I love romances. I love heroes—both reading and writing them. I
have, as we all do, more than one favorite hero and hero types. The alpha male
with the heart of gold tops my list, but there’s another layer to that great
character trait that really gets me squirming and clutching the book (or
Kindle, or iPhone, or…you get the picture) to my chest and sighing—the
super-clever, sneaky, purposefully self-deprecating alpha male with a heart of
gold. Sounds complicated? Oh, you betcha. And that excites and invests me in a
story more than any other hero out there. Hard to write, but when he’s done
right… Oh, my.
I just finished reading Georgette Heyer’s These Old Shades
yet again, and her hero, Justin Alastair, the Duke of Avon, is all that and
more. Clever, constantly in control, on top of things, and ten steps ahead of
everyone else. He’s intimidating and awe-inspiring, all the while making people
believe he’s a bored, pampered aristocrat. So when he brings the denouement
down on everyone’s’ heads with iron control, calculation, and effect, I find
myself cheering and squeeing like a fangirl every time.
Another hero (or anti-hero, yeah, super-big fan of those when
they’re written well) who may very well be the ultimate example of my favorite
type of hero is C. S. Pacat’s Laurent from her Captive Prince series.
Those stories are simply brilliant. Nuanced, frightening, thrilling,
unexpected, nothing-as-it-seems brilliant. She writes Laurent with some great
goal already in mind, I have no doubt, but the discovery and the journey of his
character has been gripping so far. Taking a character and turning him around,
from hating him, believing him shallow, spoiled, cruel, possibly downright evil
and revealing his true nature and motivations bit by bit in the narrative and
action of the story is not only captivating for the reader, but also difficult
to accomplish as a writer. I’m enthralled and dying for the third book. Dying.
