Recently I chatted with one of my coworkers who is doing the online dating thing. She talked about her experience of looking at profile photos. “What can I say?†she said. “I just prefer men with darker hair.â€
She’s not alone. Many people in the romance industry apparently feel the same way.
When you look at romance covers in general, blond heroes are definitely outnumbered. I randomly grabbed 20 books I have sitting around, and dark-haired heroes are on the covers three times as often. Why is that? On one cover, the hero is dark-haired despite the fact that he’s a blond in the book.
I don’t know whether this trend started with authors, readers, or marketers. Probably a combination—I’m sure there’s no one contributing factor. However, the result is a shortage of blonds.
Why do I care so much? Well, it’s not only about hair color. It’s about variety. I like it. I want to see heroes and heroines who don’t all look the same. I love reading about characters with unique jobs. Sure, I like reading about cops, FBI agents, and millionaires. I’d also like stories with mechanics, teachers, and real estate agents. I don’t see those as often. First and foremost, I want a good story. But a little variety certainly doesn’t hurt.
I’ve read two books recently that stand out in my mind—not just for their strong plots, but also because they include elements you don’t see every day. In one, the hero and heroine are in their 40s and 50s. The other confronts the challenges faced by an older woman and younger man.
I suspect there are many others like me, who want a good story but would appreciate more variety as well. What would you like to see? For me, I’d love to find a few books about heroes with red hair . . .
No related posts.
Seems to me Essie Summers ( does anyone remember her?) books had some heroes with red hair.
Yanno, I don’t care for blond heroes – tribal memory at work.
Humans come in all colors, sizes, and ages, and we all can love.:wink: Variety is the spice of life.
Personally, I’d love to see a blond hero on the cover of a book, and of course, on the pages inside. Which got me thinking: have I written any blond heroes into any of my own books? Then I remembered, I have. Only in the one book, so far mind you. Perhaps, we are so brainwashed as romance readers that we automatically think of ‘the tall, dark, handsome hero’.
I broke the mould in my last book though ‘A Taste of Honey’. Travis is an Irish chef who sports a goatee and a couple of tattoos. He lives in a caravan, wears a combat jacket and keeps a stray dog! Not your usual hero, granted, but he was interesting to write about.
I’d be interesed to know if Scandanavian book covers picture blond heroes?
Lynette
It’s because of the old saying, tall dark and handsome
and that we picture our ‘bad boys’ dark, in personality and in hair color
Also, dark hair is predominant. Look around you. How many natural blonds are there out there?? Lots of women because we color our hair, but not a lot of men color their hair. So there are not a lot of blond men out there for us to ogle and fantasize about.
Viggo is my favorite blond although he’s a darker blond.
Owen Wilson too.
But I wouldn’t consider either of these guys dark heroes or bad boys.
I’ve written blond heroes, and some of them even stayed blond on the cover.
I’m pretty sure it’s marketing, based on the “tall, dark and handsome” and “bad boys” conditioning other people have talked about. You see this brought out explicitly in slash fanfic, where it’s two guys — and there’s a long-standing joke about the cliche that the taller, older, darker one always tops the shorter, younger, blonder one. “Blond” maps to “female role”.
And then there was all the uproar about a *blond* being cast as James Bond…
Sounds like another case of marketing gone wacko to me
No wacko, just following the $$$. According to multiple talks/workshops that I’ve attended, books with blond men on the covers simply don’t sell as well as books with brunet heroes (and don’t even bring up red heads, LOL!).
Of course these are them same people that insist that women out there love love love clench covers, so do I really trust them?
Uh… funny how I never noticed that. Then again, I don’t pay much attention to the physical attributes of the heroine. Now as for the hero… Heh! Bring on the details! BTW, not many redhead heroes.
Now I just had an erotic paranormal romance come out and the hero has auburn hair (salt and peper version as he’s older). I try to put a blonde hero as much as dark one in my stories, though being a blonde with some red in her blonde, I admit darker haired men are what I prefer being a blonde guy feels like my brother thing. But I do use other hair colors, not just dark.
But yeah, I noticed that too.
Sapphire Phelan
Oh I forgot about Daniel Craig…mmm, he’s smokin’ HAWT. I loved him as Bond. He makes a great Bad Boy type. Loved him in Layercake too.
I don’t really care what the cover looks like. I don’t really care how the author describes the hero. I tend to switch them all to jet black hair, golden skin and smiley eyes.
Hey, he’s my hero. I’ll fantasize about him as I wish.
(Sometimes he has a scar though…when he gets all genghis khan on me)
I think that’s why some multicultural romances turn me off. Too much focus on the physical.
I like heroes with all colorings. Most of the time I’ve written dark haired heroes, but the hero of my latest is a redhead and I’ve got a blond on the back burner. Variety is the spice of life! Bring on men with spice!
And then there was all the uproar about a *blond* being cast as James Bond…
Yeah, and he was excellent, and very, very hot.
And Sean Bean. Might we mention Sean Bean? Hero material this way, although he’s more a sandy blonde now than he was in his younger, Sharp’s days.
I’ve done redheads in short fiction (I like me a redhead) and one of the heroes in Cat Scratch Fever was blondish…but yeah, more dark-haired or at least light brown.
Hear, hear for variety. I love, love redheaded men. Also, being blond didn’t hurt Robert Redford or Brad Pitt
And Sharpe is dark haired in the books. My brother simply can’t learn to like Sean Bean as Sharpe.
I don’t care so much about the physical description, but I do wish there were more books with heroes and heroines who had normal jobs. I like reading about office workers, retail clerks, construction workers, etc. People who have the same kind of jobs that my friends and I have. Sometimes it seems like every book I pick up has a millionaire or a person starting his or her own business. Those are okay, but it is nice to have a bit of variety too.
Huh…you know, I never really thought about it. I’m personally not attracted to blonds (trauma in my childhood from bullies & all that), but I like reading about guys with different hair colors & such. Just like I notice there are more blond heroines than there are brunettes. What’s wrong with being a brunette? *sigh* Aw well, it’s a catch-22.
I prefer dark-haired men, so I’m one of the statistics marketing looks at. Most of my heroes are dark-haired. However, I have written one blond hero, and I will read stories with blond heroes without hesitation. Now, as for redheads–bring ‘em on! I’d love to see more redheaded heroes. In fact, I’d love to see a hero with long red hair and glasses. I don’t think I’ve ever read about a hero wearing specs.:???:
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Minorities read novels too. And we want to see ourselves and our guys too. The average minority (Asian, African, Mediteranean, Native American) may not fall for blondes so easily. Whereas a dark-haired guy can fall into any category and doesn’t feel so nordic/nazi.