Discussion Continued-- The Kinks are worked out! (No, the band didn't go to the gym... nevermind)

WENDY PAN:
Okay - so why is it that when the heroine loses her virginity it's always a glamourous and wonderful adventure? Where is the fear, the pain, the mess?


Oh - maybe I'm talking about my first blog publication. I am being hounded by Kate Jones to contribute to this space and I make the effort with the humble knowledge that while I taught her all I know, she far surpasses me in talent. I think when I was her age I had the wit and wisdom to be creative, but I seriously doubt my ability to hold my own in this, our joint post.

So, I'm supposed to make witty reparté about lame heroines? The pressure is on. There was a time when I was enthralled with anything Jude Deveraux wrote and equally Joanna Lindsey. Not so much now. The heroines kind of remind me of the uncomfortable feeling I would get when I watched "I Love Lucy." You just KNEW Lucy was going to screw up and get in trouble and it was going to take the rest of the show for Ricky to figure it out and for them to get kissy face and get over it. I understand the concept of conflict - God knows it exists every day in real life - but do these women seriously have to create ways to be idiots?

Part of my thrall may have been based on a lack, in my own life, of the kind of "romance" that I read about in my favorite books. I have since learned that the fantastical romance I sought escape to, in the pages of comfortable trash, is so far from real life that it actually feels uncomfortable.

So, lame heroines are the ones that have to resort to any kind of subterfuge to attract the man of their dreams, or even the villain who later becomes the hero (Whitney My Love?) And those who think that when the initial bloom of romance is gone they have lost their man to a rival (The Black Lion).

A real heroine - whose character is to be applauded - is the one who is who she is and never needs to make things up to get her guy. But - if she does have to make things up, it's only to protect her man (Lyon's Lady, Guardian Angel). The one with enough guts to enjoy the battle and the struggle - for the reward of endless devotion from the man who sees beyond the tough exterior to the puddle of mush inside (J.D. Robb's Eve Dallas).

KATE:

Well Wendy Pan, thank you so much for joining us! No more putting down your own ability to repart-- any blog where we make up words like "repart" obviously has no standards of any kind.

I was waiting for you to bring up Eve Dallas, a difficult female character who finds a dude who, as you say, finds the puddle of mush inside. It makes the heroes better (sexier, more likeable, etc.) when they can see past the heroine's serious flaws (difficult, standoffish, badass warmonger, etc.) and like her anyway. This is the evolution of the "new" heroine, who the man adjusts to. Unlike in the earlier books you mentioned (everything, ever by Jude Deveraux), where it is up to the heroine to adjust and forgive and negotiate parts of her own personality.

Wendy Pan:

Okay, so what happened in society that made the weeping wimpy heroine so unacceptable now? And can any of us go back and be satisfied with Kathleen Woodiwiss again? I mean, Shanna... really? I think K.W.'s Ashes In the Wind gave us a better heroine - one more vibrant and less weepy, but the doctor actually fell for the sneaky cousin instead. Look how that ended!

I began reading trashy romance at the ripe old age of 17 (my grandmother's influence, if you can imagine) and Shanna was as hot as they got. (I won't say, "back in the day" but it's implied.) I worked my way over to Jude Deveraux and was truly, madly, deeply in lust with anyone whose last name was Montgomery. The women I could take or leave. They weren't why I was reading. I think Linda Howard changed my perception of the heroine. She made her women witty and bold. Jaine Bright - I mean, how great is she? And that Sam actually "gets" her at the same time he is perplexed by her? And that she drives a really cool car and that she's so not a wimp! Heroine evolution? God did not just create her, she has evolved. Her genetic roots can be tracked back to Lucy the fossilized hominid. And baby, look at her now!

KATE:

Funny, I'm a Taggert girl, myself...