Jennifer Ashley | Unusual Heroes: Who Do You Love?

As most readers know by now, my May 2009 release, The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie, features an unusual hero. Ian Mackenzie has Asperger’s Syndrome, which is considered to be high-functioning autism. Traits include the inability to make eye contact, trouble with nonverbal cues and subtext, obsession with detail (but missing the “big picture”), and others. Not everyone who has AS exhibits the same traits, and the syndrome tends to present differently in men than women.

I’ve been recently praised for the risk I took writing Lord Ian. Which surprises me a little (though I don’t mind the compliments!), because when I sat down to write the story, I never thought: “Hey, I’m gonna go out there and take a risk! I’m going to do something different.”

Click here to read the rest of Jennifers blog, leave a comment and enter her blog contest.

Kimberly Lang | Hero Characteristic

One year at the RWA National Conference, I had coffee with an editor (not my editor) who told me that if you read an author’s books closely, you’ll be able to see that all of her heroes will share some common characteristics. Maybe it’s a core value or just their sense of humor, but it’s often unique to that author’s heroes and it shows up over and over again. And, she says, if you get to meet the author’s husband, you’ll often see that same quality in him.

It makes sense – after all, the author has to fall in love with her hero before the heroine or the reader can. The same qualities the author loves in her real-life hero are going to be what she wants her fictional heroes to have as well.

When I told my husband this, he got a cute little worried look on his face. He quickly ran down a list of common characteristics my heroes have: insanely rich, powerful, successful, tall, muscular, athletic. He figured he could claim “tall.”

Click here to read the rest of Kimberly's blog and to comment.

Kim Lenox | Romance Heroes -- and Real Heroes

I’ve heard the allegations before, and I’m sure you have too. They ("They") say that romance heroes (and heroines, for that matter) aren’t realistic portrayals. That they are such idealized fantasies that they can’t be taken seriously.

I know my personal preference: while I want a hero to be ultimately heroic – even if it’s reluctantly so -- the more flawed and complex he is, the better for me as a reader. Perfect and one-dimensional men just aren’t very interesting.

What about the physical aspects of a hero? I had a number of inspirations for Archer, my hero in NIGHT FALLS DARKLY. One was Eric Bana. Hubba hubba! He’s just a personal favorite actor of mine. I’d also found a piece of fantasy artwork on the artists’ website Deviant Art. If you’re interested you can view it here. So confession … yes, I guess as far as appearance goes, my hero, at least in my mind, was terribly idealized. Maybe I should have written: "The role of Archer, Lord Black, will be played by Eric Bana" on the inside of the book.

That wouldn’t work because … what’s attractive to my reader? What’s “hot” to thousands of different readers? I’ve recently joined a group blog with four other authors who write dark paranormal romance, and we’re in the planning stages. Our web designer is working with us on the design of the blog and we wanted a “hot” guy at the top. It’s become clear we’ve all got different ideas of what “hot” is and isn’t. One or two of us might agree on one particular model’s photograph, but the others didn’t agree at all.

Romance authors provide their readers with a basic physical “outline” of a hero, one that fits the story and the character. It’s up to the reader to fill in the more specific details in their mind. For instance, maybe I saw Eric Bana when I wrote the book, but you saw Orlando Bloom when you read it. Or perhaps you envisioned the delivery guy from Fed Ex that comes to your office every day. That’s what’s so great about romance novels – you get to decide and customize.

Whatever the case, in “real life” my heroes aren’t idealized. They don’t look like Eric Bana or Brad Pitt or Nathan Kamp (the model on the cover of NIGHT FALLS DARKLY). They don’t earn huge salaries and drive fancy cars (or carriages). My writing pal, Cindy Miles, and I went to NYC last week. We saw a couple of attractive male television personalities while we were in Times Square. Cool! But did those guys stop us in our tracks? No. But these guys did:

Talk about whipping out the cameras and snapping some shots. The NYPD and FDNY are as good as rock stars to us. Were they all tall, dark and handsome, with piercing blue eyes? I don’t remember any that looked like that. They looked like regular guys wearing uniforms. They are regular everyday heroes, like so many boyfriends, husbands, fathers, brothers and sons we know in our real lives. They are flawed and complex, but heroes nonetheless.

Despite the fact that the heroes in my books may be costumed in "handsome" and "tall" and boast a great set of abs, because those types of descriptions seem to translate well onto a romantic fantasy adventure page -- at their core they have all the authentic qualities of a real life “everyday” hero. That’s what makes them come alive.

So … a fantasy hero or a regular every day hero? Do you have a favorite? I don’t. I think women are entitled to both, and at the same time.

Kim Lenox
www.kimlenox.com/

Deborah Cooke aka Claire Delacroix | New Worlds from Familiar Names - and Familiar Faces with New Names!

One of the interesting things about the popular fiction market is the way that it changes. Tastes in fiction are fluid, and constantly on the move as people develop interests in new areas, or ideas come into fashion. I think that this dynamism, while it can be frustrating, is also fascinating.

And it offers authors the chance to try new things.

Many of you will be familiar with the medieval romances that I wrote in the 1990's. I wrote a lot of them, because I had so much fun. What I liked about writing medievals was the world-building, that challenge of creating a slice of a lost time and place so tangible that readers might feel as if they were standing right there. I loved doing the research, and I really enjoyed weaving myths and legends into the fabric of my fictional worlds. I particularly loved my heroes. My guys were usually wounded or otherwise compromised, and they were always caught between a couple of apparently bad choices.

So, when the historical market became less vibrant than once it was, it's not really surprising that I focussed on the challenge of bringing a fictional world to life on the page, on a world that would require me to move into the university library for a while, on exploring a big slice of mythology and legend, and on noble heroes caught between a couple of seemingly bad choices.

This year, I launched two new series, one of which is being marketed under Claire Delacroix - a familiar name with a new world - and the other of which is being marketed under Deborah Cooke. I think they both have a lot in common with my previously published work.

The Dragonfire series by Deborah Cooke (http://www.deborahcooke.com/) features dragon shape shifter heroes in a contemporary setting. These dragon shape shifters are called the Pyr, and are an ancient race which has become divided over time. They're charged to defend the treasures of the earth, which the good Pyr believe includes humans. The Slayers, which are Pyr turned bad, believe that humans - and the Pyr who defend them - must be exterminated to save the planet. The Pyr are male, and they mate with human women - the mark of meeting their destined mate is a sensation of heat called the firestorm. This series begins with the Pyr on the cusp of a transition, a last chance to save the earth in the big battle with the Slayers. Each book focusses on the firestorm of one hero: each Pyr hero is both noble caught between two bad choices in each book - his duty to his fellow Pyr and the demands of his courtship of what is usually a skeptical mate. I'm loving the challenge of making these fantastical men seem real and human, even with their abilities, and loving the interaction of their mythology with our own. The series is a lot of fun to write. Dragonfire began last February with KISS OF FIRE, and continued in August with KISS OF FURY. The third book in the trilogy is KISS OF FATE which will be released in February 2009.

FALLEN - first of my new trilogy from TOR - is set in a gritty urban future, a post-nuclear world without a lot of hope for humanity. Unbeknownst to most people, the Apocalypse is close at hand, and volunteers from the angels are sacrificing their wings, taking flesh to help save humanity. This isn't the kind of thing that Lilia Desjardins, our heroine, is inclined to believe. She's outspoken and idealistic, a pragmatist who believes that her estranged husband's death wasn't the accident that the police have determined it to be. She sets out to discover the truth, at any price. The most formidable obstacle to her quest proves to be a homicide detective named Adam Montgomery. Montgomery is one of those angel volunteers, caught between two bad choices - his attraction to Lilia, a woman suspects he shouldn't trust, and the completion of his earthly mission on earth. Will they learn to trust each other in time?

These books are indisputably new directions for me, but I think they show the hallmarks of my earlier work. They certainly are a lot of fun to research and to write, and the challenge of something new is invigorating. Writing these books has been a great creative adventure for me - it would be an even better ride if you joined me.

Happy reading and all my best -
Deborah aka Claire
http://www.delacroix.net/blog

Excerpt:

FALLEN
KISS OF FIRE
KISS OF FURY
KISS OF FATE

J. T. Ellison | Why Crime Fiction Matters To Me

I know that sounds a bit like "What I Did On My Summer Vacation," but bear with me.

I have always loved crime stories – real or imagined. I don't think I'm alone, either. Some of the most successful series on television now are crime oriented. My favorites are the original CSI, Criminal Minds and the gloriously creepy Dexter. I watch Forensic Files, all the true crime shows, eat up the drama and fear and terrible truths that exist in our world. So what is the fascination? Why am I drawn to murder and mayhem?

In a word – heroes. But let me come back to that.

I've tried to pinpoint the reason I decided to write crime fiction, and honestly can't put my finger on a single impetus. Was it because of my childhood friend who was being abused and committed suicide when we were f ourteen? Was it the disappearance of a friend from college – Dail Dinwidde – who went missing in 1992, quite literally without a trace? Was it an influence from the books I gobbled up – Patterson, at the beginning, Tami Hoag, Patricia Cornwell?

Or did I always have a mysterious bent? I've always been a writer – especially the terrible, should be burned pieces I did in college. I went back and looked at some of them, and was surprised to see a note from my thesis advisor. I'd written what I thought was a masterpiece of a story, and her comment was, "Reads too much like B-grade detective fiction." Hmm. And what, exactly, is wrong with B-grade detective fiction?

But a budding writer who is writing for academia needs to be literary. You must plan your world around where you'll be getting your MFA, and fifteen years ago, when I graduated, crime fiction was most certainly not on the menu for a writer hoping for a distinguished career in literature.

I've always found that amusing, because all of the best literary stories swirl around the commission of a crime. Crimes of the heart, crimes against nature, crimes against a woman or child, a brother or sister, a mother or fath er, a neighbor. Look at Alice Sebold's THE LOVELY BONES. It's a perfect example of a literary novel that centers around a crime.

I think the big difference between literary and crime fiction lies in the treatment. In literary books, you don't have the pulsing pace, a race against the clock to save humanity, a killer to get off the streets. Lit fic has a more sedate pace. It's often an examination of how a crime affects the characters rather than how to stop the crime from happening, or happening again. And sometimes, there is no conclusion. And that's just fine.

But in crime fiction, the battles of good and evil play themselves out on the page, ripe for the reader's imagination to overflow. There is an innate understanding that the white hats will stop the black hats. You know what you're getting – a breathless journey with a cast of characters who would lay down their life to save the innocent. The story drives the characters actions, and we see every foible, every flaw, and cheer when the character stands up for what's right.

In other words, crime fiction gives you a hero. A man or a woman who won't stop fighting until the bad guys are taken out. There's an element of justice meted out – the criminals are caught, the hero triumphs, the innocents are protected. It's heady stuff, I tell you.

Whatever my original influences, this is the real reason I choose to write crime fiction. I want to right the wrongs, give closure to a grieving family, make sure the victims are not forgotten. In my little make believe world, I can make sure justice is well and truly served. We don't always have that luxury in real life. Too often, trials are lost on technicalities, juries are forced to follow arcane laws, plea bargains are made, and criminals go free. In crime fiction, the hero gets to save the day, and the criminals get punished.

Taylor Jackson is a hero to me. She is a strong woman who commands the respect of her peers through her actions. She'd lay down her life to protect those she loves, and those she doesn't even know. She is the best of all of us, the one who runs into the burning building to save a child, who never asks for thanks, who protects and defends the city of Nashville even when it doesn't protect or defend her.

That's what a hero should be, and that's why crime fiction is such a joy for me to write.

J. T. Ellison

http://www.jtellison.com/

Jenna Petersen | Accidentally Dark: Or I Didn’t Mean to Make Him Alpha

I am funny. Okay, I may not be stand-on-a-stage-do-The-Last-Comic-Standing funny, but I can tell a funny story and I have a quirky sense of humor. I really like to laugh and I am silly more often than I care to admit in a public forum. When people meet me and they find out what I do, they often assume that I write light-hearted romantic comedies with a sarcastic sense of humor that matches my life "voice".

They are wrong.

No, I don’t write romps. I don’t do slapstick. I can’t tell funny to save my life. Instead, I write highly sensual, intensely emotional, dark historical romances set in the Regency period for Avon Books and Avon Red (erotic romances, those are written as Jess Michaels). People emailed me after my debut, Scandalous, came out in October 2005 and told me I made them cry. And I was happy about it!

So how did this happen? How did I go from being a reasonably happy person with a high sense of the absurd and the amusing to writing super dark romance?

I tell you what, I blame the men. That’s right, it’s not my fault, it’s my heroes. You see, I tried my hand at a few light stories in the dark days before Avon came calling. I sat down and I told myself that there would be no angst. There would be no brooding. There would just be a nice, normal, sexy hero with a sense of humor.

And then he whispered to me, “By the way, I accidentally killed my brother three years ago. I’ve never quite gotten over the guilt.”

No!!! Bad hero. BAD. You aren’t supposed to be wracked by a guilty secret. You aren’t supposed to be torn apart and broken by emotional turmoil. And yet, as soon as he said that… I knew it was true. And it made him far more compelling to me. Although that story never sold, ten books have and all of them feature the common thread of a emotionally tortured hero in one way or another.

My latest book, Lessons From A Courtesan (which just came out Tuesday) features a hero, the Earl of Baybary, Justin Talbot, who isn’t any different. Like many of my previous heroes, he has a dark secret that he’s trying to keep. He has a complicated relationship with the members of his family. Oh yes, and he was blackmailed into a marriage of convenience with his wife, Victoria, who just showed up in London posing as a courtesan.

Well, that’s just enough to make any man dark and brooding, isn’t it?

So, as a reader do you like the tortured, brooding, darkly sexy hero? What do you think draws us to these alpha male types? And is there a twelve-step program for writers who are addicted to tormenting their characters?

Jenna
www.jennapetersen.com/

Kate Walker | Swamped by Spaniards

As I write for Harlequin Presents, I often have to decide on the nationality of my hero. And part of the fantasy of Mills & Boon Modern/Harlequin Presents is the fact that the heroes are more often than not Mediterranean men – Italians, Spaniards, and those so very-very popular Greek Tycoons. The Greek Tycoon books just fly off the shelf but I can’t always be writing a Greek hero – that would bore me, and my readers – and besides sometimes it seems that everyone else in the world is writing Greek hero story.

There are characteristics that fit some nationalities, and some that are more suited to others, and so I need to take these into consideration when I’m choosing my hero. And that’s what I’m doing at the moment – starting work on a brand new story. My latest titles (my 54th) has just been accepted and my editor is ringing me this week to discuss future plans so I have to have some ideas to talk over with her. So right now I have just the seed of an idea.

My hero won’t be a Greek though. I wrote a Greek hero the books before last and he was such a strong character that I’ll need to wait for a while before I can think of writing another of his fellow countrymen. And the new man won’t be Spanish either. I love writing Spanish heroes, they have a power and an passion that creates a wonderful hero, one who strikes sparks of his heroine and turns the book into an emotional tango – all fire and burn. But at the moment I have rather too many Spaniards to deal with – as the title of this blog says, I’m swamped by them.

My newest book is out in June. Spanish Billionaire, Innocent Wife is the title – so that gives away the hero’s nationality. And the book I just had accepted (Cordero’s Forced Bride) also has a sexy sensual Spaniard as its hero. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, I have Spaniard from the past coming back to join me all over again. Back in 2004, I wrote The Alcolar Family Trilogy – and this year those three books are being reprinted in a 3 in 1 By Request edition in July in the UK and an ebooks ‘Bundle’ on eHarlequin next month. Even the special short story I have in the Mills & Boon Centenary Celebration Collection has a Spanish hero!

One of the reasons why the Mediterranean hero is so popular is that he comes from a warm country - in the past they would have seemed much more 'exotic' before easy and frequent travel abroad brought Spain, Italy, Greece etc into our holiday plans so frequently. Warm countries, so the belief is , create hot-blooded men, men who are passionate, sensual, more 'alpha', less inhibited, less 'stiff upper lip' than the average British male. They are also it is believed more likely to woo the heroine, to indulge in romantic gestures. I don't necessarily think this is true - I think it maligns the poor British male (I married one after all!) - but it is in a way a sort of shorthand for the exotic passionate stranger who sweeps the heroine off her feet.

So a romance novelist isn't trying to create an absolutely perfectly realistic Spaniard or Greek or whatever. But neither do you want to create someone who is so much a stereotype that he appears almost a caricatures.

The thing I always remember above and beyond anything else is that my hero, whatever nationality he is, is a man. This sounds so obvious but it's important that he's a man first and then his nationality affects him second. There are certain characteristics that fit more strongly with certain nationalities than others - think of Italy and you think of style, sophistication, families. But Sicily has more of an edge, a sense of danger - you think of vendettas etc. Greece always bring with it the idea, for me, of that Greek word 'hubris' - that overweening excessive pride or self-confidence; arrogance. And the many Greek islands all have a character of their own, some busy, sophisticated, some rural, even wild in atmosphere. And that can give the hero a raw edge, a primitive streak that underlies his sophisticated veneer.

So what hero will I choose this time round? Most times it’s the plot that helps me choose in ways I’ve described already. But this time it was a chance ‘serendipity’ moment when I came on an article in a magazine. It showed a wonderful, beautiful house set on a tiny private island on the Italian lakes . It was actually a small hotel but it would work perfectly for my hero’s private house. And I haven’t written an Italian hero in a while.

Now all I need is a name – and a heroine for him – and a plot . . .

Kate Walker

Thanks so much for inviting me over to blog on Fresh Fiction! I'll keep coming back to see what's new here. If you want to know more about me and my books, please visit my web site at http://www.kate-walker.com/ or my blog - http://kate-walker.blogspot.com/

Jennifer St. Giles | Who’s your man?

As a reader, I love books with dark, sexy heroes who meet their match in strong, vibrant women. And as I writer, I strive create heroes and heroines just like that in both my historicals and my paranormal contemporaries--men that melt your senses meeting women that inspire your spirit and finding a love that fills your heart. Everyday I realize more and more that the most important thing in life is learning to love yourself and others.

So today for a little fun and a lot of love I want to hear from all of you readers and writers out in Fresh Fiction land. Tell me about your favorite heroes. What are they like and why do you love them? He can be a real-life hero you know, or he can be one created by your favorite author. And if any of you have had the opportunity to read any of my books, then I would love to hear, which of my fictional heroes was your favorite and why?

I’ll be off to the Romantic Times Convention come Monday and invite any of you to stop by and say hello.

Happy Reading
Jennifer St. Giles