications. Perhaps she can suffer from Tourette’s/OCD as well, since mental illness is also pretty taboo. And of course, she will weight about 160 lbs., and be an athletic goddess. 🙂
“And I remember some romance where the heroine left her husband for cheating on her- she lived in the UK and went to LA to stay with a friend who was writing a script- she had an affair and she and hubby do get back together at the end of the book and have a baby and live HEA. Can’t remember the name.”
Are you thinking of Marianne Keyes’ Angels? MK breaks the rules on sluttiness, nice and nuturing, drugs, depression and more in the books I can remember off the top of my head. I suppose one could argue that she’s generally classified in the “chick lit” genre and thus disqualified from consideration as a romantic novelist, but I say if Jennifer Crusie gets included then Marianne Keyes does, too!
I always thought it was funny that in the woman-goes-back-to-hometown stories, she always falls in love with the guy she lost her virginity to, or she’s never stopped loving him. And he’s always way hotter than he used to be. No beer belly, no receding hairline.
Hmmm… did the heroine of Jennifer Wiener’s Good in Bed take anti-depressants? I can’t remember…
Sandy, Tourette syndrom is a good idea, then you can have her say fuck a lot, too. 😉
Agree with everything sans a minor quibble re #6. Esme from Eloisa James’ Regency series did cheat on her husband, knowingly and, the books imply, frequently. And she got her HEA.
Now I think there was something about being disillusioned with her husband or something, and apparently she and hubby were gonna try to go straight before his death, but I do give James points for Esme. James might’ve written only one worthwhile book to date (Duchess in Love), and she may have turned Esme into a complete bore by the last book in the series, but for a while there, she had a pretty fun and original character.
Good point about Esme, though she does fit with #6. First, her husband had a long-standing mistress whom he was in love with (Lady Childe) and while they did get back together at the end of DiL, it was to try to create a child and heir, not because they loved each other.
Then Esme spent most of A Wild Pursuit chastising herself for her adulterous ways, even as she fell harder for the last man she slept with before returning to her husband.
James is interesting as a writer because she doesn’t flinch when examining the social norms of the time – men did have mistresses, wives were unfaithful, and both parties often knew about the other and went on with separate lives. A difficult scenario to make info a romance novel but James does a fascinating job skewering adultery stereotypes in romance. Good point, anu439.
I was recently surprised by Liz Maverick’s Crimson City—although not the heroine, a secondary character who looks as though she’ll be a heroine of a future book was popping all kinds of pills like crazy. I wonder—if she is eventually a heroine—if that will follow through in part of her book, or if she’ll have kicked the pills before the opening of her book.
late to the discussion (and totally stumbled here from booksquare) but here’s one:
-never makes friends outside of her own ethnic group. (or if she does, they’re totally annoying. or ‘sassy.’)
I don’t know, Eve Dallas is getting pretty soft on kids lately, what with Mavis’s pregnancy and all. yeah, right. Have you read Origin in Death yet? the ending manages to be both dramatic and hysterical at the same time. And Eve swears – oh, boy does she swear! and she had a pre-marital relationship that she doesn’t regret. and she doesn’t freak when she meets Roarke’s old lovers. and for the most part she and Roarke are agnostics.
she does like her cat, however.
Becca I’m reading that book right now and I was going to give the exact same response (well not about the ending, I haven’t finished it yet, but about Dallas’ “softened” reaction).
If this is Dallas “softening” then before she must have needed riot gear and smelling salts when she spotted a kid at a 100 paces. I think she’ll force herself to deal with them and does fairly well b/c most of the children she meets are either juvenile delinquents or offspring of the murder victims. Outside of that…
Shelly Laurenston has a heroine and hero in “Pack Challenge” who are so disinterested in procreating that they actually celebrated the day they both got their “tubes tied”, so to speak. Plus she and her friends make Dallas’ look like a novice as far as the swearing goes. They’re dirty mouthed, loud, crass and pretty much don’t give a fuck. They were awesome.
My heroines cuss. I can’t help it, it’s because I do and when I write dialog it just comes out.
The happy to be childfree heroine is sorely missing in romance, I definitely agree. If I recall correctly, there was a discussion on one of the romance loops where this subject came up and many people stated they’d find a heroine who didn’t want to have kids to be without compassion!
If I recall correctly, there was a discussion on one of the romance loops where this subject came up and many people stated they’d find a heroine who didn’t want to have kids to be without compassion!
I’ve found that certain types of characterizations have formed into a sort of shorthand in much of romance fiction:
– Happy to be child-free character = selfish, hedonistic, callous
– Gay/bisexual villain = super duper narsty child-molesting gerbil-raping bad guy
– Female with no hang-ups about having sex for the pleasure of having sex = immoral, evil slut, usually the hero’s villainous first wife/ex-girlfriend/evilly obsessed former lover
But going back to the children thing: I don’t know why people are expected to love all of them, all the time. I’ll freely admit that I’ve met a couple of children I’ve disliked, some with quite a bit of intensity. One of my nieces, for example. I’ve disliked her even when she was a wee ‘un, and we’ve always rubbed each other the wrong way. I’ve gotten along well enough with most other children I’ve met, including my other nieces and nephews, and even babysat for a friend of mine for a little while and experienced the signal honor of being a little boy’s first crush; he was only four, and the way he abandoned his dad to follow me around whenever I visited was quite nauseatingly cute.
At any rate: Children are individual characters, much in the same way adults are; is it so terrible to admit that some personalities just aren’t as compatible with one’s own? Is it also so terrible to say out loud that not all children are adorable little bundles of joy, that some are just right little pricks?
But hey, I’m not discounting the idea that I’m just a completely callous bitch.
I would just like to see a wider spectrum of women in romance novels. I write them, but there’s a very rigid perspective in the genre as a whole, about what is acceptable and it’s very difficult to sell books with deviations from the norm.
As for loving kids, I love kids, have a passel of my own, but that doesn’t mean that I expect every woman on the planet to want them herself. And frankly, when children are written into romances they are usually written poorly, as decorations (and as a mom, that bugs me! How are these women having all of this great sex and traveling everywhere? I’m always thinking, where are the kids? Doesn’t this woman ever parent?)
Re number three:
There’s an inspirational romance by Lori Wick- sorry, having a blond moment with the title- where the hero finds God but the wife doesn’t. In fact, refuses to. They still have an HEA, and you see them in another book set twenty years later and she’s still refusing to believe in God. And the marriage is still happy. I thought it was a brave choice for an inspy writer.
“Would never knowingly cheat on her husband”
lol, and I’ve actually read a couple where she accidently cheated on her husband because she didn’t realise she was having sex with someone else *snerk*
Nice excuse – wonder if DH would go for it *g*
Doesn’t Kinsale have a story where the hero goes on the Crusades and I assume is gone for years. While he is gone she does have an affair and is quite pregnant when he returns. I have not read this book because well, I can’t remember the title! If not Kinsale I would say Jo Beverly and since I didn’t really enjoy her ’ ’ books (sorry I can’t remember the family’s name) I haven’t picked up her medievals.
CindyS
CindyS—It was Jo Beverly, and it was an outstanding novel called THE SHATTERED ROSE. The wife isn’t unhappy that she committed adultery, the “villain” is more of a dumb schmuck than an evil person, and the characters were all wonderfully drawn.
It’s on my keeper shelf.
Once a Scoundrel, by Candice Hern features a business take-over (hero wins the magazine the heroine edits [but her uncle owned] in a bet and the story features another bet for heroine to win it for herself) and doesn’t involve the Hero coming out on top. It is close to the business being “saved” by the hero, but not really.
accidently cheated on her husband because she didn’t realise she was having sex
Though I have a pre-conceived notion that any girl who does such a thing must be dumb as toast, I’m absolutely agog to read this for myself to see how the author(s) handled it.
If the books additionally manage to:
1) make me believe this was even possible and
2) lure me through the whole book without causing me to throw it violently against the wall, then stomping on it and lighting it on fire, and
3) have me still somehow rooting for the heroine
I would have to say this person would be a fiction writing genius and I should make an altar to her of Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer, Kathleen Woodiwiss, and Outlander books and keep it perpetually supplied with scented candles and fresh chocolate molded into the shape of swords and roses and other images often seen on romance book covers. (Of course when the scented candles are lit they’ll be kept well apart from the chocolate.)
So – titles, names, etc. – can you remember any?