My first introduction to romance was through the novels of Barbara Cartland (novels with an ’s’, I read most of Cartland’s over 600 book backlist, yes including that book on the wonders of honey). Her heroines were… well… all the same, an idealized version of herself. They were blonde, big eyed, wispy women. One look from the tall, dark and handsome hero and they… would… fall… over (literally, the girls had fainting down to an art).
For the first couple hundred books, I loved this size zero, almost painfully beautiful heroine. For the last couple hundred, the parade of “perfect” little blondes made me quite depressed. I was not blonde or little. Goodness (and my Mom) knows I wasn’t perfect.
And hey, wasn’t love supposed to be blind?
That’s when I got a hankering for the everyday, imperfect (by media and society’s idealized standards) heroine. Someone just like me.
I like my gals with some history and history brings scars, broken bones, an extra layer of padding around the hips and sometimes, in the case of Donica Covey’s Seeing The Light, a fall on the head leading to blindness (poor Abby, she should have never gotten on that horse).
While I may like imperfect heroines, some of our heroes aren’t the most mature men in the fictional world. They often have knee jerk negative reactions to the flaw. They could even reject the heroine completely… at the beginning of the novel. Doesn’t that make it all the sexier when they fall and fall hard?
I think so.
Look at Evie in Lisa Kleypas’ Devil In Winter. She has a stammer the intentionally rude hero, on page 6, calls tedious. Oh, but by page 360, the story has changed, hasn’t it? Sebastian sure wasn’t using the word tedious to describe Evie.
Abigail’s twisted foot makes Calvin pause a moment in Samantha Garver’s One Night To Be Sinful. Only for a moment though. Calvin and Abigail, those crazy kids, were meant to love each other.
Then there’s the special type of hero. The men that either don’t see the “imperfection†or, like Lucas in Michele Ann Young’s novel No Regrets, think the imperfection is truly perfection. Lucas, our sexy, sexy hero, fights society’s vision of the ideal woman to stay true to his own. Plus sized is truly a plus in his (and Michele’s) book.
Those are only a few of my favorite unlikely heroine examples. I’m sure you know of more. If you do, please share. I’d also love to hear if you like a heroine with a few flaws or if you prefer the fantasy ideal.
No related posts.
On the other hand, I just love Michele’s comfortably endowed heroine from No Regrets.
I prefer imperfect heroes and heroines… it’s just easier to relate to them. I also don’t like being hit over the head with their imperfections though–that gets annoying. I’m going to have to look for Lee’s When I Wake–that sounds great! I also really liked Evie and Sebastian in Devil in Winter
BTW, something I dislike is also being whacked over the head with how stunningly beautiful the heroine is–maybe I’ve a chip on my shoulder because I’m definitely NOT heartstoppingly gorgeous, but it really irked me to read repeatedly in Eloisa James’ Much Ado About You how unbelievably lovely the four sisters are. Enough!
Another source of imperfection:
In many of her books Julia Quinn creates characters that have realistic human failings. Rather than evil villains, her heroes and heroines overcome their personal demons and communication problems to achieve that HEA. In “The Duke and I” Simon has a severe stuttering problem. In “The Viscount Who Loved Me” Anthony is afraid of bees and haunted by his father’s early death, while Kate is terrified of storms resulting from a childhood trauma. In “When He Was Wicked” Michael runs away to India to escape his grief, and returns with Malaria.
Ciaralira,
Great reco’s.
I forgot about Julia Quinn.
She does have some great imperfect characters, doesn’t she?
Hey, I see you’re doing NaNo.
You’re in the home stretch.
I’m cheering for you!
Please come back and let us know that you “made it.”
Susan,
I do recall that Barbara Cartland
but I think I deliberately blocked it from my mind.
It was so insulting even to the 12 year old girl I was.
It might have been my first wall banger.
I also got the impression that the hero fell in love with the heroine because she was thin.
Love the photo on your website, btw.
A hammock, a book, and a beer,
very Hemingway (in a good way).
Fedora,
I’m with you about the stunningly beautiful,
especially when somehow the heroine ends up modest about her looks.
How’s that possible?
That’s why I love Sebastian.
He’s good looking
and vain
like most good looking men are.
From time we’re little girls, we get bombarded with images of this perfect ubergoddess in magazines, movies, TV. Size matters? You betcha! And to be betrayed by the written word where the imagination was supposed to run free was the last straw for me. So, I started hunting for the imperfect woman in books and now I write them.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking fugly. However, even when she looks pretty darn good on the outside, most of the time, she perceives herself as imperfect. I think it makes her more realistic and helps her love the hero a little bit more in the long run because a self-centered beauty more than likely would love nobody more than herself.
Unlike diamonds, humans are better with a few flaws.