What makes a great romance novel hero? Part Two.

I think I may have done the unthinkable. James Kingston, the hero of my upcoming Kingston Brothers novel, is not your typical alpha male. In fact, he’s a reformed nerd who has trouble talking to women due to a stammer when he was a kid. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still big, hot, and handy with his tools but he’s definitely got some awkwardness to him that was interesting to write. Now, does the fact that he has some pretty major insecurities make him less attractive to a reader? Or more?

I confessed in Part One of this blog (see previous postings) that the male characters I enjoyed reading the most were kind of assholes (Ex: Rhett Butler, Gray Rouillard, Christian Grey, etc.) This idea was recently reinforced when I read The Neighbor from Hell series from R.L. Mathewson. (Thanks for the recommendation, by the way.) As much as I enjoyed the humour in this series, there’s really no doubt that the guys were, well, big jerks at least in the beginning of each book. (With a rather disturbing food obsession.) Once again, I was drawn to them because they were hard and arrogant on the outside, but with a soft, gooey centre that makes their assholish ways forgivable.

What I’m wondering is, how bad can the hero be before we draw the line and find his behaviour unacceptable? I’ve noticed a trend lately where the female protagonist falls for a really bad guy, we’re talking the violent criminal variety of bad guy, not reformed rakes with a heart of gold type. I recently read one where the hero was a drug dealer and another was an actual assassin for the Russian mob. (Raw, Belle Aurora & The Beast, Jaden Wilkes). Is it just me or is this too far? Some morale ambiguity is ok but genuine evil? I don’t think so.

I suppose it could be argued that all those vampire romance heroes are murderers, many times over. (Mine included.) And how about all those romance novels featuring former soldiers? We can probably safely assume that their time in the Middle East was full of the atrocities of war. But since these acts usually can be rationalized due to necessity or obligation we can see past them. Mostly because we don’t actually witness our heroes’ more reprehensible behaviour. If anything, it’s referred to in passing but isn’t typically part of the action described in the book. If anything, the suggestion of bad behaviour adds to their tortured, brooding appeal because they usually have a dark secret that will be revealed at the appropriate time. But rarely do we see them at their worst because it takes away from their appeal. For now.

Truly bad men have become very popular on television over the past decade so it’s really just a matter of time before they cross over into our genre. Think of Hugh Laurie’s character on House? What a dick that guy is but I watched every single episode, riveted. And how about Dexter? He’s a serial killer, but a sexy serial killer, so we still kind of like him despite his nasty habit of slicing people up and throwing their body parts overboard. Can we forgive anything provided our hero has a six-pack and a nice smile? (Hmmm…Could Karl from Hot Property be redeemed? Kidding. He’s never going to be a hero. I promise.
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And what does this all have to do with James Kingston? Well, I wrote him for a reason. It seems to me that insecurity in a male protagonist is gradually becoming less acceptable. We want our romantic heroes to be super confident and smooth, with powerful jobs and effortless sexual expertise. They’re all cops and soldiers and billionaires who rarely struggle with their own self-image. Yes, this is fantasy but these characters we so lust after on paper are quickly becoming interchangeable and significantly less human and I miss the humanity. Especially considering that we are more accepting of an evil hero than one who displays any sort of weakness.

Don’t get me wrong, I still like my male leads to be confident and masculine. No mommas boys or wimps need apply. But will readers accept one who isn’t an alpha male? We’ll see later this month…