In Praise of Difficult Heroines
I’ve been thinking about complex heroines lately. Heroines, that is to say, who are not necessarily easy to like.
It strikes me that in romance, it’s far easier to get away with a complex, dark hero. He can act like an ass sometimes, he can be domineering and judgmental and generally a PITA, but as long as he has a satisfying arc and as long as he grovels properly at the end, we love him anyway.
We don’t necessarily extend the same leeway to heroines. They have to be relatable at all times. They can be sharp, yes. And tough, that too. Which itself is a relief from previous decades and their virginal, innocent heroines a la Barbara Cartland’s fainting waifs and Victoria Holt’s naive misses. But even now, women can’t be jerks, and they can’t have messy character flaws–at least, not the kind that might make it harder for us to identify with them in the opening pages of the story.
Thing is, I like it when my heroines have teeth. I like them to make mistakes. Mess up. Realize they made a hash of things. Grow up, in large part because their relationship with the hero forces them to change. It makes for a satisfying character journey.
I admit, I’m starting to see it more these days. Ruthie Knox does this in some of her contemporaries. For example, Cath in About Last Night has had some spectacular flameouts in her past and is emotionally scarred as a result. She has a delicious, huge arc.
Tara Jean Sweet in Molly O’Keefe’s Can’t Buy Me Love is another difficult heroine. She’s got a past–a recent past–as a grifter. She’s a complex character with complex motivations, and she’s utterly fascinating. As a reader, I completely understood the other characters’ suspicious reactions to her, and yet, due to O’Keefe’s empathic storytelling, I felt connected to her and understood her.
Cecilia Grant does the same thing in her historicals. Lydia in A Gentleman Undone is a hard-edged, self-protective courtesan, actively with another man during the course of the novel. I adore her. She’s absolutely uncompromisingly who she is, and it’s therefore all the more enthralling to watch her fall in love, however unwillingly.
Interestingly, in Grant’s latest historical, A Woman Entangled, the heroine Kate is poised and together–and yet her overriding, overwhelming desire is also her Achilles heel, and it’s one that may make some readers uncomfortable. Namely, she’s ambitious. Her father was disowned by his titled family for marrying an actress. She feels cheated of the life of a noblewoman and takes action to try and make it happen. In a softer story, she’d have a million powerful reasons for not just wanting this, but needing it. Or maybe she’d simply luck into it without actually doing anything. But in Grant’s novel, yes, Kate knows it would help her family, and especially her younger sister. But to some extent, she simply feels like she deserves this. It’s not a flaw, precisely, but it certainly causes difficulties.
And you know what? This is very human. Very real. And it’s fascinating to see her untangle the threads of what it means to have ambition and how it affects those around you, and ultimately, realize what’s really important to her and what isn’t. The story ends up being about family bonds and friendship and is utterly lovely. Would any of that happen if she were less fixed in her goal? I don’t think so.
I confess, I fit here too. All three of my heroines are difficult, each in her own way. Darcy in What’s Yours is Mine is desperate to get Will out of their accidentally-shared condo any way she can, and she isn’t always terribly nice about it (though she learns!). Alanna in No Peeking acts impulsively and gets herself (and the hero, Miles) in trouble. And Raven in Draw Me In–well, let’s just say she’s got a complex backstory. And I love her best.
Which brings me to my final point. I’m drawn to reading (and, apparently, writing) about women like this because they feel human to me. Three dimensional. And yet I too need to fall in love with both hero and heroine in my books. So if they’re flawed, how do we the readers get past that and sink into the story? I think it has something to do with empathy. We need to see their vulnerability and the reasons they are the way they are. Backstory helps, for sure. Still, though, it can be a tricky balance. But as Knox, O’Keefe, and Grant show, it’s clearly possible.
Do you like these kinds of female characters in your romances? Or do they bug you? And if you do like them, do you have any suggestions for other flawed-but-fascinating heroines?
