In Which Katie Scarlett O'Hara Makes an Appearance.

Scarlett O'Hara is a Class-A spoiled rotten bitch. She may also be the original Too Stupid To Live heroine.

Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about why she's on my Top 10 Heroines list.

I started watching Gone With The Wind again last night (started, may never finish... do you know how long that movie is?) and Scarlett has been on my mind a lot lately, both because of this list, and because Boy Scout is watching some American history series and we have been talking about the Civil War.

"Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tartleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the features of her mother, a Coastal aristocrat of French descent, and those of her florid Irish father."

Yeah, I read the book when I was 12, but like any good romance fan, I can quote the first lines pretty well. (Same with Rebecca)

ANYWAY, Scarlett.

While not the most likable heroine ever, she certainly has traits which are admirable, and which several other heroines could learn from. Her ability to persevere is unfathomable; the dedication she shows to reviving Tara in the post-war period is staggering, as is her (eternally annoying) devotion to one Ashley Wilkes. It doesn't matter what gets in her way, she seeks security and love with an iron-willed determination.

She's also a pretty loyal person, though often in an extremely perverse way. Scarlett outright saves Melanie's life at least once, and all because of her feelings for the woman's husband. "I promised Ashley" becomes her mantra, which is really interesting. In saving Melly (who she easily could have left to die), she shows at once her depth of feeling, and her strength of character despite superficial superficiality.

Where Scarlett fails painfully is in her stubbornness and inability to let go of the past. Sure you thought you were in love with Ashley once, but here's a man (that would be Rhett Butler) who kisses you "often, and by someone who knows how," loves your kids from all of your previous marriages (in the book) and gives you everything you have ever wanted. Except the one thing you refuse to admit you never really wanted in the first place.

So WHY is Scarlett on the list? Simple. There aren't very many heroines as enterprising or as resourceful, even though there are many with more self-awareness and ability to admit mistakes. While being Too Stupid to Live, Scarlett might just also be the forebearer of our kick-ass heroines. Behind no man will they cower and simper. They're out to conquer the world, and make no apologies.

In Which I Rave About Jade, But Otherwise Have Very Little to Add.

Ah yes, the Lady Jade. To be honest, I'm not sure she ever gets a last name (it might be mentioned once) but her brother is the Earl of Something, and the man with whom she has lots of hot sex and babies is the Marquess of Cainewood, aka Caine. So Julie Garwood's lovely and amazing Guardian Angel does not really conform to ideas of modern names.

When we first meet Jade, she is cowering outside a dockside tavern (really, is there any other kind?), battered and bruised, imploring the heroic Caine to, well, kill her. What an opening! Caine's pretending to be the notorious (but ultimately anonymous) Pirate Pagan in order to capture the man, assuming that the pirate was responsible for his brother's death. Thinking Caine to be Pagan, Jade asks Caine to kill her. Apparently if he doesn't, someone else will.

Why does Jade really want Caine to kill her? She doesn't, and she knows he won't. She's just trying to get his attention.

Things I like about Jade: It is very apparent from the beginning (though she is doing a marvelous job of simpering and cowering) that she is anything but a shrinking violet. She's a chick on a mission, and even Caine knows this by the close of the opening sequence, which involves a rather exciting chase through the back alleys of London. Oh yeah, and then he throws her in the Thames. Now most heroines would freak out at this, and Jade does, but only because it's what she thinks she's supposed to do. And also due to an extremely realistic fear of sharks. (Seriously, realistic)

OK, so she's a badass who's loyal and fierce (it turns out she's assigned herself the task of protecting Caine from the pirate, who must surely be on the hunt for him). She takes a bullet, fights with Sterns the butler (one of the all-time greats) and does a pretty excellent job of keeping all of the overbearing men in her life in their right and proper places (oh, Jimbo and Matthew... way to follow orders). And then, in one of the best twists I have ever read, well... I can't tell you. Would totally ruin the surprise. And it's a doozy.

I like Jade because she is manipulative (in a fairly benign way), smart, funny, and generally pretty excellent. What's my heroine going to get from Jade's influence? Simple... twist.

THIS JUST IN: The new Lisa Kleypas, in addition to the new Tessa Dare, are on their way to my house. Along with a Meredith Duran book I have been curious about.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU?: I have motivation to finish Never Love a Lawman (beyond the fact that it is an excellent book) and promise lots of weekend blogging ahead.

Of course, every time I promise that I epic fail, so let's manage expectations accordingly, shall we?

Why Have You Not Been Writing, You Lazy POS?

Or at least, that's what I assume you have been thinking.

However, I'm willing to concede that might just be what I have been thinking in my head.

The last week has been insane on multiple levels (including yet another "sleep-in-three-separate-places-over-three-separate-nights" incident, though fortunately this time all three nights in question included Boy Scout), and to be honest, my reading time has not been what it should be.

If this was my other blog (you know, the one I am seriously considering abandoning), I would write all about my new passion for The Big Bang Theory. But alas, this blog is about books. And my aimless rambling.

SO ANYWAY, I have nothing new to report. Well, that's a lie. I am currently reading Never Love a Lawman by Jo Goodman (a book from the Massachusetts book pile that HAD to migrate. There was no way I was waiting until June to keep reading this book), another one of those highly recommended books from my friends at Dear Author and boy oh boy, they weren't kidding when they named it one of the best books of 2009. Twice.

It's a really rare occurence for me to not want to finish a book simply because I am enjoying it so much. In fact, the last time that happened to me in recent memory is with any and all of the Harry Potter books. You know the feeling, don't you? That as much as you want to know what happens with the plot and to the characters, there's the fact that when you finish the book it's, well, finished. And you don't get to read it anymore.

I am not even remotely suggesting that this book will be any less good in a second sitting (in fact, I'm already looking forward to that in a year or so), but at the moment I am really enjoying my personal discovery of this book and this author.

So yes, the book kicks ass and no, I won't be writing about it anytime soon. You're not rushing me through it.

In the meantime, I am giving up on the "Top Ten Romance Heroines" as a post with a list. Instead I am going to write individual posts about the heroines, because I think they deserve that much of our time.

Also, it's my blog, and I get to do whatever I want.

Up first: Jade from Guardian Angel by Julie Garwood. Post to follow.

I Finally Finished The Book.

First of all, I think we can all agree that I need to become a better headline-writer. My "other" (soon to be abandoned?) blog begins all of its headlines with "A Statement," and I didn't want to carry that here (they are different, after all). However, I might be persuaded to shamelessly copy Patricia C. Wrede and begin everything here with "In Which..." Will have to think on it.

Moving swiftly onward, I finally, finally finished Instant Gratification last night, much to the delight of my mother who has been waiting for me to be done for about four days now.

This is the second book in a trilogy by Jill Shalvis. If you'll recall, I wrote a review of the first book, Instant Attraction, recently.

Instant Gratification is the story of the middle Wilder brother, Stone, and the local Doc's doctor daughter, Emma. Emma has recently been transplanted from New York to run her father's practice in the aftermath of his rather severe heart attack. Since they have been estranged for the majority of her life, Emma is reluctant to return, and still further reluctant to be living in the smallest town ever as opposed to her beloved metropolis.

Let me start off by saying that I did not like this book as much as I liked Instant Attraction. Where I cared about the characters in Instant Attraction, I had no such devotion to Stone and Emma. I did feel bad for Emma, although that mostly has to do with the fact that everyone ever was telling her she was a bad person and too uptight to exist.

The message that was hammered home time and time again was the fact that Emma was cold, aloof, and emotionally detached from the people and things going on around her. I had a problem with this mostly because the reasons that this might be are more-or-less glazed over, with only brief mentions about the relationship between her mother and her stepfather, and the estrangement from her father which is Not What It Seems.

My issues with the mother situation are up first. Emma's mother died six months before the story took place. She raised Emma, did the best she could, worked 60 hour weeks to make ends meet, etc. etc. etc. Saint, right? WRONG. This is apparently a woman who kept her ex-husband from seeing his daughter, from communicating with her, and then went to him to obtain money to pay for her daughter's college education, essentially taking all of his savings and retirement money. And then took credit for coming up with the money herself.

OK, so the woman Emma keeps hearing in her head (in a non-crazy way, of course), is actually someone Emma has the right to be very, very angry with. Like, check-yourself-into-therapy-and-sort-out-your-life anger. Is Emma ever angry? No.

So she shows up to help in this small town and is greeted with bad attitudes and ingratitude almost from the beginning. Apparently "newcomers" aren't welcome, and female doctors even less so. And Stone et al have the absolute gall to wonder why she wouldn't want to stay in town?

We won't even get into the manipulation of Stone and her father with regard to communication and "convincing her to stay."

If I were Emma, I would have run away as fast as possible and shacked up permanently with Spence, her friend with benefits who flies in to provide sexxoration for the fabulously bitchy Serena.

None of these complaints are going to keep me from finishing the trilogy, and I'm hoping for a little more development between TJ and Harley. Instant Gratification had fine characters and a fine plot, I'm just not sure they actually went together-- the story of the girl dealing with her family secrets did not mesh well with the girl waking up and smelling the roses about What's Important in Life. Not to mention an emotional detachment from all of the major emotional issues in the story. It just didn't work.

At least, it didn't work for me. Let me know if it worked for you.

I Still Have Nothing More to Add.

Nearly a week later, I am still stumped as to the Top Ten Heroines. And I've tried. Believe me. The two spare minutes I have had so far this week to contemplate matters great and small have been filled with brain-wracking with regard to those who are (in my opinion) the best heroines in romancedom.

But perhaps this was a hubristic undertaking on my part-- granted this is all under the disclaimer of "my opinion," but I'm starting to question whether I have read enough books to make this distinction. I have come up with a list of six names. And I have a feeling I'm going to have to stare at my book shelves for a while before I can come up with the other four. (I should also say at this moment that I have technically only come up with five romance novel heroines. Sydney Bristow remains number one on my list.)

So I think it's time to talk about what constitutes a good heroine. I touched briefly on this in my previous post on the subject, but now it's time to get down to the nitty gritty details.

1. She should be badass. This might be the reason I have so many girl-pirate/smuggler/sailors on my list. The heroine should be able to roll with the punches, steer a ship, con the conmen, and rabble-rouse generally. No shrieking and running away allowed.

2. She should be vulnerable to the hero. Yes, Kaderin the Cold Hearted, I am looking at you. All of the great ass-kickingest heroines (Syd, the Buffster, Kara Thrace, etc.) have a man who is equally (or nearly equally) as ass kicking. She doesn't need him, but she wants him, and his presence in the field of battle makes everything easier. He's not taking care of her, he's not fighting on her behalf, he's fighting alongside her. And ideally she's not letting her own ego get in the way.

3. She is someone I would like to be friends with. As someone with a very low personal threshold for the ridiculous, I have a very low threshold for heroine lunacy. Oh, I'll finish reading the ridiculous heroine book all right, but it's not going on The Keeper Shelf, and I probably won't remember her name a day after I've finished. OK, so I'll probably remember her name (damn you, prodigious memory), but you know what I mean.

Sad to say, it's hard to find a heroine as memorable as all that. Some of them stand out, but that's not necessarily because I liked them. Maybe she was just different, or her circumstances were unusual. In any case, I'm determined to put some thought into this list, so it's not going to be perfected before next week. Apologies for the delay.

On the plus side, I should have Instant Gratification finished by tonight. Review coming soon!! I know you're excited, but try to maintain your composure.

Hark, An Experiment! That Works!

A couple of weeks ago I decided that my TBR pile had become... quite large. I don't want to use the phrase "too large," because that has negative connotations and someone (*cough*Boy Scout*cough*) might use that as leverage to put a ban on the book buying.

I came up with a solution to this, or at least, Came To A Conclusion: I needed to manage my reading/watching time better. "Better" as in: leave piles of books in different places and read from the pile that lives wherever I happen to be. Also, my non-fiction TBR has been designated for my car's CD player (Hello, John Adams! We meet at last).

This is a lovely and workable solution, except for the part where I brought a stack of books to Boy Scout's lair, started reading one and then promptly didn't go back again for a month (not to worry, this was planned, and has more to do with the status of my unmanageable schedule than our status as a couple. I think).

Victim #1 of the Great Boy Scout Neglect (aside from the man himself): Something About You by Julie James. Having read an excellent review, and then later another favorable review, I didn't doubt that this book would be a quality, fun read that did not in any way involve vampires, lykae, or vampires who turn into lykae during the full moon.

Something About You is the story of US Attorney Cameron Lynde and FBI Agent Jack Pallas, them of the Controversial and Disputed History. They worked a case together involving his going undercover for a mobster, her boss chose not to prosecute, he told a major news organization that Cameron had her head up her ass. Charming. This does involve a Big Misunderstanding, but not one that is annoying and easily resolved. Sure, they could have used a good conversation with one another, but at the same time you could fully understand why they wouldn't necessarily want to be in the same room at the same time to hash it all out.

And by the way, the Big Mis is resolved as easily as all that, when Cameron decides that because of factors X, Y, and Z, she should fill Jack in on the pertinent details. There is no angst about this, no "I shouldn't tell him because I like it when things are difficult in my life," she just does it. You know, like a mature adult. It should also be noted that at that point in the story, a revelation of Things From the Past was not a dealbreaker for their relationship.

Oh yeah. The reason they're reunited in life circumstance is because Cameron accidentally witnesses a murder involving a powerful Senator and needs to have protective custody that eventually turns out to include Jack staying in her house. Natch.

It is once again the characters that shine through the story. Collin, Cameron's best friend is a) homosexual and b) an extremely well-respected sports writer. I like this a lot. I also like that Jack is unsure of Collin, not because he is homophobic, but rather because his hots for Cameron are so intense he can't imagine another man not feeling the same. Cameron's other friend Amy is a Bridezilla of epic proportions, but I didn't hate her in the least. Cameron acknowledges that her friend is being a freak and then remembers the support Amy gave her when her father died, and sucks it up and is equally supportive in a very "she is my person" type way.

I also really enjoyed Jack and Cameron themselves-- Jack, who so easily could have been a bitter douche throughout, instead deals with the situation at hand, and then quietly acknowledges that he has a serious weakness when it comes to his protectee. Also, he says the sexiest, most realistic thing I have heard a hero say to his heroine in a long time: "Cameron, with the way you look tonight, every man at this wedding knows exactly what I plan to do with you." The way she looks, btw, is plain to see on the cover of the book.

Quick, fun, and light. Get thee to Something About You now.

In case you didn't notice, this is no Top Ten Heroines post as originally promised. John Adams distracted my during all of my "free think" time, and so I have no more thoughts today than I did Friday on the subject. Sydney Bristow? Check. Jade Cainewood? Check. Neomi Laress? Check. Kit Cranmer? Check. Nicole Lasseter? Check. I have also noticed that I have a weakness for red-headed pirates/smugglers/sailors. I mean, it's not as strong a weakness as that held by their men, but I do enjoy reading about the feistiness.

More later.