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!!
It’s scifi YA rather than romance genre, but Aurora Rising has a character who led me to look up what a “fauxhawk” is.
Iirc AN IMPROPER PROPOSAL by Meg (written as Patricia) Cabot features a heroine with short hair. Or she cuts it at some point to masquerade as a boy. But I seem to recall her having short hair in my imagination, if that counts for anything!!