We’re combining two similar requests for this Rec League on competence porn! Flchen1 asked for a Rec League on this specifically in the comments of a RITA Reader Challenge review. And we received this email request from reader KK:
Redheadedgirl: Isn’t Julie James like, pure competence porn?Heroines with successful careers that are respected by the narrative and their partner. The field doesn’t overly matter, and while I don’t often read Romantic Suspense or Inspirational, I’m sure I’m not the only one interested in this.
Sarah: Julie James is competence porn, highest grade.
Elyse: Billionaire Builders series by Jennifer Probst!
Sarah: Tracey Livesay’s books with Avon are competence porn, especially the heroines – Love on My Mind ( A | BN | K | G | AB ).
Level Up by Cathy Yardley ( A | BN | K | G | AB ), which is all about geek and gamer culture.
The Hating Game by Sally Thorne ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) has a sort of competence battle between the two leads.
And Act Like It ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) and Pretty Face by Lucy Parker ( A | BN | K | AB ) both feature actors, and there’s rehearsals, performances, etc.
Amanda: Elyse also tagged Hidden Impact by Piper Drake ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) with “competence porn.”
What books would you recommend that fall into this category?
What about the second Sarah MacLean? Ten Ways to Be Adored….she’s raising her brother, running an impoverished estate as a women’s shelter and she fixes the roof!
Talk Sweetly To Me…she’s a brilliant mathemetician and the guy admires that about her not in an oh look how cute your quirkiness is way, but truly with awe. Loved that one.
The Spymaster’s Lady by Joanna Bourne! She’s got perfect recall, speaks multiple languages, freesherself and the hero from capture, performs surgery while dealing with an injury that I won’t spoil for people who haven’t read it yet.
It’s a historical romance though… does that count?
Yes, to all already mentioned and also C.E. Murphy’s series “The Negotiator” – paranormal, starts with Heart of Stone. Margrit goes from being a kick-ass lawyer to intermediary for paranormals.. she is competent.
The heroine of The Viscount’s Christmas Temptation (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23449569-the-viscount-s-christmas-temptation)by Erica Ridley is the most competent woman in fiction – a cross between Steed and Jeeves. I’m not always thrilled by Ridley’s stories but this novella is great fun.
Jennifer Crusie writes competent heroines – although they also tend to be really quirky as well as competent, so ymmv
The ones that come to mind are Charlie All Night, Agnes and the Hitman and her other RS collaboration.
Alyssa Cole – Let us Dream (a new fav!)
Amanda Quick – Ravished
Sherry Thomas – Luckiest Lady in London (She doesn’t have a career per se, but works hard and cleverly to get herself a good match)
Loretta Chase – Mad Earl’s Bride
I second/third/fourth the Julie James recommendations. I love how competent her lawyers and law enforcement officers are at their jobs–even if they’re not so efficient in the romance department (of course, that’s what gives many of the plots their zing). As for THE HATING GAME, I know it was about two people who are supposedly terrifyingly competent in their jobs but that was only because the author kept telling the reader this was so. I didn’t actually see them doing their jobs as much as sniping at each other. I like some believable detail!
Many of Melanie Harlow’s heroines have demanding jobs at which they excel. My favorite is Margot in AFTER WE FALL: she runs a PR firm and she becomes involved with a client when she’s hired to promote his family’s organic farm. How she goes about “branding” the farm is detailed and interesting to read. Plus, it’s a great romance.
I heartily second Joanna Bourne! Her latest, “Beauty Like the Night,” also has a highly competent heroine who has been a spy and now runs a kind of investigation agency in London. She is well respected by the hero as well as her friends and family. All of Bourne’s books are wonderful.
Elizabeth Essex’s “Almost a Scandal” features a heroine who disguises herself as a boy to go to sea in the Napoleonic wars and outshines most of the men on the ship.
If you like historical mystery, C.S. Harris’ Sebastian St. Cyr books have a marvelous female lead, Hero, (though she doesn’t start the series as the lead).
Competence pr0n is my most favorite thing ever and I ADORE everything about this thread.
I want to give a plug to Grace Burrowes, whose heroes and heroines who tend to be both competent and actual adults. Major kudos to her historical romances The Heir, The Soldier, and The Virtuoso (good people who get stuff done) in particular and her contemporary romances A Single Kiss, The First Kiss, and Kiss Me Hello. In the latter, the heroes are all lawyers in the same firm, which is also Burrowes’ own day job, and they Know Their Stuff.
And one cannot forget Courtney Milan’s historicals and contemporaries. On the historical side: The Governess Affair (I will never be done swooning over Hugo Marshall), The Heiress Effect (strategy!), The Countess Conspiracy (scientists!), The Suffragette Scandal (publishers! suffragettes! con artists!), and Her Every Wish (entrepreneurs!). On the contemporary side, Hold Me has two hyper-competent nerdy leads who are brilliant in their respective fields.
Finally, Lady Xenobia India in Eloisa James’ Three Weeks With Lady X is so good at, well, everything. She’s definitely on the list of fictional characters to aspire to be when I grow up.
I’m not too sure about any actual displays of skill by the Egyptian-scholar heroine in Loretta Chase’s Mr Impossible (I read the book ages ago) but I do remember the hero’s utter awe of her intelligence. He is cheerfully unintellectual (verging on adorably dim) but his immense respect for the heroine’s talents is very romantic.
Did anyone mention the Dressmakers series by Loretta Chase? I want to meet someone who can whip up overnight an exquisite bespoke dress that doesn’t make my ass look big.
Heart of Steel by Meljean Brook – heroine is super competent pirate captain and the hero loves and respects that and has her back.
Black Rose by Nora Roberts(#2 in a series) – heroine is in her 40s, established and runs her own business
Another Sherry Thomas: Not quite a husband (heroine is a surgeon, they are caught up in an armed combat in India, she operates on the wounded soldiers)And the one and only Persuasion: heroine manages family putting their mansion for rent and handles the moving. She stays level-headed during crisis and Austen makes clear that she’d do a much better job of managing the family money than her father did.
Kulti by Mariana Zapata – heroine is a skilled professional soccer player, and the narrative details how it takes enormous effort beyond natural ability to be an elite athlete. This is a bit of a spoiler (wish we had spoiler tags in comments): the eponymous hero respects everything she has accomplished, but feels she isn’t aggressive enough in advancing her career/promoting her own interests. Also, he’s from the downright cantankerous end of the heroic spectrum, so most of his support comes in the form of pushing her to improve rather than praising where she’s at.
Yardley Summers, a K-9 trainer in D.D. Ayres’ K-9 Rescue series, is a force to be reckoned with. Her book is Rival Forces but her competence with dogs and handlers appears throughout the series.
If you want to slide-step over into urban fantasy, Gin Blanco of Jennifer Estep’s Elemental Assassin series is an amazingly successful assassin (that counts as a field, right?). If she wants someone dead, that person will eventually get dead. She routinely uses her stabby skills, her elemental magic, and the classic “what in this room can be used as an impromptu weapon?” skill to get herself and her friends out of a jam. Her boyfriend Owen is also quite competent, but generally willing to stand back and yell “F*** him up, babe!” as Gin goes to town.
I think the ultimate example would be Robb’s Eve Dallas who is the most revered and respected homicide lieutenant in New York City. The epitome of competence and her career is totally respected by Roarke.
Another would be Marie Force’s Sam Holland – also a homicide lieutenant but in Washington DC. Competent and her husband respected her career so much he almost gave up being the Vice President of the United States until he was guaranteed that being the second lady would not interfere with her job.
And I guess I would also consider Emmy from Terri Anne Browning’s Rocker series a great example of competence. She manages a rock band and their members and also now runs a huge talent management firm
She is so scarily competent, connecyted and respected that the mere mention off her name strikes fear in people. Her husband Nick respects her work ethic and gives her free rein.
Elizabeth Windsor, the accomplished, intelligent and entertaining biographer in Rise by Karins Bliss.
For readers who are willing to consider RS, many of Pamela Clare’s journalists in the I-Team series.
Lacey Meyer in Anne Calhoun’s Liberating Lacey. She’s also older and richer than the hero, and how often do we see that?
I’m not sure if His Very Own Girl by Carrie Lofty would work. It’s set during WWII and the heroine is an ATA pilot. It takes the hero a while to learn to accept that she wants a career, but he definitely respects her and she’s an awesome pilot.
Tessa Dare’s new series has the makings to be qualified in this category albeit with historical limitations. The current one, the heroine is a dressmaker and stands up for herself quite nicely to negotiate a better relationship with her husband. The other women introduced all seem to have interesting backgrounds that make this series one to watch for me in this category. In terms of contemporary, I second Lucy Parker, Alisha Rai, Julie James and more recently Roni Loren.
In Nico Rosso’s Countdown to Zero Hour, the heroine is a professional cook. And we don’t just hear about the deliciousness of her food, but she’s also very good at the executive part of the job: Budgeting time, scheduling tasks, getting things done fast, finding sources for ingredients, deciding what to cook that’ll suit her clients and the occasion, and so forth. The hero notices that and appreciates it. They have a nice little exchange where they compare what competence feels like for her and for him, in his very different profession.
The other Rosso book I’ve read, One Minute to Midnight, is equally strong on heroine competence: in that one, both the main characters are Special Forces but with different specializations (she’s a sniper), and they have absolutely solid professional teamwork. The hero knows that there’s no one other than the heroine he’d rather have covering him from a distance while he goes into action.
Georgie’s comment about a woman who “works hard and cleverly to get herself a good match” reminded me of Moll Flanders, way back in 1722. It’s not particularly romantic, though Moll’s relationship with the guy she’s married to at the end of the book is kind of nice, but it’s all about Moll’s savvy in finding ways to support herself, often by convincing a man to support her. She might be the founding mother of heroine competence.
There are two Harlequin Blaze titles I always think of in this context:
Jamie McNamara from Kathleen O’Reilly’s Beyond Breathless is this terrifying Wall Street hotshot nicknamed “The Porcupine,” and while it’s been forever since I read this, I do remember loving how everyone was afraid of her.
Kaia from Heather MacAllister’s Kept in the Dark is a former thief who has mad skills. Again, it’s been awhile. I remember thinking the plot was kind of terrible, and the execution of Kaia’s skills is a bit uneven in the beginning, but I ended up loving the book anyway because she was allowed to be a badass when it counted, and the hero was just so into her because of it. She saves him, not the other way around.
M. L. Buchman’s military suspense romance books are fantastic competence pr0n books, for both the men and the women. That’s always been my favorite thing about them- his books are A-MA-ZING.
@Vasha:
That description reminds me of Kathleen Winsor’s Forever Amber, which was actually written later in the 1940’s.
Competence porn seems like such a sexist term to me. I think men decide they’re good at their jobs and then expect to be portrayed as such. Women are taught to doubt themselves and listen to criticism more and therefore are more likely to be in need of be shown to be competent. But then it gets labeled porn.
Anyway Nora Roberts has a quite few. I would add Tessa Dare’s Say Yes to the Marquess where the heroine is preparing to open a brewery.
Julie James for days.
I would also posit (and I’m thinking of it thanks to the very funny review of Secrets In Death) that the In Death series is competence porn of a high order. Eve is really, really, REALLY good at her job, and surrounds herself with people that are equally as good at theirs (I’m still not sure what Roarke actually does, but he’s damn good at it, and his skills as a hacker are also extremely well-developed). Even the secondary characters, such as Peabody, McNab, Mavis, Morris, etc., are all people that are some of the best at what they do.
There was also a Kelly Bowen that I read some months back, Duke of My Heart, I think. The heroine was a fixer, in the style of Olivia Pope (without the ooky Fitz stuff). She was fun, and the smartest person in the room at any given time.
Also, seconding those Lucy Parker books. I like that you see the actors working. They’re running lines, they’re memorizing their scripts, they’re working on the stagecraft ends of things. It’s not just, “Look, I magically got on stage with everything memorized and turned in an award-winning performance, I’m a wizard!”
I recently read An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole and that was another one where the heroine was extremely competent and honestly, she had to be, or she would have ended up being killed.
I would also suggest Breathless by Beverly Jenkins. In that one, the heroine has one hell of a head for numbers, and is keeping the books for the family business and also wants to be doing accounting for other entities. It causes her to get a rep as a bookish weirdo, and she challenges the hero with it. “This is what I like to do and don’t you have a problem with me being so weird and wanting my own accounting business?” To which the hero is like, “Not really, since you’re clearly very intelligent and it’s what you’re good at, go make that money, sweetie.”
Ooh, I’ve got one! “Desire” by Amanda Quick–it’s one of her older books and is unusual for her in that it’s set in the medieval period. The heroine has a business making perfumes and scented items from the flowers they raise on her island estate. Her liege lord insists on marrying her off because the business is so lucrative that he is concerned it is a target for outlaws and miscreants and he wants her to have armed men to protect the source of all those lovely taxes she pays him. The heroine is so competent both at running the business and also her family estate that one of ongoing plot lines is her learning to deal with the hero as a competent man with important contributions to make (most of the other men she had been interacting with were a bunch of doofuses.) One of the things that made the hero a not-doofus was how seriously he took her work and his appreciation for her intelligence and the fact that she was the one who was responsible for the estate’s prosperity.
On the fantasy side of the ledger, nearly all of Mercedes Lackey’s work is competence pr0n to one degree or another — particularly her “Elemental Masters” series, because those are essentially fairy tales from a structural POV, and like classic fairy tales they focus on protagonists who are already good at everything (which is generally why the villains are out to get them). The mold also fits many of Lackey’s Valdemar novels and a non-trivial percentage of her other work; see particularly The Ship Who Searched (dual-bylined to Anne McCaffrey) and the Halfblood Chronicles (co-written with Andre Norton, starting with The Elvenbane).
In mystery, Laurie King’s Mary Russell — often accused of being a “Mary Sue” heroine — strikes me more as a competence-pr0n protagonist, because she’s definitionally an equal partner to Sherlock Holmes, and Holmes is himself definitionally omni-competent/the smartest person in the room.
@EmilyA – I get what you are saying, but I think of competence pr0n as applying to both genders. For me, it means shows like Leverage, where each character has a specific, essential skill set and is extremely good at applying it.
I second your suggestion of Nora Roberts. She is an excellent writer of women who have interesting jobs and work hard to be good at them. I particularly liked her book about a glass artist (Born in Fire) and the one about smoke jumpers (Chasing Fire) for learning about jobs I didn’t previously know anything about. I can’t really say how accurate her portrayals are, I suppose, but she seems to have done her research.
I read two Ruthie Knox books this past week which featured heroines who were very focused and dedicated to their work. In Madly, the heroine had built herself a small empire by her mid-20s, and in About Last Night, the heroine is working to become a full-time museum curator specializing in knitting as art.
Second the DD Ayres series, though not all the heroines are K-9 handlers. Force of Attraction (#2) is good, despite the goofy cover.
What To Do With a Bad Boy by Marie Harte-the heroine runs a auto repair shop. I really enjoy this author, I think it is book four of the McCauley series.
I was thinking about this topic the other day, I want to read more books not just about women who are great at their jobs, but that are competent in real life skills. The ones that can change a tire, know to wear regular boots or flat soled shoes in the country, know how to drive on ice. I want to read about more women rescuing men from perilous situations…
@Vasha: The description of Mole Flanders that is.
I don’t necessarily think of competence porn as applying only to women. To me it has more to do with heightened detail about interesting work well done. In the case of romance novels, having a woman doing nontraditional work often ads to the interest. I like enough detail that I learn something completely new from the book. And yeah, the hero had better appreciate the heroine’s work. So here are my suggestions.
Wall of Winnipeg as well as Kulti by Mariana Zapata. Van is a graphic artist and an amazing personal assistant to the point where she makes a PA job actually interesting.
Stronger than Steel by Jessica Topper. Heroine is a Yoga instructor; vintage rocker hero becomes one of her students. There is a lot of nitty gritty, also rock music and production.
Knitting in the City series by Penny Reid features highly intelligent, successful, deeply work-involved heroines, and extremely cool heroes who totally appreciate their women. Most notable for the kick ass qualities of the heroine is Happily Ever Ninja. (Hero is kind of a dick)
Bunches of stuff by Sarah Mayberry. I love Sarah Mayberry because all her people work. No billionaire CEOs doing nameless “bizness” stuff. Some faves (heroines’ jobs noted): Anticipation (tattoo artist), Her Favorite Temptation & Her Favorite Rival (doctor, buyer for hardware company), Island Heat & Burning Up (chefs), Secret Lives of Daytime Divas trilogy (television production jobs), Below the Belt (boxer).
My first thoughts upon reading this article were of the Outlander Series, the Wilderness Series by Sara Donati, and the Tea Rose Trilogy bu Jennifer Donnelly. I feel like I mention the third one a bunch, and The Winter Rose really fits as far as women being competent in a job. The heroine is a doctor, and while the hero doesn’t think she knows enough about those she is trying to help, he wants to help her learn since he is from that background of White Chapel in the 19th century.
Love all the recs – my tbr pile is growing, although I’m pleased to see that I’ve read a lot of the mentioned books.
I’d add Nora Roberts’ Tribute (house rehabbing heroine) and the Sarah Tolerance novels by Robins (heroine is an investigative agent in a slightly twisted Regency). I’ve also started a series by Felicity Young about a female forensic surgeon in 1910 London – Anatomy of Death is the first book – with early forensics and suffragettes.
And while not a romance, Sharon Kay Penman’s When Christ and his Saints Slept has a plot arc which includes the life of a fictional bastard son of Henry I. The woman he settles down with is competent in running a household. Even so, she has a vision impairment and for that reason her family believes noone will marry her. The guy knows that her sister is much younger and as a result doesn’t have as much experience even though she is sighted.
Julie James forever and always!!!
Adding another vote to the K-9 Rescue series, especially the influence of Yardley’s training throughout the series.
Charlotte Baird in Nalini Singh’s Rock Hard is brilliant at her job, and fights past some pretty sever shyness to become more confident in her personal and professional life.
The whole Men at Work trilogy by Tiffany Reisz is great, but Her Naughty Holiday is my favorite, and has a heroine who owns an extremely successful greenhouse business.
I really like both the hero and heroine in the Phy-Changeling novella Partners in Persuasion, as they are both very competent at their very different jobs.
For a sci-fi recommendation, I love Hope’s Folly by Linnea Sinclair. Rya proves herself over and over again in tough situations where she’s expected to be a junior officer.
I love smart, competent, hard working people of all genders (why I’m not so in love with wastrel/rake). I love the above examples but I do find Nora Roberts heroines to the very BEST of everything they do and therefore a bit dull.
Sci-fi romance has quite a few competent and admired for it heroines! First 2 off the top of my head are Devi Morris, a power armor wearing mercenary from Rachel Bach’s Fortune’s Pawn and Commander Elena Shaw (an engineer) from Elizabeth Bonesteel’s The Cold Between.
Julie James truly is the queen of competence p0rn- all hail.
That said, Nora Roberts is probably the duchess. Most of her heroines are women about their shit, and the men are also usually portrayed as highly competent. Highlights for La Nora in this arena: Eve Dallas (“In Death” series), “The Obsession,” “The Witness,” “Tribute,” “Blue Smoke,” and “The Search.”
For PNR/UF/Steampunk, I gotta shout out Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels series. Kate has zero fucks to give about anything except doing her job & the people she loves. Also the first two books in Meljean Brooks’ Iron Duke series have highly competent heroines.
And when it comes to historicals, Courtney Milan would be my go-to for this category, but I also think Tessa Dare has a few heroines that would fit the bill (“Say Yes to the Marquess” and “A Week to Be Wicked” come to mind).