Everything I Know About Love I Learned From Romance Novels Part 3

Kati loves the care-giving alpha male, "who is all kinds of dominant, but spends pretty much every moment after meeting the heroine trying to take care of her-usually to varying degrees of success." I love this type of hero too, usually because he is all kinds of irritated with that impulse to take care of someone to the exclusion of other tasks, and that will cue that "I don't want to like you, I can't stop thinking about your hair, DAMMIT!" frustration.

Kati's favorite hero of this type: "Jack Travis from Lisa Kleypas's Smooth Talking Stranger. Pretty much from the instant Ella accuses him of being her nephew's father, he is trying to take care of her, either by finding her a place to live, facilitating her meeting with a high-powered player in Houston, or putting together the baby's crib. He's completely alpha, but he cannot stop taking care of her. And woos her, and the reader, as he goes."

Liza the Evil Twin agrees: "In addition to what Kati so eloquently stated, I love how relentless Jack is in pursuit of Ella. Not in a crazy, stalker-ish way, but in his focus on her needs, desires, concerns, and happiness. Plus, he is so fun-loving, and has such a wicked, smart-a.s.s sense of humor that just slays me."

Jack Travis is a great example of how being an alpha male doesn't mean you have to be an a.s.shole to everyone around you. Alpha males in the new vernacular don't put up with a lot of c.r.a.p from anyone, but they also know how to be careful, and caring, without compromising themselves or their strength. Too often, people who aren't familiar with romance presume that reading about alpha males means that women are reading and therefore fantasizing about men who do little but treat them badly, and sometimes cruelly. Not true, and not so. Alpha males from Old Skool romance, most commonly found in the '70s and '80s, with a little unfortunate leakage into the early '90s, are definitely hurtful and unyielding, unbending, and even sometimes cruel to the heroine.

Romances today portray men as equal partners in the development and upkeep of a happy relations.h.i.+p. One of the hallmarks of the romance genre now (as opposed to those early romances of the '70s and '80s, more commonly referred to as "bodice rippers"-so named because often, a bodice was ripped in the course of unwilling seduction) is that the hero has to earn his happy ending. Much like the stereotypical wedding preparation, where the bride loses her mind over c.o.c.ktail napkin colors and the groom just has to show up in a tuxedo at the right time, the Old Skool romance hero just had to show up to be a catalyst for the heroine's readiness for romance heroine-hood. He didn't have to change very much to win the girl and enjoy the happily ever after. He just had to be present at the right moments and be patient. Sometimes. Patience wasn't necessarily a trait commonly found in Old Skool heroes.

Now, heroes have to complete their own emotional journey and be active partic.i.p.ants in the creation of the happy ending. They have to earn it. To quote RuPaul: "You better work." It's a lot of responsibility and there are admirable traits that must be present or develop during the story in order to achieve that happy ending.

The contemporary alpha that is most commonly found in romances published today is never without compa.s.sion or some glimmer of redemption. Confidence is required, as is strength-both moral and sometimes physical-and a backbone of unbreakable durability, but the hero who would force his will, or his body, on a heroine is a figment of the past (thank GOODNESS) in romance. Now, alpha heroes are of the mold that Kati and others like: strong, unbending, but capable of compa.s.sion. As Tracey Devlyn writes of her favorite heroes: "the hero cherished the heroine." A man is not going to do harm to someone who is valuable to him.

WHAT MAKES AN EXCELLENT ALPHA MALE HERO?.

Strength Compa.s.sion Confidence Moral code Commitment Loyalty Outstanding bedside manner (if you know what I mean, and I think you do) THE HEROES WHO TACKLE AND LEARN FROM THEIR PROBLEMS.

A reader writing as Kitten says that the heroes she likes best "are the ones who have issues of their own. But also those who are willing to do something about it and who have a bit of a problem confronting the idea that they depend on someone else for their happiness. Some of the heroes in Stephanie Laurens's Cynsters' saga are like that-for example, Richard from Scandal's Bride, who has to take a secondary place in the estate of his wife. He has to adapt and become a partner instead of being a 'dictator'...Troubled, but willing to recover, and caring are the two best words to define what I like in my heroes."

A reader going by the name Sugarless says that, like me, she has "a soft spot for nerds in fiction, so guys like Carter from the first book of Nora Roberts Bride Quartet, Vision in White, is totally squee-worthy. I can love his frustration and uselessness at the whole dating rituals thing-since he expresses it with humor, it's adorable.

"I think this kind of guy would be a good boyfriend, but, unlike fiction, these guys in real life tend to be easily intimidated and are never sure what to do with my slightly neurotic self. Also-too many of them are too concerned with being a 'good boyfriend' to just be themselves. I mean, good on them for trying to be good to their girlfriends, but it's not going to last if he can't relax enough just to be himself. You find one that can, though, and I'm sure you've found a winner."

THE HEROES WHO RECOGNIZE THEIR OWN WORTHHONESTLY A very awesome reader named saltypepper just finished reading a romance that revealed what a hero is: "I just finished Ripping the Bodice by Inara Lavey which I must mention because--SPOILERS AHOY!--Connor wins over Ca.s.sandra by pointing out that she only wants Rafael because he looks like the hero in a romance novel, whereas Connor, who doesn't, is willing to act like one because that's what she wants. If that is not a willingness to do what it takes to please his woman, I don't know what is. Plus, a man who's familiar enough with romances to know what kind of hero his heroine wants? Oh yeah. Lemme at him."

A moral core of strength and certainty appeals to Tinpant.i.thesis (can I mention how much I love the names of the people who talk with me online? Seriously. Love), who says that she really loves "The Frustrated Do-Gooder. I have a weakness for Lawful Good or Chaotic Good Guys-people intent on helping others or making the world a better place. Doctors, hotshot lawyers, knights errant, always sticking up for the little guy and doing the right thing.

"Except they're not cheerful while doing it. When confronted with the ugly realities and inequalities of the real world, they get really irritated. Why are the dumb bureaucrats/corporate fat-cats/evil sorcerers/ Vulcan hobgoblins making it more difficult to help people? It's enough to make a guy short-tempered, foul-mouthed, and just plain ornery. But underneath the cynical exterior is a heart that loves people, lost causes, and of course, the heroine."

DreadPirateRachel says that she loves heroes "who appear to be bad boys in the beginning, but whom the heroines discover are unusually caring and gentle, even if they're not the most sensitive of beings. Heroes like C.L. from Jennifer Crusie's Tell Me Lies. He was a bad boy in high school, and heroine Maddie just can't believe that he might have changed in fifteen years. His frustration with trying to convince her to trust him is endearing, and Maddie has a legitimate reason to drag her heels (for once). I love watching the trust grow between the hero and heroine while simultaneously finding a deeper understanding of the hero's character.

"How much do I love this kind of hero? I married one."

Jane says that what matters most to her "in a hero is confidence in himself and in his heroine. That's why my favorite heroes tend to be guys like Clay and Lucas (from Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld series) or Zoe Archer's heroes. They always have their heroines' backs, but at the same time they trust them to take care of themselves.

"I like the guy who respects a woman's abilities, and thinks it's hot that she can kick a.s.s. Plus I think these character types tend to have a more equitable/trusting relations.h.i.+p, which makes me more likely to believe in their happily-ever-after."

THE MYSTERY HERO.

Another heroic type that readers enjoy is the hero who isn't what he appears to be. For various reasons, heroes in novels often hide their true personalities and appearances, such as pretending to be less intelligent than they really are. Heroes like these allow the reader to see more beneath the superficial disguise presented to the world of the novel. E. D. Walker calls these "idiot heroes," and says that there is "something so wonderful about seeing past the surface of someone, past the 'idiot' to the wonderful, perhaps selectively intelligent man, beneath."

Heroes can overcome significant personal obstacles to be hero-worthy. One character who fits that mold is fan-favorite Reggie Davenport from Mary Jo Putney's The Rake. Reggie was the villain in previous novels in Putney's series, but as reader Newf Herder says, when Reggie became the hero, it was at significant personal cost, and personal effort, because Reggie had to recover not only from his own villainous choices but his alcoholism: "Reggie is not perfect by any stretch, but he is so very real. He's a man capable of great things, in life and in love, once he finally surrenders himself. What I really liked was that he knew that he had to get sober for himself, and went for true recovery rather than being 'redeemed' or 'saved' by falling in love. Oh, and his heroine wears breeches! I'm always a fan of that."

Heroic traits can be complex. Alpha males are often dominant and can easily pa.s.s the boundaries of decent behavior to become domineering and insensitive, and emerge as an "alphole" hero, as we described in Beyond Heaving Bosoms, instead of an alpha hero. Alphole heroes are just domineering a.s.sholes disguising themselves as alpha males. Real alpha males don't need to be a.s.sholes. Dominance and confidence can be expressed in different ways that make them more appealing. Betty Fokker (another of my favorite reader pseudonyms) writes, "I like an alpha male, but he's gotta want a really feisty woman...not to dominate, but to admire and help. I loved, loved, loved Shane from Agnes and the Hitman by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer, because he killed people yet still got her the air-conditioning unit of her dreams. Plus, she was p.r.o.ne to attempted murder. Which he liked in a woman."

ALL THOSE HEROES ARE HELPING US OUT.

What do we romance readers know about men from our tales of courts.h.i.+p? Plenty. Our ability to recognize heroism is revealed by the heroes we like to read about, even if those are men that in reality we wouldn't be terribly interested in. It's also empowering and almost a secretive kind of research to witness different relations.h.i.+ps with very different individuals developing, as it teaches the reader what is and isn't attractive-an entirely subjective and personal experience. We learn what we like, what we don't, and what possibilities exist, both in relations.h.i.+ps and in individuals.

Reader Elirhe writes that "I might even say that romance novels also played a role in the development of my feminist beliefs: some of my first romance reads at the age of eleven were those old love = rape novels of the late '70s and '80s, and from the start, I knew those 'romances' were just wrong-I instinctively sensed that a) no man has the right to dominate a woman like that and pa.s.s it off as affection, and b) women should stand up for themselves and demand that they be treated as full human beings."

Natalie Arloa says that her husband's understanding of her love for romance helped her recognize what a truly good man he was: "It isn't that a particular romance novel has helped my relations.h.i.+p with my husband, but it was his complete acceptance of the fact that I read them that helped. I used to be a closet reader; I'd buy a category on a night I knew my husband would be out late (which was regularly, since he's a musician) and read it in that evening. If he came home early, I'd hide it under my pillow. And I kept them in a spot he never looked.

"We'd been married for seven years before he saw me read a romance novel, and that's mostly because I started getting longer contemporaries from the library and couldn't always put them down. He was nonplussed that I'd hidden them from him all those years. I felt so secure in his love for me as me and not an idea or certain expectations he might have for me-it was freeing."

Author Carrie Lofty knows that the secret to her marriage was sharing obscure interests: "Fourteen years ago I was in England for my junior year abroad. An acquaintance and his two friends invited me to go out dancing. During the taxi ride to the club, one bloke chatted me up, one talked to the driver...and one ignored me. He was too busy staring out the window, conducting a mumbled argument with the radio DJ. After a night of dancing, he and I wound up talking about Imperial Russian history. I married him nine months later. I'll take 'indie kid history nerd' for the win."

"Since many romance readers encounter romance for the first time in high school, which is not as a rule populated with kind and self-aware people of any gender, knowing that there are good people in the world at large can be very rea.s.suring."-JILL Q, A READER

Editor Angela James says that romance novels themselves helped her identify the best possible man for her: "I was sitting on the couch, reading. I don't remember the book but I remember it was a romance (with a clinch cover!) and my then-fiance got incredibly upset. He started saying how much he hated that I was always reading, and he wished I wouldn't read so much. He even mentioned that he especially hated that I read 'those' books (you know, romances). I can't dramatically say that was the beginning of the end for us, but I eventually did decide a few years later that I wasn't going to marry him, and it's clear that what he said, how he felt, made an impression on me. I felt, at the time, and still do, that someone who loved me would understand that reading, and romances, were a part of who I am. You don't get me without the romances.

"Josh, my husband now? He totally gets that. It helps that my 'hobby' turned into my career, but he's that guy who speaks proudly of his wife being a bookworm and who says he hopes our daughter 'takes after me.' Now that is romantic. And so, with the help of romances, it's easy to see which is Prince Charming, and which is the frog."

Wednesday, a reader, had a horrible relations.h.i.+p, but romances have helped her believe that better men are out there: "By the time I got out of it, I felt broken. I didn't really believe in love any more, period.

"I think I started reading romance novels because part of me wanted to hold on to the belief that things could be different. It was comforting to read about couples where the man was actually interested in and appreciated the woman.

"It was rea.s.suring to read about s.e.x as something that could be mutual and enjoyable, not boundary-pus.h.i.+ng and innovative. I know perfectly well that they're fictional and that if I have another relations.h.i.+p, it won't be storybook, but I think romance novels have helped me rebuild a healthier ideal of what a relations.h.i.+p should be."

Readers can learn that there are different men out there from the ones they may have known personally. As reader Jill Q. says, "I was a plain nerdy girl in a small town. The majority of the boys I met in high school were neither kind nor bright. I had to hold out hope that there were good men out there, not just for me but for the sake of the population at large.

"Since many romance readers encounter romance for the first time in high school, which is not as a rule populated with kind and self-aware people of any gender, knowing that there are good people in the world at large can be very rea.s.suring. That which is held up as 'heroic' in high school can be very different from that which is 'heroic' as an adult, most notably demonstrating s.e.xual and personal respect for one another, and one's self."

Reading about different types of people and different and sometimes impossible situations gives romance readers a better understanding of what they want in a relations.h.i.+p. Romances can also teach you what not to want, just as cable TV can teach you what not to wear, what house not to buy, and what food not to cook-and what wine not to drink (trust me, though, some wine in a box is fantastic and you should feel no shame about that!).

THE TOP NINE ROMANCE HEROES.

Nine? Yes, nine. Why nine? Because any list about the best hero is bound to be greeted with "But what about..." and "You forgot..." So, in order to head off (ha!) those protests, there are only nine, leaving one s.p.a.ce for your personal favorite hero. Consider it your write-in candidate s.p.a.ce-and feel free to email me at to tell me your choice for the tenth man to finish the Top Romance Heroes list. So who are the top nine heroes among romance readers? It's a list under much dispute, but culled from the discussions on Twitter and on varying websites, the top reader favorite heroes (for today, anyway-it could easily change tomorrow) are...

MILES VORKOSIGAN.

The Vorkosigan Saga By Lois McMaster Bujold Bujold's series is science fiction, not romance, but her protagonist Miles Vorkosigan is a most beloved character, which is curious not only because of his location just outside the romance genre, but because he has a story arc that takes place over several books. What makes Miles so fascinating to romance fans is that he is in many respects both the pinnacle and the ant.i.thesis of romance heroism. When I asked Bujold to tell me about Miles and his development as a hero, she said that romance heroism wasn't her focus at all: "I did not set out to create a romantic hero with Miles; I set out to create a romantic hero with Miles's dad.

"Aral Vorkosigan is pretty literally the alpha-and-omega male lead of my series (which, at the time Cordelia first rolled over to find his boots in the mud in front of her nose, on page two of My First Novel, I did not yet envision). The whole universe was built starting from him (and Cordelia) and moving outward. You can't get much more angsty-alpha-male than Viceroy Prime Minister Regent Admiral Count Aral Vorkosigan. And he has his fans, fanning themselves, as well, but his romance was a tale that I could only tell once, that being the inherent nature of such things. So when Miles came along, that niche was already explored and occupied, so to speak.

"Miles began in proto-form as something to do to his parents; I knew even before I'd finished Shards of Honor that their male heir would be born both bright and disabled, although I did not yet know how...

"Miles was built in part in reaction to Aral, and in part in reaction to standard genre tropes. Tall and handsome? No, short and odd. An orphan, preferably tragic, unenc.u.mbered by relations? No, plagued with scads of same-well, perhaps not scads, but they made up in density whatever they lacked in numbers. Spockian and unemotional? Nope. Pa.s.sionately emotional. Unconscious of heroic ambition? h.e.l.l, no-ambitious as the devil, and wildly self-conscious in a very postmodern way. And, of course, desperate to live up to his dad's example in all ways, including the romantic. (To Miles, this of course meant Aral's marriage to Cordelia. Fortunately for Miles's peace of mind, he was largely unappraised of the more lurid details of Aral's speckled past.) I set Miles in motion on the wall, and all else followed.

"The 'bright' part stuck, because I am a geek girl-I was a geek girl back in the '60s before the concept had yet been invented or the term coined, and wasn't that ever an uncomfortable time-and intelligence is the one absolutely nonnegotiable requirement not only in a romantic hero, but in most SF protagonists of any sort.

"Miles has both positive qualities and interesting flaws. Among the former are intelligence, loyalty, a loving heart, and a quixotic pa.s.sion for justice. Among the latter are hyperactivity, mood swings, a trust in his own judgment and mistrust of most other people's bordering on arrogance (we won't say which side), and a quixotic pa.s.sion for adventure-or at least, he's a noted adrenaline junkie. Hard to say which set of aspects get him into the most trouble.

"Miles never really falls out of love with any woman he falls in love with, which led to a rather complex acc.u.mulation over his ensuing volumes. As one character points out, it's not that Miles picks up so many women; it's that he never puts any down. Miles [also] has high social status, wealth, and a really big house. All major romance attractors, by all the evidence. Especially the house."

You could write an entire book on heroism based on Miles alone, I think: a hero that has many, many fans among science fiction and romance readers alike, who is wealthy, t.i.tled, surrounded by intense family, and exceptionally short and scarred while the standard of beauty in his world is to be tall and flawless. On the outside, Miles is the opposite of the heroic archetype; inside, he is the quintessential hero, particularly due to his capacity to care for others. As Bujold puts it, "One must also reflect on the possibility that the standard model for a romance hero is just plain wrong, or at least mistaken in what is essential..."

Author Darlene Marshall sees Miles, his father Aral, and the other characters in Bujold's series similarly: "They're human and they make mistakes, but they rise to the occasion and most of the time act with honor, integrity, and a deep and wide ocean of caring for the people around them."

That is some heroism right there.

ROARKE.

The In Death series By J. D. Robb/Nora Roberts Roarke is one half of a couple whose slowly developing relations.h.i.+p has spanned over forty books in the In Death series by Nora Roberts, writing as J. D. Robb. Roarke is an enigma: a ridiculously wealthy man with power and farreaching influence, Roarke has lived on both sides of the law, which makes his relations.h.i.+p with detective Eve Dallas very tricky at times. Both Eve and Roarke have a tortured backstory that is revealed in tiny bits with each successive book, and Roarke's determination to care for the exceptionally p.r.i.c.kly and independent Eve has created quite a following among romance fans.

Readers adore Roarke. As Nina-Mary writes, "What woman doesn't want a man who accepts her as she is, and confronts and understands her demons." R.J. says that "If Roarke only did one thing to make me love him, it would be how he holds Eve after she has a nightmare. Eve will take solace in his arms for just the bare minimum of time, until she is just barely under control, and then she pulls away. But Roarke doesn't let her go! He continues to hold on to Eve until she is calm, but also until he himself is calm. He absolutely, 100 percent needs Eve; without her, he is empty."

R.J. also points out one of Roarke's most appealing factors-he changes his life and his motivations because of Eve: "Roarke also makes a similar transformation from being the big man on the opposite side of the law from his love to helping his love who stands firmly on and for the law. The reformed man is seductive, but only when the man makes the choice to change for his love, not when the partner works so hard to change him. The change is possible when the love he has for his partner is stronger than the desire to thieve, when he loves her/him more than he loves his previous life."

What is noteworthy about Roarke and also Miles Vorkosigan is that they are heroes in ongoing series with each book culminating with a "happy-for-now" ending, not a "happily-ever-after." The investment on the part of the reader in the slow growth and character development over what could be a few years' worth of books is definitely true to life in many respects.

DAVY DEMPSEY AND PHIN.

Faking It and Welcome to Temptation By Jennifer Crusie Crusie writes great dialogue, and with it men who are smart, confused by women, and yet not eager to embrace any of the stereotypical portrayals of baffled, clueless men. Davy is a con artist, or, as J. B. Hunt says on the website, "a con artist with a heart of gold. Life would never be boring with Davy." Rudi also likes Davy, in part because she likes the reformed/reforming bad boy, but also because, "I have learnt from my reading that I never really like or trust the bad boy who starts reforming because he's in love with the girl. He needs to have already taken steps for himself, by himself. Otherwise it seems kind of false and I doubt that it will stick."

Phin, the mayor of Temptation, Ohio, is caught between the heroine, Sophie, who is filming a rather impressive racy movie in his town, and the town council, who will pa.s.s any ordinance to put a stop to the spicy filmmaking. A reader who goes by Brussel Sprout says that she loves Phin because he's "witty and observant and resistant and hot, hot, hot. The heroes I love best are observant and powerful. And they have to have integrity. They can make mistakes and c.o.c.k it up, but deep down, they have to be true to themselves."

Part of the charm of Crusie's heroes, particularly these two, is that they are befuddled and bothered by their emotions and have to navigate that confusion. Crusie's heroes narrate some of their own stories, so the reader learns about the heroine and the hero in equal measure.

DAIN.

Lord of Scoundrels By Loretta Chase Lord of Scoundrels is, as you may have already read, a book used by many of us romance readers to change the minds of those who sniff disdainfully at the genre but are still curious about it enough to try one. Dain, the hero, is a complete nightmare as a person until he meets Jessica, the heroine. As reader Jay puts it, "His snarling self-sufficiency starts to melt at his first contact with Jessica, and despite all of his bl.u.s.tering denial, he is clearly captivated. Watching him realize it and struggle to regain his equilibrium is so satisfying. It is the story of his journey to becoming the hero worthy of Jess's strength and love."

Among the leaders of the Dain Fangirl Club is Candy, the cofounder of Smart b.i.t.c.hes, who loves this book in a million different exclamation-point-strewn ways. When I asked her why she liked Dain so much, she said, "Dain works so well for me because the book opens with his awful childhood. Most heroes with ma.s.sive a.s.shole streaks (I know that phrase can be read in a completely different way than I meant it, but I'm totally leaving that in there because it makes me laugh) spring from the pages fully-formed, like Minerva from Zeus's head, except with bigger c.o.c.ks and more forceful kissing proclivities. But we get to see Dain when he was young and squishy and vulnerable. Proto-Dain isn't an a.s.shole. Proto-Dain sought love and approval and affection. Adult Dain is what he is because Proto-Dain's gentler impulses were hammered out of him.

"I also love Dain because while he's a ma.s.sive jerk, he has principles and boundaries...Dain grew into a sensitive man who ultimately had too much empathy and humanity to step over the line into brutality, which so many other romance heroes have.

"Speaking of sensitivity: another reason why I love Dain so much is that Chase quite clearly shows us, without ever telling us, that Dain is really high-strung underneath his fearsome exterior. When Jessica bothers him and his brain becomes totally disordered and he becomes borderline obsessive, or when he's confronted by his illegitimate child and all he wants is to get him away as fast as he can? If Dain could see a shrink today, the shrink would probably diagnose him with an anxiety disorder and coax him through some cognitive behavioral therapy. Dain's growth is much more believable and organic because Jessica also behaves convincingly: she consistently confronts him with his irrationality and holds him accountable for his bad behavior, and best of all, Dain eventually learns.

"And last, but not least, I love Dain because he has a sense of humor, and because he's funny without necessarily meaning to be. His personal dictionary, for example, in which he categorizes and defines various cla.s.ses of people? Funny as h.e.l.l. And the whip-smart, whip-quick banter between him and Jessica still stands as some of my favorite examples of dialogue in any romance novel, ever. Also, while Dain is arrogant, he isn't self-important and he doesn't take himself too seriously, which is a refres.h.i.+ng change from other romance heroes, because I think a lot of a.s.shole heroes, especially those from the '70s, '80s, and early '90s, are arrogant because they're self-important t.w.a.ts."

He heard a rustle of movement and a m.u.f.fled sound somewhere ahead and to his left. His gaze s.h.i.+fted thither. The female whose murmurs he'd heard was bent over a display case of jewelry. The shop was exceedingly ill lit-on purpose, to increase customers' difficulty in properly evaluating what they were looking at. All Dain could ascertain was that the female wore a blue overgarment of some sort and one of the hideously overdecorated bonnets currently in fas.h.i.+on.

"I particularly recommend," he went on, his eyes upon the female, "that you resist the temptation to count if you are contemplating a gift for your chere amie. Women deal in a higher mathematical realm than men, especially when it comes to gifts."

"That...is a consequence of the feminine brain having reached a more advanced state of development," said the female without looking up. "She recognizes that the selection of a gift requires the balancing of a profoundly complicated moral, psychological, aesthetic, and sentimental equation. I should not recommend that a mere male attempt to involve himself in the delicate process of balancing it, especially by the primitive method of counting."

For one unsettling moment, it seemed to Lord Dain that someone had just shoved his head into a privy. His heart began to pound, and his skin broke out in clammy gooseflesh...

He told himself that his breakfast had not agreed with him. The b.u.t.ter must have been rancid.

It was utterly unthinkable that the contemptuous feminine retort had overset him.

-LORD OF SCOUNDRELS BY LORETTA CHASE, 1995 DOMINIC (ALSO DOMINIC'S FATHER, THE DUKE OF AVON) Devil's Cub By Georgette Heyer Dominic Alastair, called "Vidal" throughout most of Devil's Cub, is, to put it frankly, a complete jerkwad. He takes advantage of women, he is rather insatiable in his appet.i.tes for things he shouldn't be doing, and he thinks he is irresistible, which is why it is unabashed fun when he meets his match in Mary, the heroine.

Ros says that she "loves the bad boys who turn (almost) good once they find the right woman: Dominic Alastair (Devil's Cub) and Jasper Damerel (Venetia) are my absolute all-time favorites. Both of them are fun, clever, surprisingly caring, and utterly drop-dead gorgeous."

Broke Baroque agrees: "I tend to gravitate toward the Bad Boy end of the hero spectrum. I love me some rakes and libertines, the more dissipated and jaded the better, who are reformed by love. Well, not totally reformed, I guess-more like they fall in love and start to understand that there's more to life than getting drunk all the time. I just like the fantasy of the playboy rake turning respectable for the love of a good woman."

Alex echoes Broke's comments and says Dominic is one of her earliest ideal heroes: "I read Devil's Cub at a clearly impressionable age and Dominic is, and always has been, at the top of my list. Entirely Alpha but I think Heyer puts it beautifully when Mary says, 'I could manage him.' I think that one simple line sums it up, really-we want to think that we can tame a bad boy."

FREDDY.

Cotillion By Georgette Heyer Heyer has crafted several heroes that readers adore, and Freddy is definitely one. Scribblerkat says that she adores Freddy because she loves "the Sidekicks and the Unlikely Heroes. But most of all I love the heroes whose primary characteristics are intelligence and a sense of humor. A prime example of the latter is Freddy from Georgette Heyer's Cotillion."

Kitzie says that "there's only one strictly romance hero that I like that would also be good in real life: Freddy from Cotillion. He would stand by you and make you laugh. That's way more dreamy than a muscular torso."

And the top two heroes, the two that make the most readers swoon and make the patented Good Romance Novel Noise: JAMIE FRASER.

Outlander By Diana Gabaldon - AND -.

FITZWILLIAM DARCY.

Pride and Prejudice By Jane Austen Why these two? Samantha explains Fraser's appeal best: "If I were going to use a fictional character as a measuring stick for future relations.h.i.+ps, Jamie Fraser would be it. Gabaldon doesn't gloss over his flaws. He's not a perfect specimen of humanity, physically or in his personality. [His relations.h.i.+p with Claire] has its ups and downs, but the bond is deeper than 'they're the hero and the heroine, and therefore they shall live happily ever after according to the laws heretofore set forth by the romance G.o.ds.'"

As for Darcy, his appeal as a romantic hero has been sustained for nearly two hundred years, since Pride and Prejudice was published in 1813. Part of his appeal lies in his transformation, from sullen, unyielding sn.o.b to dedicated, quiet suitor for Elizabeth Bennet's affections. Darcy initiates such a complete change to his character, all in an effort to be worthy of someone else, and that effort has earned him many a sigh-worthy moment from romance readers.

Colin Firth wet and almost-s.h.i.+rtless helps considerably as well.

THE TOP NINE ROMANCE HEROES.