I seem to read more messy heroes, I guess. Helen Hoang's The Kiss Quotient immediately came to mind. Michael is a mess and knows it. And there are a lot of messy younger sons in historical romance. And there is the whole sub-genre of ex Military men wrestling with PTSD. Mainstream publishing is just behind this curve too.
The Kiss Quotient is such a good one! And yes, I feel like we see it a lot more in historicals than in contemporaries, perhaps because historical romances are much more likely to be dual third-person POV and the hero *has* to have more of an arc if we're getting his POV?
I hadn't thought about the POV but that makes a ton of sense. When we only hear the heroine we really don't get a sense of the hero's journey because we're only seeing him through her eyes. Thanks for your insight!
Lots to ruminate on here, Natalie. Like you, I enjoy a complex hero. And that's the kind of guy I write. He's got his life together... kind of? Except why does he always do that... ridiculous thing? That painful thing. That thing all his friends can see is holding him back from true fulfillment. I also write Get X (sometimes millennial) heroes and heroines. I think it's easier to write the complicated older guy, vs younger guy, because so many men and women in their late thirties or early forties have experienced an event or series of events that made them question everything about themselves, their choices, their values, etc. Earth-shattering events can happen at any point in life, of course, but I think there's something uniquely stunning for older adults going through personal tragedies, especially if they think they could/should have seen it coming and prevented it.
My forthcoming book HOPE: Love & Disaster Book 3 features a hero at the top of his career who has just tanked his relationship with his true love. Groveling ensues—2020s style—the kind based on increased self-awareness, emotional growth, and self-compassion. The kind of groveling that isn't merely undertaken to get the heroine back, but because the hero recognizes her true worth and now he wants to be the kind of man she needs and deserves.
The best kind of groveling is the kind that involves emotional growth! I honestly kind of love an epic grovel, because it can be such a powerful moment of character transformation. And yes, I do think it can be easier to get at that level of complexity with main characters who've just lived more life.
Okay, so just needed to let you know I LOVE this amount of analysis of romance ~ thank you for honoring the genre so much! Also, I have been thinking about this a lot when trying to figure out why I love male-male hockey romances so much (despite not liking hockey), or even just male-male romance stories in general. The men are both allowed to have messes and uncertainty because it isn't set in the male-female traditional "man strong, woman weak" way. When it comes to sports romance, yes both men are always physically strong, but the ones I have been loving lately also have both men digging out from trauma or mental health issues. In a male-male love story I don't have to analyze to death whether the story is feminist enough or the man is soft enough for today's sensibilities. But of course, I'm a woman gazing into a different type of relationship, typically written by a woman who is also looking in. Maybe that's problematic too! But ultimately it seems like I can read m/m romances almost like a fantasy (outside of my own reality), whereas when I read m/f romances, I hold them up against societal expectations and my own experiences and can rarely fall into a fantasy feeling. Whew, that was a lot, but again, thanks for this piece!
Okay, this is fascinating! I read some m/m but generally find myself drawn more to f/f and am so curious about the whole phenomenon of m/m hockey romances, which also seem to be primarily written for and by women? (I haven't read any because sports romances are generally not my thing.) I can totally see some of the appeal coming from that element of fantasy and slipping into a relationship experience so different from the reader's own.
Oh, I love that--I do think it's such a delicate balance to strike, especially because the male main character is frequently meant to be an object of desire throughout, but when an author gets it right, I find it so satisfying.
I seem to read more messy heroes, I guess. Helen Hoang's The Kiss Quotient immediately came to mind. Michael is a mess and knows it. And there are a lot of messy younger sons in historical romance. And there is the whole sub-genre of ex Military men wrestling with PTSD. Mainstream publishing is just behind this curve too.
The Kiss Quotient is such a good one! And yes, I feel like we see it a lot more in historicals than in contemporaries, perhaps because historical romances are much more likely to be dual third-person POV and the hero *has* to have more of an arc if we're getting his POV?
I hadn't thought about the POV but that makes a ton of sense. When we only hear the heroine we really don't get a sense of the hero's journey because we're only seeing him through her eyes. Thanks for your insight!
Lots to ruminate on here, Natalie. Like you, I enjoy a complex hero. And that's the kind of guy I write. He's got his life together... kind of? Except why does he always do that... ridiculous thing? That painful thing. That thing all his friends can see is holding him back from true fulfillment. I also write Get X (sometimes millennial) heroes and heroines. I think it's easier to write the complicated older guy, vs younger guy, because so many men and women in their late thirties or early forties have experienced an event or series of events that made them question everything about themselves, their choices, their values, etc. Earth-shattering events can happen at any point in life, of course, but I think there's something uniquely stunning for older adults going through personal tragedies, especially if they think they could/should have seen it coming and prevented it.
My forthcoming book HOPE: Love & Disaster Book 3 features a hero at the top of his career who has just tanked his relationship with his true love. Groveling ensues—2020s style—the kind based on increased self-awareness, emotional growth, and self-compassion. The kind of groveling that isn't merely undertaken to get the heroine back, but because the hero recognizes her true worth and now he wants to be the kind of man she needs and deserves.
The best kind of groveling is the kind that involves emotional growth! I honestly kind of love an epic grovel, because it can be such a powerful moment of character transformation. And yes, I do think it can be easier to get at that level of complexity with main characters who've just lived more life.
Hi Natalie, just following up to say I released HOPE into the world yesterday! If you love a good grovel, and I think you do, then please check it out and let me know what you think. Of course, you should probably read my CONTENT WARNING first. https://open.substack.com/pub/xoxotara/p/content-warning?r=1hh35v&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Okay, so just needed to let you know I LOVE this amount of analysis of romance ~ thank you for honoring the genre so much! Also, I have been thinking about this a lot when trying to figure out why I love male-male hockey romances so much (despite not liking hockey), or even just male-male romance stories in general. The men are both allowed to have messes and uncertainty because it isn't set in the male-female traditional "man strong, woman weak" way. When it comes to sports romance, yes both men are always physically strong, but the ones I have been loving lately also have both men digging out from trauma or mental health issues. In a male-male love story I don't have to analyze to death whether the story is feminist enough or the man is soft enough for today's sensibilities. But of course, I'm a woman gazing into a different type of relationship, typically written by a woman who is also looking in. Maybe that's problematic too! But ultimately it seems like I can read m/m romances almost like a fantasy (outside of my own reality), whereas when I read m/f romances, I hold them up against societal expectations and my own experiences and can rarely fall into a fantasy feeling. Whew, that was a lot, but again, thanks for this piece!
Okay, this is fascinating! I read some m/m but generally find myself drawn more to f/f and am so curious about the whole phenomenon of m/m hockey romances, which also seem to be primarily written for and by women? (I haven't read any because sports romances are generally not my thing.) I can totally see some of the appeal coming from that element of fantasy and slipping into a relationship experience so different from the reader's own.
Oh, I love that--I do think it's such a delicate balance to strike, especially because the male main character is frequently meant to be an object of desire throughout, but when an author gets it right, I find it so satisfying.