[...] Single Girls aus Deutschland suchen den richtigen Mann.. [...]…

I am a college student in Texas researching for a speech about Western women’s attraction to Sheik romance novels. I read an article in a magazine that stated the publishing of these novels have quadrupled since the 9/11, implying that women’s interest has been steered towards the “bad boy”. I am writing this in hopes that the women that enjoy these particular romance novels can help me learn about why they do and does it have any connection with conflicts in the middle east? Thank you for your responses.

Jessica

Olivia

I loved Purchased for Revenge. I’m sorry that you won’t be writing another similarly “dark” book… yes, it’s not the typical presents and that might turn some more traditional readers off. But myself I like the HP books that push the envelope a bit. These are the books that stand out to me and the ones that I read more than once…

Especially if the hero is particularly appealing

By the way, I am trying to figure out which southeastern european country, if any, your fictional Dalmaczia(sp) is based upon…(Bulgaria, Albania, Croatia??)

My favorite HP books are those which really make the reader FEEL, and as a couple of posters said above, the pure emotion in some HP books is just great and why I keep reading. Anyway: kudos to you and I hope you perhaps reconsider writing another book someday in the same vein as PFR!

(BTW sorry my sign off seemed to get inserted into the middle of my last post!)

Plots where the hero seduces the heroine to punish her brother/father etc:

Trish – The Greek’s Virgin – how on earth did you get away with it??!!!! I shall have to read it and find out!

I do think it’s a very tricky moral issue indeed, in that what the hero is doing in those plots is using the heroine for his own ends, and punishing her for someone else’s misdeeds, which I find very hard to stomach. Now, it could be that, say, the heroine has actually enjoyed the seduction perfectly nicely thank you (!), BUT, I would still think that discovering that your lover has only slept with you to humiliate or punish someone else, is NOT easily forgiveable. I think as a reader I would definitely expect the heroine to take very harsh revenge indeed to see justice done on the hero, and, of course, the hero also has to suffer because he’ll discover he’s gone and fallen in love with the one woman who, thanks to his own exploitation of her, now has every good reason to despise snd hate him.

Whereas I don’t have a problem with heroes who have reasonable cause to think ill of the heroine, if she is obviously blameless in whatever wrong was done to him and his, then I do think that any decent human being would not use her as his instrument of revenge.

I think, for me, if I were attempting a plot like that, I would very definitely have to make clear that this was a novel in which the hero undergoes his own ‘moral redemption’ and emerges a better person – a true hero at last – fit, indeed, for the heroine’s love (or, indeed, admission into decent society!!!). Even if the hero had actually pulled back at the brink, and chosen NOT to use the heroine in that way, it still says quite a lot of ‘bad stuff’ about a man who’d even given it houseroom in the first place!

Mind you, I could see the plot working for me if, say, the heroine were an Ugly Duckling (but still the sister/daughter etc of the man who wronged the hero or his kin!), and though whilst an affair with her might be to humiliate or ‘get at’ the brother/father, it would also, simultaneously ‘do a bit of good’ for the heroine, as she herself would gain something from the affair – eg, sexual self-confidence and a brilliant make-over! However, the hero would have to ensure she never found out he was using her. (Though of course she wood, and then she’d go into revenge mode!!!)
******

Lidia wrote “The only nagging “issue” that I had with it is that the heroine had his son, then he had a daughter by the dying friend. The kids were about six months apart in age — the “yuck” factor set in for me.”

Agree, that’s a very tricky one. Try having a sibling only six months older than you!
**********

Madeline – I do give you a definitely warning about Purchased for Revenge! Not a fun read, I promise you!

“Julia, regarding PFR, when you started your hero and heroine along their journey, did you find that THEY were the ones to take you to the end of that journey?”

In that one I think not so much. because the background is so very dark (sex trafficking and murder), I had to control it very tightly. It was extremely difficult to write about the very distressing “bad sex scene” because I had to portray a man who was deliberately indulging in degradation and pornography – and yet NOT damn him completely (though some readers may think he is!) for doing so. To me, it was ONLY because he felt such self-disgust at having himself physically enjoyed pornographic sex, that showed any germ of redemptive possibility for him.

(see what I mean about it not being a fun read!!!)(I NEVER want to write such a harrowing book again, and I’m glad I’ve now done my anti-pornography ‘Here I stand’ that I wrote it for, and can with huge relief return to the real subject matter of romance fiction. Phew!)

*******

“The plot goes like this…the heroine is a receptionist at the office of the hero(the hero never notices her). One day she overhears the hero telling a friend that he’ll never get tied down ‘coz there are lots of women falling all over him so why should he get hitched? The next day the heroine puts out an ad in the papers announcing their engagement and everything follows from there…”

Olivia – this sounds such a fun rom-com plot. Such a nuisance it’s already been written!!!

Julia

There’s another oldie MB/HQ the title of which I can’t recall, the story is kind of similar to that of Lexi and Rome, which seems to show the emergence of feminism in society. The plot goes like this…the heroine is a receptionist at the office of the hero(the hero never notices her). One day she overhears the hero telling a friend that he’ll never get tied down ‘coz there are lots of women falling all over him so why should he get hitched? The next day the heroine puts out an ad in the papers announcing their engagement and everything follows from there…Do you know/remember the title of this?

Olivia

I just mentioned That Boston Man on the e-harlequin community boards a few days ago. Lexi and Rome, or, after so many years, am I mistaken?

Madeline

–You are so right Madeleine. I can personally attest to this. In fact I don’t just buy old titles I also buy books that I have read or owned before. Back then I never thought of keeping books forever. When I think of all the books I have given away, it really breaks my heart. I have also bought some books like 3x since friends borrow and lend it to others until it never comes back to me again! Some books I have bought again and again are Night Music, That Boston Man, etc. Really oldies, I was around 12/13 when I read those. They were “passed” on to me by an aunt.*Sigh* If only I could have back everything I’ve given away.

“She has stayed with HP since first being introduced (whether that was last year or a lifetime ago) through changes in the times, the world and the heroine.”

– I totally agree, as well. Yes, the world has evolved or maybe it’s just the reader who has matured (or both). I remember reading Heart of Stone by Janet Dailey again just recently. It was one of my favs when I was in my teens. But now, I can’t relate to the heroine anymore or even fawn over the hero. Maybe because women are now more empowered and men are also now more sensitive. Or maybe it’s just me, in my early 30s, having lived life as well. But I still do enjoy “That Boston Man” a lot.

Yesterday, when we were discussing the parameters of non-consensual sex and alpha hero bad behavior, I wrote: “On the matter of non-consensual sex, I do not think that the sex between the heroine and hero can ever be non-consensual. She may hate him (or convince herself that she does, at least!) before, and she may hate him (or, more likely, hate herself for having wanted him!) after, having sex with him, but, when he is poised at the threshold, she must want him to enter.”

I was thinking of the marriage of convenience, rich man’s mistress, office romance, etc. storylines, where we know that, when the hero and heroine come to the point of having sex for the first time, he desires her with a passion for passion’s sake and with no other consideration as a primary motivator at that moment (although he has not declared his love for her, and even may not have come to the realization that he does loves her, yet!). He has no dark ulterior motive, such as REVENGE. We can be confident in knowing that he desires her for her, and, in the end, will love her for always (even though she cannot be certain of it at that moment and, in fact, everything to that point perhaps has suggested otherwise to her), and, because of this, we can taste a sweetness in the first joining.

Julia, your thought-provoking response, which launched us into the ever-fascinating topic of the revenge story, was: “I’m not necessarily convinced that sexual desire always represents ‘true consent’ (for want of a better term). I say this because when my hero in Purchased for Revenge had what was fundamentally abusive sex with the heroine (he was deliberately degrading her)(that sounds appalling, but I hope, if you read the story, you will see why he made that decision, and maybe exonerate him by the end of the book, as the heroine did)(though you may not!)(it’s a very dark book, I do warn you!), the worst aspect for her was that she got got physical pleasure from something she knew perfectly well was abusive.”

Oh, yes, the REVENGE story, which has it own unique set of concerns! Julia, I must confess with regret that I have not read PFR (it got by me somehow, even though I enjoy revenge stories as well as the darker stories), but I promise to keep an eye out for a copy and, once I have it in my hands, read it straight away. So, relying on your description above, and on an excerpt posted on your website, I agree with you that it is highly questionable as to whether the sex, although pleasurable, was consensual.

In the world of romance (and especially revealed to us in the revenge story), there is not only the consent of the body, but the consent of the heart. I think that, with revenge stories (whether the heroine knows of the hero’s revenge motivation or not before they have sex for the first time), the consent of her heart will be in serious question always because the hero’s heart is in doubt from the beginning. Depending on how far the hero takes his revenge, he will have to journey as far as the heroine to rehabilitate himself and capture her heart.

Julia, as you know, to accomplish this in PFR, you had to take your hero along a path of suffering as long and dark as the heroine’s before they could both emerge into the light and find everlasting love. If you had not, we could not have accepted the heroine’s love for the hero at the end. It makes for an intense and dark story, but there are HP readers looking for dark intensity as well as for the lighter conflict.

Taking the posts since yesterday as a whole, I think that the discussion on the revenge story highlights a wondrous fact about HP readers (which includes the authors, of course!) Consider what everyone had to say:

Cheryl wrote: “I don’t have a problem with the revenge or blackmailing into marriage/affair-type stories. Also, taking revenge on a heroine due to what a relative supposedly did to the hero’s family.”

Annie wrote: “You’re so right about the differences being in the eye of the beholder. I’ve been receiving reader feedback on my stories and sometimes I find what made the book a success for one person was seen as a fault by another.”

Julia wrote: “Ah – ooh -gosh! The moment I read that I immediately thought of those searing HPs from the past in which that was such a powerful theme – and which were so totally politically nonPC! But oh yes, did they carry me away! I don’t think they could be written any more, to be honest – you know, those ones which have the hero deliberately seduce the heroine (worse, sometimes, outright blackmail and threaten her into sex!), in order to punish someone like her brother who had ‘dared’ to have an affair with the hero’s precious sister – which is probably just as well, as they really are pretty outrageous by current standards!! But they were just fantastic reads, and make you almost physically shake with emotion.”

Trish wrote: “I actually think they’re alive and well Julia – that was in fact the theme of my January “The Greek’s Virgin” where the hero is set to take the heroine’s virginity in a pure act of revenge for what had happened to his sister years ago. The fact he doesn’t (take the heroine’s virginity) causes more friction between them when later they meet, which also gives the heroine her own opportunity for revenge. I think it’s all about the hero’s motivation, pulling off a theme like that. Like Kate Walker has been known to say once or twice – “it’s all in the execution”

Lidia wrote: “I agree with Trish that taking revenge on the heroine for something someone else did is still alive. Some of the most powerful HPs are those with the revenge theme — when they’re executed right. (There was a discussion about revenge themed books here not too long ago.)”

The HP reader devours the current titles and eagerly awaits the new ones each month, but, if she visits a used bookstore or happens upon the odd book sale, she searches for old titles (even with the knowledge that it stops at the bedroom door!). She has stayed with HP since first being introduced (whether that was last year or a lifetime ago) through changes in the times, the world and the heroine (but not so many changes in the hero, thank God!). In sum, I think that the heart and soul of the HP reader has incredible breadth and depth, and, because of this, the themes (whether old or new, politically correct or not, culturally questionable or not) will always hold the seed of life, requiring only the right execution to bring them to life.

Madeline

P.S. Julia, regarding PFR, when you started your hero and heroine along their journey, did you find that THEY were the ones to take you to the end of that journey?

P.P.S. Cheryl, I am still laughing about your line “yikes, not a Harlequin Presents hero in the bunch!”