Inspired by Sarah and Elyse’s podcast episode on rage and romance heroines, we want some recommendations from the Bitchery. What we’re looking for are complicated and even angry heroines, ones who aren’t passive and may even embrace their angry side.
I’m sure you’re all tired of hearing me recommend A Promise of Fire, but reading the book made me look at the romance genre and how it can often be progressive, but also still rather stifling of women’s emotions. I thought it was refreshing seeing the hero act as the healing force in the romance, rather than the typical roles of a caring heroine and a broody, tortured hero.
Author Bree Bridges had a great tweet thread on book recs a while ago, so I’ve compiled them with Storify into a slideshow.
Sarah: Dragon Actually ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) and the sequels – anything that mentions Anwyl. She’s my rage heroine favorite.
And the Crows series, obviously – the entire world is built on the idea that they a guided by rage, and they have zero remorse for it.
I also think there are varying levels of rage and badassery. For example, I’m listening to Lord of Scoundrels ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Au ) and while Jess doesn’t have rage and revenge like the characters I just mentioned, she loses her temper and is unafraid to be honest when she’s angry. Too often women are taught to suppress any negative feelings and always act and enforce the idea that everything’s ok (which… no). When she loses her temper, she expects some kind of consequence for it, but she doesn’t castigate herself unnecessarily for it, either. Anger and losing her temper are normal, though she knows they aren’t considered “ladylike.”
This was a tough one! Even digging through my Goodreads and bending the definition of “angry”, I had a hard time coming up with a list. But here we go!
– October Daye, October Daye Series by Seanan McGuire – she is the quintessential urban fantasy heroine in that she starts the series with a chip on her shoulder, but that chip is a big one, one that ripped her from her family and makes her put up walls with everyone else. The beauty of the series is that she grows and her relationships develop organically over the course of the series
– “Jane Steele” by Lyndsay Steele – this book takes the simmering anger of Jane Eyre (and Charlotte Bronte herself, let’s be real) and turns it into action. Jane becomes a serial killer. It sounds ridiculous but it’s great, and so is Jane.
– the heroines of the Brothers Sinister series by Courtney Milan – I consumed this series in a rush two years ago so it’d be hard for me to pick one, and yes, anger might be more… stubbornness, but I feel like they fit. Especially “The Governess Affair.”
Oh man, I can’t wait to see all the recs!
Oh wait! There’s more!
– Jaenelle Angelline of The Black Jewels Trilogy by Anne Bishop – this is dark fantasy of the enth degree and Jaenelle is at the heart of it all.
– Alice Quinn and Julia Wicker of The Magicians Trilogy by Lev Grossman – the great thing about these characters is that while the main character is Quetin Coldwater, Alice and Julia are the stars, calling Quentin out on his shit (and man, does he get shitty sometimes) and refusing to be his dream girl/his manic pixie dream girl. They get angry and use their anger, let their anger use them even, and make their own mistakes because of it.
A Lily Among Thorns by Rose Lerner has a heroine who became a prostitute to spite her father and carries a huge amount of anger towards him and the men who have taken advantage of her in different ways over the years. The hero Solomon, is very kind and he’s the one that takes on the traditional “female role” of helping her to face her demons.
Sweet Dreams by Kristen Ashley has one of my favorite heroines of hers who hears (the hero!) refer to her as fat and middle aged and hangs onto her anger for a long time with him and finally tells off her rotten ex-husband along the way.
Black Hawk by Joanna Bourne has a very capable French spy heroine in Justine who has kept up a grudge and rivalry with the man she loves (an English spymaster) for literally years.
I really
Tessa Dare, A Night to Surrender? I’m not sure if the heroine gets actually ragey, but she does get pissed off.
Most of the tough women I read about are in paranormals: Kate Daniels, Jane Yellowrock, and Mercy Thompson.
Kinked by Thea Harrison. Heroine is a harpy, nuff said.
Magalie in Laura Florand’s The Chocolate Kiss is definitely angry with the hero. May in Ruthie Knox’s Truly is angry with her ex and then the world for its reaction to her anger. Courtney Milan has written a number of angry heroines (Free in The Suffragette Scandal), as has Sherry Thomas (Bryony in Not Quite a Husband). Kristen in Grace Burrowes’ Daniel’s True Desire was set up as “angry” throughout that series. And Jennifer Cruisie’s heroines often get to be angry, as do Kristin Ashley’s.
I agree that Jennifer Crusie has some great angry heroines, or women who have been suppressing their emotions but learn to let them out. Agnes in Agnes and the Hitman is probably my favorite.
Victoria Dahl is my go-to for angry heroines. Grace in Close enough to Touch is full of rage and uncompromising about it. Isabelle West in Looking for Trouble also has a good deal of anger. Lauren in Fanning the Flames (novella) is another good one.
An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole isn’t out until March 28, but it has the BEST pissed-off heroine. OMG. You guys. Elle is justifiably angry, bitter and slow-to-trust, and it’s wonderful. Because you GET why she’s that way. Slavery, the Civil War, racism, white dudes being white dudes…how does anyone put up with that with a smile? Elle’s like, “Screw that noise. This is all terrible, and I’m going to change it, but you better keep your distance while I do it.” Alyssa really just rips the lid off a boiling cauldron of emotion in this book.
I’ll recommend some of Meljean Brook’s characters. There’s Lilith who falls for her nemesis after millennia of tempting souls to damnation. She may have switched sides, but she’ll still sic her dog on you. Then we have badass Irena from the Russian Steppes, who hasn’t changed much from the primal. I think my favorite, though, is Rosalia. She’s all loving, even maternal, to her circle. You think the story is about Deacon getting revenge & redemption, but really it’s all about Rosalia’s long game. Who wouldn’t be a little unforgiving after spending time nailed to a pillar with a spike through your skull? She is epic.
@Suleikha: I seriously cannot wait to read this book.
If you want an old school recommendation, there’s always Shanna by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. The titular heroine spends the vast majority of the book pissed the hell off. Mostly at the hero, but also at her father, uncle, her father’s henchman, the town slut, and a bunch of pirates.
Shanna is the bad crack, but in a really good way.
Bite Me by Shelly Laurenston. The heroine is a honey badger shifter!!! She’s angry and fearless.
@Jessica: A honey badger heroine?! I added that so quickly to my TBR list that I think I sprained something.
Tiffany Aching in Terry Pratchett’s (officially YA) series starting with Wee Free Men, which contains the great line “USE your anger.” And oh boy Tiffany does.
And maybe Harry in Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword. (Harry hates her given name Angharad, and when she ends up around people who have trouble pronouncing that they transform that name into “Harimad” because it’s appropriate.)
Amanda, the slide show is a really easy and enjoyable way to follow all the recommendations. Thanks for putting it together.
I feel like sine of the heroines in Julie James’ books might fit here. Something About You comes to mind as one where the heroine’s life had been disrupted and she’s pretty pissed about it.
A female Vlad the Impaler is the main character in the YA novel And I Darken by Kiersten White. And right now I’m reading The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis (also YA). One of the three main characters kills the man that raped and murdered her sister (not a spoiler, it’s the start of the book) and sees herself as vengence personified. Both great books.
Thank you for an interesting perspective. I just finished listening to a couple Shelly Laurenston books and basically concluded the heroines were just irritating and bitchy. (The heroes were kind of jerks too.). But perhaps I need to embrace the bitchiness because God knows I despise doormat heroines even more. I’ve moved on to Jeanine Frost on audio because her books are just awesome, but next time I’m feeling the need to channel an angry heroine I’ll revisit Shelly Laurenston for sure.
The first book I thought of was Agnes and the Hitman, and I’m not surprised someone beat me to it. Love that book.
Lainey, the female protag in Sara Rider’s For The Win was also wonderfully angry. Mostly about the mistreatment of female athletes but also a little bit at the hero for underestimating her. I really liked this book.
Dia Reeves wrote some great paranormal YA protags a while ago. I don’t know if she’s written anything recently, but Bleeding Violet was unlike anything I’ve read before or since.
@SB Sarah It’s so freakin’ awesome!
@LML: You’re welcome! It was super easy to put together.
In the books on sale post a few days ago, many of us were singing the praises of Cecilia Grant. Her second book, A Gentleman Undone, has a heroine who fits this description. She has a lot to be angry about because of some bad breaks in her life, and when she meets the hero, she doesn’t like him much and is fairly rude and unpleasant to him.
Ditto-ing the Shelly Laurenston/G. A. Aiken angry/powerful heroine love.
Also returning to an old SBTB favorite in Kelley Armstrong’s Otherworld series.
Possibly Mariana Zapata, too.
Some of the Jay Crownover books.
Jennifer Crusie was my first thought, and as also mentioned already, paranormal and UF often have angry/kick ass heroines.
A lot of 80s romances have feisty, even strident heroines, but then they settle down and have babies with the men strong enough to tame them, so maybe go cautiously, as they may be rage inducing as well as rage filled.
I just (as in like 5 minutes ago) finished reading the new release Moonshadow by Thea Harrison. I LOVED it. And it had an incredible angry wounded snarking heroine. The hero was equally wounded and alpha and snary. They were so sarcastic, I loved it. It was a genuinely funny relationship and the book had one particular amazing character that I am not going to discuss at all just… read it and fall in love with this secondary character, I promise. Also, NOPE GIFS. It was so good. I am totally going to read Thea Harrison’s entire catalog now.
The Queen of the Tearling has a great angry heroine as well. I am reading book 2, The Invasion of the Tearling, and her anger burns on. I enjoy the series quite a bit.
Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart. This takes place in 1914 and the heroine is continually either patronized or terrorized but she keeps standing up for herself.
It’s YA but I first thought of Katsa from Graceling, who is hella pissed. She is graced with a special ability and was given to the king as a result and he uses her as a trained assassin. She’s an outcast because of her scary grace for killing and parts of the book are triggery for animal torture and implied rape and torture. It’s a fierce read. Fire, by the same author, follows similar themes of teenage girls with powers and a lot of anger.
I agree with the Brothers Sinister rec above, especially book two in which Jane refers to herself as ‘ablaze.’ She discovers her own power and she has no intention of letting people off easily. Love that.
I have to throw in Ruthless by Anne Stuart because Elinor has every right to be angry at her reduced circumstances (poverty, insane mother who is ill and profligate, being a woman of genteel upbringing living in squalor with no recourse) and is steely enough to go toe to toe with a powerful and dissolute (of course he is) rake.
Oh and I think Kit from Anna Cowan’s Untamed fits this, too. She’s angry at her dead, degenerate gambler father, who left her family dirt poor, angry at having to do everything (even though she has taken that upon herself), angry at the duke who has insinuated himself into her household, angry at the patronizing squire who holds the mortgage on her home…. oh she is angry at everyone.
N.K. Jemisin’s “The Fifth Season” and “The Obelisk Gate” – The romance element isn’t as strong, but the heroine has so much pain and rage – and she can literally freeze everything around her and split the earth open, so watch out. I found both books excellent; the third book is not yet out.
I want this sort of thing SO MUCH but only rarely find it executed in a way that feels believable and real. (I mean… not to get too feminist, but I think it really makes sense that this is a hard thing for authors to pull off without getting, ironically, cutesy and precious about it… The patriarchy has its hooks in all of us.)
What works for me with this sort of thing is often women who are “hot-tempered” or otherwise very emotional and let their emotions OUT. I am not as into women who are very angry but silent about it, because if I want that I can just hang out in real life or take a look at my own emotional life (bah-dum-hiss). But on the other hand I don’t like it when the female character is very hot-tempered but other people sort of patronize her about it, which is a thing I see quite often and which doesn’t necessarily feel very feminist to me, or good to read. So I think it’s a difficult line to walk. I want female characters who are unambivalent (or come to be unambivalent) about their anger – I want their anger to be a straightforward thing for them. My ULTIMATE WEIRD FANTASY (that I have never read) is a romance where the lady is stifling some anger and the hero is powerful enough that he isn’t bothered by her anger – but also not that involved with it – and sort of coaches her into expressing it. What can I say, I am highly weird.
When I’ve seen angry heroines and it works, it’s (oddly?) mostly in historicals, where I think you feel the tension between “you should act like a lady” and “but you are also a human with human emotions” more, in a way that I think reflects how difficult the relationship many modern women have with their own anger. Okay, some titles:
*CAPTIVES OF THE NIGHT, Loretta Chase. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, the heroine is a hot-tempered female artist and the hero is very interested in and unintimidated by all of those things (*grabby hands*). On the other hand, it has the thing some of Chase’s books have for me, which is that I think… they were written before they were ready to be written. This feels like 40% of a GREAT book spread out into 100% of an okay book.
*MIDSUMMER MOON, Laura Kinsale. This is as about as lightweight as Kinsale gets – set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars, the heroine is a weird reclusive tech genius who has possibly invented wireless communication but doesn’t want to work on that because she’s obsessed with inventing the airplane. The hero is a duty-bound duke who shows up to convince the inventor he thinks is a man to do “his” patriotic duty, then accidentally seduces the heroine and sort of abducts her to demand that she marry him so he can atone for seducing her. What I love about this book is that the heroine is the most career-driven woman I have ever read about in romance. She wants to do her work and she is not that interested in romance (or, really, other people, but in a gentle, kind, distracted way that I love) and she is mad as hell about the duke trying to thwart or protect her, but in a way that I found very realistic and (okay, again, I’m weird) moving. I think in some ways this book is really about a woman’s relationship with her work and the romance is secondary. It’s an unusual book.
*LAST HOUR OF GANN, R. Lee Smith. This is SF/space opera. It’s extremely long. There is a romance, but most of the book is an epic of survival and religious philosophy. It’s really good. The heroine, who is a human woman, is one of the only female characters I’ve ever read in a romance whose toughness genuinely amazed me. Quite often in romances the book tells you that the heroine is extremely tough, but here you really feel it. She is a survivor and she’s not that likeable and she doesn’t care if you like her because she’s working on surviving. Not a light read, but outstanding.
Someone mentioned a Terry Pratchett book above… I have noticed that a lot of his heroines are so atypical in such feminist, humanist ways. They’re allowed to be fully weird, fully human, deeply unlikeable and strange in ways that are so uncommon in fiction. I really miss him. *sniff*
Let’s see….angry heroines.
As many have mentioned, definitely head for the Shelly Laurenston. I’d give Eddy from Forbidden, which, hear me out, I have a reason (able anecdote). She’s not angry all the time, but she has her moments where she is pissed. My favorite is when another character (who’s an asshole) tells her that she’s beautiful, intelligent, and well-mannered and would make a great wife if she JUST had lighter skin, and she turns on him and points out that that is an incredibly stupid thing to say to a woman that is currently holding a knife. Also, not that she’s probably not an unknown around these parts, but Eve Dallas is a character that uses her anger pretty effectively most of the time, and employs it in the service of finding justice. Down in the YA set is one of the best examples of an angry main character that you’ll get and that’s Adelina from The Young Elites series. When Marie Lu started writing it, she was having some trouble up until someone pointed out that her villain was the most compelling character, at which point she basically turned the whole thing around into Adelina’s story and told the story of how an abused girl becomes essentially Darth Vader. It’s amazing.
Someone mentioned Courtney Milan above – Free from The Suffragette Scandal and Jane from The Heiress Effect – and I’d like to add Tina Chen from Trade Me. Tina is snarky, furious, and political, and delivers utterly glorious takedowns. The scene where she meets the hero and tears into him over his accidentally offensive/patronizing comments in class is AMAZING. I cheered aloud. (He really is a sweetheart, but he’s from a very wealthy background and can be a bit clueless.)
Also seconding Serena from Rose Lerner’s A Lily Among Thorns.
I’d say the heroine of “My Lady Notorious” is quite angry, mostly at her family. Her evil father has ruined her reputation, and now she’s trying to rescue her sister from his machinations. The hero is the lighter hearted one in this story, at first he’s just bored and finds her entertaining. Later on when he finds out the whole story about what’s been done to her, he gets serious. But he never has that bottled up anger and thirst for justice that she does.
I haven’t seen any mentions of Kristine Wyllys’ Lane series. The first one – the heroine is so angry and frustrated and it’s occasionally harmful (as anger can be), but I loved her. If you mess with her, she’ll kick your teeth in. They definitely aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but the way that Wyllys writes about pain and the need to explode with emotion really connected with me.
LOVE the Tiffany Aching books as well. I actually handsold the first book to someone tonight!
The main character of the Grisha Trilogy is full of anger, especially by the end of the series. You know when a woman is about to bring the pain and declares ‘I am ruination’ that shit is about to get real.
Annwyl the Bloody in Dragon Actually is one of my favorite heroines partly because of her rage. She has no fucks to give. Instead she’ll chop off heads. All the time. Throughout the entire series. God, I love her.
The Marriage Ring by Cathy Maxwell. Regency actress blames a pair of nobles for her father being deported. One of the nobles tells his son to they are being blackmailed and he sets out to thwart her. She, however, wants justice.
Wicked Siren by Eliza Lloyd – notorious opera singer and straight laced baron.
The Marriage Act – heroine is kind of spoiled. She was a beloved daughter of a minister intent on rebelling. When married off young to her father’s protege, she bolted the morning after (needless to say her husband was pissed). Her husband took a diplomatic posting abroad and left her in England. Now five years later she wants to assure her dying father that they’ve reconciled so she forces her husband to join her on her journey home.
@Cordy – as I was reading your description of a fantasy read I thought “North and South.” I hasten to add book NOT miniseries, which ruined the dynamic of heroine and hero really ARGUING – about serious social issues that are bigger than their personal lives and don’t have easy answers. And the way the hero shows respect for the heroine’s opinion by disagreeing rather than just being patronizing (and by actually getting convinced). Margaret is totally angry most of the time, and the great thing for her about the world of Milton is that it’s a place where it’s ok to be angry. So if you haven’t read it and don’t mind 19th C prose, read North and South by Gaskell.
And yes, I miss Pratchett too. Forgot to mention Agnes/Perdita in Carpe Jugulum, who takes apart certain vampire stereotypes.
Someone recommended an Eliza Lloyd, and I’d add Wicked Indiscretions to that. It’s an interesting take on anger from both MCs.
– Angel’s Guardian – Scottie Barrett (Erotica – Heroine is immature, frustrated, and angry but doesn’t annoy me as she’s quite aware of her issues)
– The Baron’s Betrothal – Miranda Davis (Hilarious take on the grey areas in attraction and relationships)
– Wed at Leisure – Sabrina Darby (Taming of the Shrew adaptation focusing on Catherine).
And I second that Anne Stuart’s heroines (Ruthless, Rose at Midnight) are quite angry at the hero and the world for quite a bit of the book, but they are interesting to read about nonetheless.
Also, Gone Girl seems like an obvious one? 😛
Though not romance per se, I’m a big Richard Yates fan and he has several books on anger/frustration with interesting female characters including Revolutionary Road & The Easter Parade (about two sisters).