Tall, dark, handsome...and wildly messed up. Writing heroes women want to fix.

Good morning!

Now that I'm approaching my middle years...okay, now that I'm firmly ensconced in the tail end of my middle years, I look back and realize we women of a certain age share an interesting little quirk: Many of us spent years finding a husband, having children, and getting a house.  And now that we have all that, all we want to do is flee from all of them.

I'm not talking about walking out, of course not.  But be honest here ladies.  Don't we all sort of fantasize about a weekend where no one creates dirty laundry, no one leaves empty soda cans and water bottles on the counter and no one leaves dirty dishes all over the house?  That can't possibly be just me!

And yes, we love our husbands.  We adore our husbands.  And there are times we want our husbands to just go fishing/hunting/hiking/out of the country for a short period of time because, and I'm not alone here, we just want to sleep in the bed by ourselves.

Studies have shown that romance novels continue to sell at a ridiculous pace compared to every other kind of novel or book.  Some might think it's a conflict that the women who want their families to just LEAVE THEM ALONE for a couple days are the same people who buy and devour romance novels where the enjoy of the story is always a happily ever after.

I have zero issue accepting this as fact because I love to escape into a book where the hero saves the day and love conquers all.  And I'd like to read that book and have that escape alone, in my perfectly clean house.  I want to watch a romantic comedy and not be teased when I cry at the end.  I want to watch a huge war epic like Pearl Harbor or Titanic and get swept up in the love story without someone yelling, "OH COME ON! HE'S SHOOTING AT THE GUY WHILE THE SHIP IS SINKING?"  (Yeah, I'm talking to you, Bob and Brian at 1029TheHog.  Love your morning show, but I also love those movies.)

But mostly, and I know most of my female readers are going to agree with me on this one, don't we want to read a story where the hero is a work in progress and the woman gets to fix him?  Isn't THAT why we really watch romantic comedies and read romance novels?  We want some super hot wreck of a guy to realize that the only way he's ever going to be human is if he falls in love with some Ordinary Girl? (Love it when I can use a Rick Springfield song title.)


It's no surprise, then, that the heroes in my four romance novels are all works in progress. Take Jesse, the retired rock star, in Dream In Color.  He's a hot mess when it comes to his reputation with women, and even with his music career.  And then he meets Ramona, a full figured girl from Wisconsin.  

Or Bryan, from Lies in Chance. Bryan is definitely messed up, thanks to his ex wife, but he might be my most heroic hero.  He's a lost soul, but he covers pretty well, although he's given up on himself and any self worth he may have.  Enter the very unlikely heiress-murderess-nanny Shara.  There's a girl who needs a hero, and she knows, on a certain level, that it's going to have to be Bryan, no matter how hard he fights the idea.  


Then there's Quinn, from Fresh Ice..  Quinn is possibly the most messed up of my heroes.  I was not kind to Quinn when I wrote this former NHL bad boy.  He's definitely a project any women would want to try and fix, but that's one of his problems"  Quinn is way too attractive for his own good. He's clearly damned, especially in his own mind, although he does his darndest to redeem himself in a thousand ways, no of it holds any meaning for him, until he meets figure skater turned waitress, Izzy.  I had a hard time writing Izzy because I needed someone whose soul was clear enough to save Quinn, but who didn't come off as some sort of weird perfect angel.  I needed Helen Hunt from "As Good as it Gets."  

Finally, there's Collier from A Hero's Spark,, and he's interesting for a romance reader for a couple reasons.  First of all, he's blond.  He's my only blond.  And fun fact, Collier wasn't broken when I started writing him, unlike Jesse, Bryan, and Quinn.  When you first meet

Collier, in Fresh Ice, he's got a good life.  He's a musician, he's doing well, he's happy.  Oh, but he's in love with someone destined to be forever bonded to someone else.  BAM!  Poor Collier...I broke him.  I broke him on purpose because maybe I was in a bad mood.  We writers get that way sometimes.  We do horrible things to our characters just because we can. I broke Collier so bad people told me I HAD to give him a book.  So I did.  But first I broke him a bit more, made him more of a mess.  Then I introduced him to Mira, who was a hot mess all her own.  (I was pretty proud of myself with this book.  I was an equal opportunity mess maker!)



As writers, we do glean a certain perverted pleasure out of breaking our heroes and having the heroines build them back up.  As women, we read that sort of story because in our whole lives we always had a thing for the bad boys we just KNEW we could fix.  And as readers, well, hey, who doesn't want to just escape with someone tall, dark, handsome, and wildly messed up?  Even if it is for an afternoon while the husband and kids are out of the house?

A review you can use: To Find You by Linda Schmalz

Good morning!

Every so often I like to review a book that's new to the reading public, or that's got my attention.  In this case, the book I'm reviewing is both new and attention grabbing.  It's the new historical romance by Linda Schmalz, To Find You

To Find You is set in New York City immediately following the Titanic disaster.  Here;s a quick bit:

Brigid O’Brien is not in love with David Cavanaugh, but agrees to marry him and move to America to escape an arranged marriage in Ireland. All hope of a bright future fades, however, when David perishes on the Titanic. With nowhere to turn, Brigid finds work as a kitchen maid in the stately mansion of millionaire Charles Ransom and his wife Eliza. Unfortunately, Charles and Eliza each have their own plans for the new maid. Thomas Ashton is a medical student, studying in New York. Hearing of the Titanic disaster, and hoping to aid the survivors, he goes to Pier 54, but can’t reach the ship due to the crowds. It is there, however, that he meets the beautiful Irish immigrant, Brigid. Over the next few weeks, Thomas and Brigid become friends, and romance blossoms. Enter Charles Ransom who decides he’s waited long enough to put his ideas for Brigid into action. When Brigid inexplicably goes missing, Thomas teams up with Eliza Ransom, and together they search for Brigid and a missing child. Set in the spring and summer of 1912, “To Find You” is a historical fiction novel and a mystery. Most of all, it is the tale of romance between a man and a woman, and a story about the never-ending love between a mother and child.

To Find You .is Linda Schmalz's first historical romance.  I love reading historical romance novels because I don't have the patience to do the research to write one of my own.  Schmalz has a great ear for the manners and movement of this era.  She gets the smallest details right, which is so very important to a successful historical romance.

What's really good, and what makes this book a worthy read, is the way the suspense quietly sneaks up on you and grips you.  Not unlike "Downton Abbey" this seems to be a still, quiet story about an Irish immigrent. But the constant sense of foreboding turns into all out, edge of your seat suspense and you realize hours have passed and you can't put the book down.

While the book is set after Titanic, Schmalz only uses that well known disaster as a jumping off point.  She takes the reader to places in American history many of us never learned in school:  North Brother Island and orphan trains.  But even the gripping drama of history takes a back seat to Schmalz's strength:  Her characters.  Step by step you will fall in love with Brigid and her friends, and and they will stay with you long after you've finished the book.

Available at all online retailers in e-book form and at Amazon in print form, To Find You,  is as good a read on a long winter night or a sunny beach afternoon.