Macy's Sunday Six Heroines

My Sunday Six romance heroines may veer off the romance angle a bit. Like Roxy, I really struggled to come up with six romance heroines that made a big impression with me. However, I've known for along time that it is the hero that draws me in to most books. The romances I love are every bit as much about the hero as they are the heroine -- Brockmann, Ward, Moning. All are author fav's of mine. And it's all about the hero in their books.

Ah, but I think heroes will be next week. I’ll have an equally difficult time then. Rather than struggling to come up with six, I’ll be struggling to limit it to six.

Macy’s Sunday Six (in no particular order):

Anita Blake from the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton. I like Anita. While she’s not a classic romance heroine in that she doesn’t end up happily ever after with the one man of her dreams, she’s got this great character arc. I love her evolution. I love that she ends up “as happy as she can be right now” and that she changes and grows in the books. I love that Hamilton isn’t out to take the books in the direction that people want or expect her to go. I like that she’s edgy and pushes the envelope and does her thing, and lets Anita do hers.

I love Tabitha Devereaux in Sherilyn Kenyon’s Seize the Night in the Dark Hunter Series. She’s kick-ass, like Anita, and she marches to the beat of a different drummer. And honestly, when I thought of heroines that I like, she is one of the few whose name I remembered, so that has to mean something, right?

I also liked Gwen Cassidy in Karen Marie Moning’s Kiss of the Highlander. Moning writes hot, sexy time travel romances. Her heroes are the stars of her books, but she’s got a few heroines that I really like. Gwen is one. She’s spunky. She gets the hero, then loses him when they travel back in time because he can’t remember her, then gets him again via sheer determination and brazenness. Then, pregnant with his child and bound to him for all times, she loses him again when she gets yanked back to her own time. Finally, she overcomes her grief and chooses to live knowing she loved him even though she lost him. This takes her on a journey to be reunited with him once again.

Buffy (yes, as in the Vampire Slayer). Although she isn’t a romance heroine in a book, I’d argue that she is very much a romance heroine on the small screen. Hers is the tragic tale of love realized and then the horrible, awful, black moment that takes love away. If you watch the whole series from beginning to end, Buffy qualifies as the classic romance heroine over and over again. I like the way Jenny Crusie puts it in her essay on Buffy when she says the writers “seem to have an instinct for the messy part of romance, the off-the-wall, over-the-top, why-am-I-doing-this? insanity that makes love such a pain in the neck, whether somebody's biting you there or not.” Read her essay at http://www.jennycrusie.com/essays/datingdeath.php . It’s incredibly enlightening.


I love some other female heroines, but they aren’t romance heroines. Lyra from His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman is fabulous. (The Golden Compass will be a movie this winter.) If you haven’t read this series, you should. Trixie Beldon was always a favorite. And, Tinkerbell is fabulous.

Ah, but as for true romance heroines --- I can’t come up with six. However, it gives me something for which to strive: create a memorable, top six romance heroine.

Macy