Secret Book Hero Crushes

Oh goody. Another topic that points out what an odd child I may have been. I seem to have missed out on the crushing over book heros thing. I suspect I can blame George Lucas. At the point in my life where most other girls were falling for heros in books, I was a complete and unrepentent Star Wars Geek. I was all about Luke Skywalker and Han Solo.

And flying X-Wing fighters! I would have been GOOD at that. I suspect I might even have had a talent for bull's-eying womp rats in a T-16.

What I was bad at was reading books with markedly alpha heros and happily-ever-after romantic endings. I was reading authors who gave me female protagonists, Andre Norton, notable among them. I desperately needed those strong, smart, determined women at that point in my life. She delivered. Ordeal in Otherwhere has to be one of my favorites. A heroine driving her own fate on a world ruled by women? What's not to love?

That said, a few of her heros do stand out in my memory. Kethan in the Jargoon Pard. Prince Michael in The Prince Commands. Not because either story was much of a romance - the Jargoon Pard did have a bit of a romance in it, but both heros were good, admirable guys in tough circumstances. Prince Michael had the smart mouth and wit to make me appreciate him. I admit to being a sucker for a sense of humor. Kethan had the heart, brains, and determination to walk into the fire for a woman who barely knew he was alive until she, too, saw those things in him.

The heros all of my English teachers seemed to hold in such high regard? I thought they all needed a swift kick in the -- shins. The heros. Not my teachers. Okay. There was that *one*... 

Counting on The Count

By KAK 

One man has remained constant throughout my various encounters with romance. He’s held my bleeding heart in his fictional hands since I aged into the double-digits. Ignorance and naïveté made him vulnerable. Betrayal broke him. Hope married hatred and gave birth to supreme vengeance. He is the ultimate Bad Boy redeemed.

Edmund Dantès, Le Comte de Monte-Cristo

I rarely read the same book more than once. The Count of Monte Cristo is one of the few exceptions.  It was a good book when Edmund resurfaced as the Count. What makes it a great book – and makes Edmund an enduring hero – is he did not sacrifice the core identity of himself to vengeance. He came close. He came damn close. The first third of the book external forces decided his life. Second half, internal demons dictated his actions. The culmination, the great climax, is when he ceased to be reactionary. He stopped being a cog and made the conscious decision to become the driver.

“Misfortune is needed to plumb certain mysterious depths in the understanding of men;

pressure is needed to explode the charge.” – Abbé Faria

It’s the old adage:  A great hero inspires others to become better people.  As any sidekick will tell you, heroes don’t achieve that status by themselves.  This willingness to embrace other views and perspectives, to seek enlightenment, and to admit error demands respect. Respect is the lasting foundation of romance, right?

“There is neither happiness nor misery in the world;

there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more.” –E.Dantès

The first time I read the novel by Alexander Dumas peré, it was the Classics Illustrated version. Yep, the comic book. In the truest sense it was a graphic novel. Did I understand the morals of the story back then? Nope.  Did I grock that Edmund had started off as the underdog? Oh yeah, and at that point in my young life, I totally empathized (younger sibling, perpetual new kid, athletically-challenged, etc). That empathy hasn’t faded with age. Quite the opposite. This, I imagine, is true for many and is what makes Edmund’s story timeless.

“He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness.” –E.Dantès

Hollywood is in love with Edmund too.  More than ten versions of The Count of Monte Cristo have been made for US audiences. Sure, Hollywood loves a reboot, but ten, ten? The 2002 version was beautifully filmed, lush costumes, and great sets. Who can forget the arrival by hot-air balloon scene? However, I want to send the screenwriter back to The Fundamentals of Reading in hopes that another classic novel will not have its plot destroyed. That said, some of the most handsome men of their times have been cast as Dantès: Jim Caviezel, Richard Chamberlain, Robert Donat, John Gilbert, Louis Jourdan, and Gérard Depardieu … Okay, the latter might not be considered Hollywood handsome but Depardieu did totally rock his part.

“Until the day when God will deign to reveal the future to man,

 all human wisdom is contained in these two words,—‘Wait and hope.”  –E.Dantès

Book Boyfriend

by Jeffe Kennedy

This pic is apropo of nothing, except that I got my cover for Feeding the Vampire, which will be out soon. I'm not sure how soon, but soon.

Now to be on topic:

Who is my secret crush from books I've read?

How much time do you have?

I'd say nursing crushes on men in books is what seriously got me reading romance. At first I discovered that some books featured love affairs, then I found that there were entire novels about them. But a couple of those heroes stand out in my mind.

I have to give a nod to F'lar from Dragonflight. That's the version I have, though the cover isn't nearly in as good of condition and might be *ahem* entirely detached. I don't know how many times I read that book. This scene, I will always remember:

The mating passion of the two dragons at that moment spiraled wide to include Lessa. A tidal wave rising relentlessly from the sea of her soul flooded Lessa. With a longing cry, she clung to F'lar. She felt his body rock-firm against hers, his hard arms lifting her up, his mouth fastening mercilessly on hers as she drowned deep in another unexpected flood of desire.

"Now! We bring them safely home," he murmured.

~Pitty pat goes my adolescent heart~

F'lar was my first alpha male. The first who "brooked no resistance." Anne McCaffrey made me love this man for both his passion, his driving beliefs that led him to save their world and his longing for and vulnerability to Lessa. Best, he loved Lessa for being complicated, for her fierce intelligence and indomitable will. She showed me a man who not only accepted a smart and stubborn woman, but loved her for it.

I might have black hair because part of me forever wants to be Lessa.

Fast forward thirty years: Roarke.

I know I'm not alone in this. But I'm forever wedded to J.D. Robb's (Nora Roberts) In Death series because I'm totally in love with Roarke. Like F'lar, he's the alpha male who's driven, ambitious and loves his woman for being strong, smart and driven.

I'm sure there's a message here.

Nora has amazing skill, also, at evoking characters. Roarke and Eve live and breathe in my mind more vividly than many flesh and blood people I've know. In my head, I know what they look like. It's a simultaneous problem and great gift that I have no pictures of these men to use for this post. That vampire and woman for my story? Look NOTHING like my characters. But that's the best part of Book Boyfriends (a term I first heard used by book blogger @sparklybearsy, though I don't know if she coined it) - these men look like we want them to. I'm convinced that this is why we're doomed to disappointment by movies and tv versions of favorite books. The actors can never fit what we imagine.

There's been a flurry lately, of article about how reading romances undermines marriages. Here's one awful example. Besides the fact that the writers of these articles rarely feel the need to actually acquaint themselves with real research (the one I linked to, for example, cites condom use in romance novels from 1986-1991 and makes like that's current information), there's this pervasive assumption that women are too stupid to know fact from fiction. That somehow we think our flesh and blood men should be like our Book Boyfriends.

Yes, the fictional men are a romantic ideal. But aren't ideals those noble things we strive for? "What ever the mind can conceive, and believe, the mind can achieve," says Napoleon Hill. If we can conceive of great love and enduring partnerships, doesn't that mean it's possible?

I say it is.

I might have my Book Boyfriends, but I have my real one, too. He's strong, passionate and ambitious. He loves me because I'm smart and stubborn and complicated. He even loves me for my flaws.

He's just what I imagined I could have.