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Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Intentions Are Important

I'm currently reading Miranda Neville's second-chance-romance novella Duchess of Scandal in the anthology Dancing in the Duke's Arms. There's a bit of dialogue that really stayed with me. A married couple's discussion of current events morphs into a less hypothetical discussion of practical issues on the estate and an exploration of each other's priorities.
She wrinkled her forehead. "Do you mean you wish to help the poor to prevent unrest, not because you think it's right to relieve misery?"
The question made him uncomfortable because he wasn't sure of the answer. His wife was a lot subtler in her ideas than he had ever suspected. "Does it matter? Doesn't it come to the same thing?"
"In practical terms, yes. But intentions are important. I would prefer you to leave Mrs. Trumbull's laundry alone because you see the justice of her need to dry her children's clothes, not because you don't wish to quarrel with me and spoil your dinner."
That captures nearly perfectly my feelings about romance heroes. I would prefer them to care about other people and have a sense of justice. Whatever the conflict may be, I can more readily forgive alphole behavior if it is motivated by concern for others (like the welfare of the hero's family or other dependents) rather than a drive for power or prestige.

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Romance with a Proxy Stepbrother

A few months ago, Smexy Books had a post about the recent popularity of step-sibling romances. The author found it somewhat perplexing, since she expected to find books breaking taboos and instead found a book where the adult protagonists were strangers when their respective parents married.

I've been thinking about the reasons for the appeal of such books. I don't think it is necessarily because readers are looking for quasi-incest fantasies. I think they are looking for close-knit family fantasies.

In modern society, we often live far away from our parents, who are often divorced. Holiday visits may require more diplomacy than restoring normal relations with Cuba. Wouldn't it be convenient if your significant other already had ties to your family? You wouldn't have to explain your father's weird quirks or worry that your husband will be offended by his jokes.

Historical romances are less likely to feature the step-sibling trope (possibly because marriages were less fluid in prior eras). However, the common tropes of Brother's Best Friend and Childhood Friend are functionally similar. Usually one protagonist (usually the hero) comes from a broken home and the other (usually the heroine) has a loving family. A marriage between them gives the de facto orphan an official place in the family he already admires/envies.

My favorite book of this type is Last Night's Scandal by Loretta Chase. We first met the protagonists as children in Chase's third Carsington Brothers book, Lord Perfect. Peregrine's irresponsible parents essentially abandoned him to the care of servants and distant relatives, and Benedict Carsington became the father figure he never had. Benedict's stepdaughter, Olivia, was Peregrine's childhood partner in crime. After several years apart, they meet again as adults, and sparks fly.

Tessa Dare's Goddess of the Hunt is a very charming example of the Brother's Best Friend trope. Lucy asks Jeremy to coach her in seductive wiles, so she may win her longtime crush. He is reluctant, but he fears she might ask someone less honorable for assistance (a common justification for overcoming such scruples in romance novels), so he agrees. He gradually sees her not as a little-sister type
but as a woman. Her newly-honed skills do not bring her the quarry she wanted, and she feels the sting of rejection, leading her to seek comfort in Jeremy's arms. In the end, they realize they are in love with each other, and Jeremy finally has the loving family he has always lacked.

Caroline Linden's Love and Other Scandals is a different type of Brother's Best Friend romance. In this case, Joan Bennett thoroughly disapproves of her brother's debauched friend Tristin Burke. The set-up has a little bit in common with Loretta Chase's Lord of Scoundrels (which is really in a class all by itself). Linden's story is far less outrageous, but it is a satisfying enemies-to-lovers story with a family connection.

The most convoluted family relationship between protagonists I have found belongs to Katharine Ashe's I Loved a Rogue. As the conclusion to her Prince Catchers series, it solves the mystery of the Caulfield sisters' parentage. While it seems to be a Childhood Friend romance, from the very beginning I felt like the protagonists were de facto step-siblings. Taliesin was not related by blood nor adoption to Elinor's adoptive father, but he spent his boyhood summers as their live-in servant. He was basically a male Cinderella (cleaning the ashes from the hearth was specifically one of his chores). He and Elinor go on a quest to find her birth family, and he discovers secrets about his own background that he never suspected. In the end, the mentor who once sent him away (which was not intended as a rejection, although Taliesin always perceived it as such) becomes his father-in-law. I'm sure that won't make family Christmas gatherings at all awkward.

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

R E S P E C T

I recently read a romance novel that was recommended by a friend. It was a well-written Regency-set historical, which kept me reading despite the presence of a trope I really hate, the Evil Mother.

All too often, the Evil Mother is used to explain (and excuse) an alpha hero's misogyny. This book took it up a notch. The mother was intentionally cruel to one of her children (the hero). He also had an unfaithful ex-fiancée who confirmed his worldview that women are not to be trusted and love will destroy a man.

Sometimes a misogynist alpha hero is so cartoonish that I can enjoy the book ironically and revel in his eventual grovel and redemption by the love of the heroine. This book's alpha hero was not at all cartoonish. He was entirely realistic in the way he acted on his attraction to the heroine, seduced her into not-quite-proper behavior, then treated her with contempt. He was also realistic in the way he sincerely apologized the next day with flowers and kind words, keeping her emotionally off-balance and reeling her in.

That is precisely the way that abusers keep their victims in the relationship. As a child, I had a female relative who was occasionally beaten by her husband. At least twice that I know of, she decided to leave him, only to come back after he presented her with a lavish gift and promised to never do it again. She finally had enough and divorced him, but it took several years.

I find myself unable to believe in a hero who treats most women with contempt but magically recognizes that the heroine is different. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. For me, the best predictor of a Happily Ever After is the way the hero treats the other women in his life. He may be opposed to marriage or commitment, he may dislike and avoid a particular type of woman, but that does not require him to despise women in general.

The only romance with a misogynist hero that worked for me was The Dangerous Viscount by Miranda Neville. In that case, Sebastian was still a work in progress. He had very limited experience with women, and he was mainly parroting the opinions of the uncle who raised him. It wasn't so much a magical transformation as a gradual education that brought him around. He was also a victim of bullying and felt the need to act out a sort of revenge fantasy. I could deeply sympathize with that.

I greatly prefer heroes who like and respect women in general, even if they need to adjust their attitudes about a woman's proper place (after all, if there were no initial conflict, the book would be no fun).