We have a Rec League from Ruby! Ruby wants more heroines with short hair or “alternative hairstyles.”
Amanda: There are the heroines on the covers of 99 Perfect Mine by Sally Thorne and Small Change by Roan Parrish.Kia ora, ladies of SBTB!
I would love to see a rec league post on books that feature heroines with short or ‘alternative’ hairstyles. I’m a wahine who has had various permutations of short hair since I first cut it off at age 11 and currently sport a magnificent undercut. I rarely see heroines who look like me or my friends in romance novels. I would really appreciate any recs for books that feature ladies who rock literally anything other than long hair – short, shaved, pixie cuts, undercuts, weird short choppy bobs, a mullet they cut in their own bathroom, anything! (excluding long hair that is dyed an unnatural colour.)
Sarah: You’ll never guess: I can recall the cover art but not the title.
I think the heroine of Then Came You by Lisa Kleypas ( A | K | G | AB | Au ) has short hair.
Amanda – wasn’t there a Kresley Cole one? Not Kaderin one of the later ones
Amanda: MacRieve, I think? ( A | BN | K | G | AB )
Sarah: Yes.
Amanda: Heroine is a soccer star.
Sarah: Oh – the heroines on the covers of Cathy Pegau’s books.
I adore their hair cuts in those images, but I don’t know if the heroines themselves have short hair. Carrie, do you remember if they do?
Carrie: I don’t remember regarding Cathy, but it sounds right.
Aarya: Off the top of my head (is that a pun? A really bad one?), the two heroines in Kate Clayborn’s Chance of a Lifetime series have short hair. Kit from Beginner’s Luck and Greer from Best of Luck ( A | BN | K | G | AB ). And the short hair is evident in the covers.
Sarah: GOOD PUN EXCELLENT PUN I APPROVE 200000%
So the book I’m trying to find that I can’t recall the title of is a contemporary, possibly Avon, from at least 10 years ago. The heroine has short dark hair, and is standing up on tiptoe to reach up and kiss a dude who might be leaning out of a door or a window. One of the two. He is inside and she’s reaching up to kiss him. Long neck, short hair.
Somewhere, many, many librarians and booksellers are cringing and they don’t know why.
Aarya: What color? Can you remember?
Sarah: The hair or the book?
Aarya: The book!
Sarah: The book cover was mostly beige and cream tones, especially the siding of the house, and her hair was one of the most visible things.
Dark brown hair, or possibly black, and if I recall, an outstandingly well coiffed pixie cut.
Aarya: I haven’t read this, but one of the heroines in In Her Court by Tamsen Parker ( A | BN | K | G ) definitely has short hair per the cover. It’s been on my TBR forever because it features tennis (my favorite sport).
Okay, I scrolled through my kindle and this is what I found:
– One Day to Fall by Therese Beharrie (out next month) ( A | BN | K | G | AB )
– The Lawyer’s Luck by Piper Huguley ( A | BN | K | AB )
– Eve Dallas from JD Robb’s In Death series ( A | BN | K | G | AB | Au )! I can’t believe I forgot about her; she’s quite possibly the most famous heroine in recent romance history.
Sarah: Oh, hot diggity, Aarya – Eve is a total obvious choice. Nice catch.
Those are our recs! Which short-haired heroines do you love?
ETA: Thank you to HeatherS, who DM’d me the exact book I was trying to describe above – Not the Marrying Kind by Hailey North. THANK YOU!!
The two books that leap to my mind for haircuts and short styles are both Jennifer Crusie stories – Crazy For You, and Getting Rid of Bradley. Hair and hair changes feature in both, and I love what she does with the symbolism and humour.
The only book I can think of that involves hair is the Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell series. When it starts, Mary has long hair that she keeps in two braids that she pins to the top of her head. Part of the first meeting involves her dragging off her caonbecause Holmes has mistaken her for a boy. In a later book, she goes undercover as a man and gets a short back and sides to avoid being detected. In later books, she keeps her hair short. The books are set during WW1and the 1920s.
Cap because, not caonbecause.
I have three:
A Lady by Midnight by Tessa Dare. The heroine, Kate, cuts her hair short in the first book, A Night to Surrender. It’s not mentioned much, but it’s still growing out by this book.
Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn. Evie’s hair is brushing her shoulders on the cover. The cover of third book, Heroine’s Journey, indicates that Bea may have shoulder length hair too.
Brazen by Margo Maguire. An early chapter explicitly states that the heroine cut her long hair to her shoulders because it was the only feature that her philandering husband who left her destitute liked about her.
One of Penny Reid’s heroines in the Knitting in the City series has short hair — maybe the one in Love Hacked?
Also at least one Mary Balogh. I’m pretty sure it’s a widow with short hair.
In the latest Laura Lee Guhrke book, the heroine cuts off her hair to disguise herself as a male tutor, and the cover is so so gorgeous! It’s called Governess Gone Rogue.
Several of Mary Balogh’s early Regencies feature heroines who come to London for their “season” and, as part of that, get a short haircut.
The contemporary that pops into my head, because the hairstyle is noted several times, is in Katee Robert’s UNDERCOVER ATTRACTION where the heroine has her hair shaved on one side.
One of the books in Mary Balogh’s Survivor series has a heroine who cuts off her own hair halfway through the book, for reasons I can’t remember. And then all the women in the house come to help her get it styled. Am I remembering this right?
Pamela Morsi’s Something Shady starts off with the heroine, Gertrude, cutting off her hair and getting a bob in the 1920s, when it was considered scandalous by her town. It’s symbolic for her getting her agency. The only one in town who compliments her hair is the hero, who is himself considered scandalous for being a Polish immigrant.
A cute novella, Natural Beauty by Leslie DuBois is all about hair. It is a story of an Af-Am heroine whose different hairstyles act an an allegory to her romantic journey.
She starts off the book with a weave – signals a relaxed relationship with her boyfriend.
But he does something and she ‘transitions’ from the weave to her own hair.
When they break up she does the ‘Big chop’ and cuts off her processed hair and goes completely natural.
Each chapter is a different hairstyle that signals a new movement in her journey toward a new relationship with her eventual HEA.
In the course of the book she has an afro, twist-outs, bantu knots etc.
Maybe Dolan, heroine of Whiskey Sharp: Unraveled, by Lauren Dane. She not only cuts hair for a living, but is always rocking some super colorful/short ‘do.
Any historical romance with cross-dressing, so Georgette Heyer’s These Old Shades and The Masqueraders. I just re-read the rather strange A Brother’s Price by Wen Spencer, which is set on a world where women outnumber men 10 or 15 to one and gender roles are almost completely swapped—most of the women in that book have shaved Or close-cropped hair (and the men have long hair 🙂 ). Ilona Andrews’ latest SF/PNR, Sweep of the Blade, has a badass protagonist who cut her hair short when exiled to a planet with very little water. The last two have strong romance themes even if they are also Sf/F.
I was hoping you’d rec Kate Clayborn’s books! All three are great, and I felt like the cover models really matched what I imagined for each of the heroines.
Strolling through my kindle, here are books where the cover model has short hair (although whether the heroine’s hairstyle is part of the storyline, I don’t know), also please keep in mind I download lots of freebies and samples and I can’t vouch for the quality of many of these books, I’m basing most of this on the cover model’s hair:
Tracey Alvarez: IN TOO DEEP
Jackie Ashenden: TAKING HIM (heroine’s hair might not be short, but she’s always changing style and color)
Rory Chambers: DANGEROUS REUNION
Julie Hammerle: KNOCKED-UP CINDERELLA (I read this and the heroine’s short blonde hair is noted many times in the story)
Cara McKenna: AFTER HOURS (the heroine likes to keep her hair short because of her job as a nurse in a psychiatric hospital; interesting in that the heroine mentions several times that her hair is thin and flyaway)
Tamsen Parker: DUE SOUTH (this may have been reissued with another title; cover model’s hair is short, but whether it plays a role in the story, I don’t remember)
Stacy-Deanne: BRUISED (African-American heroine with really cut short style)
Holly Trent: THREE WITH THREE (African-American cover model with short hair)
This doesn’t seem like much, considering how many books I have on my kindle—but not that many have women on the cover and, of those, not many of those women have short hair.
I also remember a Ruthie Knox (MAKING IT LAST, possibly) where the heroine gets her long hair cut short and then she and her husband have a role-play game where they pretend to be strangers.
Doesn’t Jayne Ann Krentz have women with pixie cuts in many of her books?
BRUISED cover model has really CUTE (not cut) short style.
I hate to indulge in shameless self-promoti–who am I kidding? I love promoting my historicals and my heroines who have short hair (as I do.)
In THE BRIDE AND THE BUCCANEER the heroine gives herself a pixie cut and finds it empowering. In SEA CHANGE and WHAT THE PARROT SAW the heroines cut their hair short to cross-dress as men.
The heroine of Carla Kelly’s With This Ring cuts her hair midway through the book. It’s a Regency, and the haircut is a plot point.
Eloisa James’s An Affair Before Christmas is a Georgian marriage-in-trouble romance with a heroine who gets a short haircut. Her long hair (with all the Georgian powders and decorative elements) has a significant effect on her relationship with her husband, and cutting her hair short is an act of healing.
I love this question! Here’s what I have:
In Nora Roberts’ Three Fates, Tia gets a pixie cut as a symbol of her independence. Sophia from The Villa has a pixie cut for the entirety of the book.
Celie from All For You by Laura Florand has spiky short hair.
How To Master Your Marquis and How to School Your Scoundrel by Juliana Gray both have heroines with short hair, as they are impersonating men. I believe Luisa in How to School Your Scoundrel also gets her head shaved due to a fever.
Both heroines in New Ink on Life by Jennie Davids have short hair. I loved this book!
Charlotte Stein’s Never Loved has a heroine who shaves part of her head, I think into an undercut.
Razed by Shiloh Walker has a heroine with short hair on the cover. I hope that helps!
This is an oldie, but Susan Napier wrote a book called “True enchanter” in which the heroine not only had unruly hair but was prematurely gray, so she got it razor-cut to about an inch all over and looked and felt bad-ass. And I was going to mention Eve and Roarke; sub-listing for couples in which his hair is longer than hers.
Sarah: Kind of opposite, but “Not The Marrying Kind” by Hailey North has a woman leaning out the window with a hunky shirtless dude kissing her. The heroine has short, spiky brown hair and is wearing a white, spaghetti strap top. Dude is wearing blue jeans. I love this cover. It was published in 2009; it’s $2.99 on Kindle.
I read so many books that I can’t remember the names of their heroines which have short hair. I can’t remember the names of the books either. But I have read a few recently in which they had short hair like me.
The heroine Blue in Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ “Natural Born Charmer” is petite with dark short hair and is first seen wearing a beaver costume.
Come to think of it La Nora has many short/haired heroines. One not mentioned yet (I think) is Nell from the first of the THREE SISTERS trilogy.
In Mariana Zapata’s RHYTHM, CHORD, AND MAHLYKIN (I’m screwing up the spelling…and I don’t have time to look it up), the multi-racial heroine gets a partial buzz cut due to losing a bet and ends up mostly rocking the look.
There’s a Cherise Sinclair from her SHADOWLANDS series—one of the heroines is biracial (Black) and talks about her short Afro style. She ends up in a relationship with Jake, a vet. CW abuse/stalker survivor. (Also BDSM, but it’s a Sinclair book, so…yeah.)
I know I have more. Dratted brain.
Wrangled and Tangled by Lorelei James has a short haired heroine named Jane. It’s kind of fun to have a short hair heroine in a cowboy romance.
I think the heroine of SIMPLY MAGIC by Mary Balogh had hair that was described as cropped (I assume it was some sort of Regency bob).
Nora Roberts’ new romantic suspense, UNDER CURRENTS has a heroine with short hair.
The heroine of Caressed by Ice (Nalini Singh) cuts her hair short during the book.
I’m wracking my brain, but I’ve been reading a lot of historicals so…. Might need to hit up my sci fi list.
(Also, yes, Liv in Rulebreaker rocks short hair throughout the book. Thanks for the mention ; )
The following are all contemporaries except for Getting Lucky, and just for the record, I enjoyed all of them. Hope Ruby might too.
Lucinda Burbank in Val Roberts’ Getting Lucky has red hair that “looks like she’d taken a utility knife to it.” Book is a really short SF Romance.
Luna and the Lie by Mariana Zapata has chin length hair she describes as cotton candy blue that she pins back on the job in an auto body shop; . The novel is a wicked long, slow burn, first person romance like most of Zapata’s novels.
Clem, the amnesiac heroine of Kylie Scott’s Repeat, chops off her ponytail around chapter 3 till it’s “similar to a short sort-of-f*cked-up bob.”
Sarah Mayberry’s Anticipation features a tattoo artist heroine with blue hair named–surprise!–Blue. At one poin she has a hair cut described as “sides shaved to almost nothing, the top molded into a smooth, high curve, reminiscent of the rockabilly singers of the fifties.” Mayberry has some other short haired heroines I think. The heroine of One Good Reason, Gabby, has short hair. She’s an office manager or some such IIRC. There is almost always a down to earth quality about many of Mayberry’s heroines, they live and work in the real world. (Even the rich guys seem to do actual work.) It’s why I have so many of her books in my Comfort Reads category on my Kindle. Fact is, real women do get short hair cuts, so take that, flowing tresses!
In Rhea Rhodan’s Finding Grace the heroine has really alternative hair. Heads up, though: many trigger/content warnings.
Shelly Laurenston has heroines with short or unusual hair. Livy in Bite Me does.
Keelie in Shiloh Walker’s Razed DOES have unusual hair, and Hope from If You See Her gets a haircut her abusive ex (who is the bad guy) would have hated.
I always think of JAK heroines as more short angled bob than pixie.
Ooh! Ooh! Linnea Sinclair has some short haired heroines in her SF romances I believe. Trilby in Finders Keepers and Gillie in Accidental Goddess definitely do. Both are highly satisfying reads.
Now that I’ve slept on it, I can tell you that Mary Balogh’s Slightly Dangerous features a heroine with short curly hair. Wulfric, the hero, hates it. Until he doesn’t.
A lot of Jayne Ann krentz’s contemporary heroines had bobs. Frequently red iirc.
The heroine in Sherry Thomas’ Tempting the Bride has her hair cut short after she suffers head trauma in an accident. She’s self-conscious about it at first.
Victoria Dahl’s Close Enough to Touch!
Hey fellow short haired wahine (are you from NZ???)
The Unwanted Wife by Natasha Anders – the heroine ends up cutting her hair to spite the hero who likes her long hair – he likes short as well – surprise
From memory, the heroine in A Girl Like Her by Talia Hibbert has short hair
Otherwise I totally support the Eve Dallas rec – she’s excellent
The heroine in Julie Evelyn Joyce’s Steeped in Love has hair short enough to reveal a tattoo behind her ear.
In When a Duke Loves a Woman, by Lorraine Heath, the heroine Gillie Trewlove has short hair. Her mother dressed her as a boy when she was younger; her choice of hairstyle as an adult relevant to the story. Also she’s a pub owner and all-around badass.
In Alyssa Cole’s novella ONCE GHOSTED, TWICE SHY, “Likotsi’s hair was shaved on the sides, the edge-up fresh, with her hair on top long and twisted into locs.”
Trix had a ‘pale pink bob’ in Pretty Face (yes I actually checked) so if I am correct she has short hair in her own book Making Up by Lucy Parker.
Also, there is that book where the hero has some disease and his daughter has it too… Got it! Forever Mine by Erin Nicholas – contemporary, the heroine is ex-cop who has a superhero school and is real badass. If I remember correctly, she has a deep red bob? That might not be true, but it was short for sure.
There is a fantastic more mature YA historical fantasy Helen and the Dark Days Club by Alison Goodman, Helen has long hair at first but cuts it in the first book to be able to disguise herself as a men. It is portrayed as a fashionable style.
I remember a lot of “sleek bobs” but only these specific ones came to mind.