What do Readers want?

I've been thinking about a discussion that was started at our chapter meeting this weekend. Two of our members were sort of lamenting the restrictions they felt were placed on heroines in romance novels. You know, not too many lovers in her past, no past addictions, not too snarky, bitchy or sarcastic. As if any of the above takes away from the likeability of a character. Both of these writers couldn't understand why it was okay for a man in a romance novel to be an alpha male bastard (I'm thinking here of the heroes of most Harlequin Presents novels that I've ever read), who have slept around, had babies with other women, and/or been in jail (always for a crime they didn't commit), drank too much etc.

Diana Peterfreund then hit the nail on the head when she said that for most readers they want to identify with the heroine. In some ways, they actually want to be able to imagine themselves in the heroine's shoes. So a heroine, who at one point in her life might have been a bit of a ho-bag, is not going to be attractive to most readers in the read states. Ditto, a heroine with a past drug addiction, who used to be a stripper (although I did read one once where she was a Las Vegas showgirl, but in the nudie shows), likes to drink too much or had a baby by more than one man (although I did once read a Danielle Steel who of course says she doesn't write romance novels, where the heroine married like 5 guys in one book and this was a contemporary!).

That's why you generally find women who are a little more complex and human in women's fiction. One of my favorite books is Marian Keye's novel, Rachel's Holiday where Rachel spends about 3/4 of the book in denial that she has a serious drug addiction. Another favorite book is A Little Help from Above, where the main character is still angry and bitter over her mother's early death from ovarian cancer, and the fact that her father married her aunt less than a year later and had another child. Oh, and he also cheated on the mother one night with the sister-in-law while his wife was sick. The character is sarcastic, bitchy and mean to her sister, not to mention her stepmother/aunt. Yet, I still found myself symphathizing with her. Did I want to be her? No way!

Diana also said that flawed heroes bring out the maternal instincts in the reader. You know, that old "I can save him with my love," which we all know never works in real life, but somehow always manages to work out in romances. Think of Sarah's Child by Linda Howard. Through Sarah's unselfish love, Rome finally heals and is able to love both her and Melissa. Now was I able to identify with a woman who loved her best friend's husband from afar and was still a virgin at the age of 34, who had given up basically any chance at a normal life until her best friend and her kids die in a car accident (I hope I haven't spoiled this book for anyone. If you haven't read it, you should)? NO! But I enjoyed reading their love story, although I was frustrated with both of them during the book.

Now, there have been books that occasionally have somehow slipped through the cracks that didn't adhere to the formula. I've heard of Harlequin Superromances, where the heroine was a former teenage runaway/prostitute and even a book where the heroine had breast cancer (oh, diseases also seem to be verboten as well). I even remember reading a Mills & Boon where the heroine got hit by a car at the end of the book, and never walked again. The ending paragraph is of the hero helping the heroine into her wheelchair.

But rarely do you see the blind/ill/crippled heroine in books nowadays. Not even a heroine living with diabetes or plump. Long gone are the days where LaVryle Spencer could write a Temptation where the heroine has a breast reduction because her boobs were too big.

I don't know. I don't read a lot of series romance precisely because of the virgin/baby/amnesia thing but readers love them.

Is there a place in romance where the heroines can be as flawed as the heros?

Thanks for reading!

EKM