Seduction, Rape and the Alpha Hero - Are we too PC for serious Alpha males?

Note: Links will take you to the books mentioned or typical. As some comments constitute spoilers I leave it to your discretion as to whether you click. The link for Violet Winspear will take you to romancewiki.

Violet Winspear wrote 70 romance novels for Mill's and Boon from 1961 to 1987. One of the greats of the romance genre, Winspear was vilified when she was quoted as saying her heroes would be capable of rape.

This is what she said:
"I get my heroes so that they're lean and hard muscled and mocking and sardonic and tough and tigerish and single, of course. Oh and they've got to be rich and then I make it that they're only cynical and smooth on the surface. But underneath they're well, you know, sort of lost and lonely. In need of love but, when roused, capable of breathtaking passion and potency. Most of my heroes, well all of them really, are like that. They frighten but fascinate. They must be the sort of men who are capable of rape: men it's dangerous to be alone in the room with."

In fact I can name two Winspear books off hand where you spend the entire book thinking that the hero had in fact raped the heroine resulting in pregnancy.

Winspear was not alone in this kind of scenario.  Anne Hampson and Margaret Rome wrote quite a number of books with situations where the heroine is reluctant to consummate the arranged or unwanted marriage and is (to put it politely) forced into intimacy against their will. In most cases the heroine is already in love or falling in love with the hero (and vice versa) though may not admit it.  It is usually revealed at some point that the lovemaking was actually not repugnant to the heroine in spite of her often denying this while still rebelling against the hero.

In the case of one of Winspears, the heroine admits that she felt ashamed that she had succumbed to the hero and had been frightened not just of his passion but her own which is why she cried rape.  The other is more problematic but the situation is of a young girl, unawakened ,who loves her guardian but is unsure of him.  When she decides to flee he is overcome with his desire for the young woman he's loved for years and in his anger and fear of losing her he loses control. Justified in the story line by the fact that he loved her and in fact she loved him.  It is more a case of an innocent shocked by the passion of her lover than any physical harm to the heroine.

Now of course you would never ever find this kind of scenario in a modern Harlequin Mills & Boon. Or do you?  I suggest that we do get exactly these scenarios but the different level of show and tell in modern romances allows us to see what happens inside the bedroom. Once we had to imagine the intimacies of the bedroom, tastefully blurred over and relegated to a morning after memory and in the case of a reluctant heroine a usually biased view of the happenings of the night coloured by her resentment at her response to the heroes lovemaking.

Now that we enter the bedroom with the lovers, we see that the reluctant heroine is overcome by the sensual potency of the hero and in fact responds, even though sometimes unwilling still in mind, (rebelling against the hero still! Will these heroines ever learn?).  The heated passion of the alpha male is matched in modern romances by the now acceptable passion of the heroine.  Our modern heroines don't have the disadvantage of believing that passion and desire are somehow "not nice" for "nice" young women.  Which may explain why we never have a modern heroine crying rape. 

 Passion is unexceptional, Seduction is acceptable, Desire is now an Imprint so doubly delectable.

The Squick Factor

This blog is full of spoilers. If you don't want to know don't click on the links. Every book read was well written and a good story even though there were aspects I felt uncomfortable about.  The ones I didn't read probably were too but naturally I can't comment.

I learned about the squick factor from Maisey Yates, one of the new bestselling authors with Harlequin Mill & Boon and I'm forever indebted for this invaluable word.  It apparently means the physical revulsion you get when something makes you squirm or feel icky.  It's not necessarily a moral judgement, just a personal reaction. It's something I've been feeling a bit lately and lacked an effective way of expressing.  Because the squick factor that paralyses ME  may have absolutely no effect on the rest of the romance reading population.

It came to a head a fortnight ago when I read about twenty Modern HM&Bs in a row and ended up feeling like I'd done an Augustus Gloop and tried to drink a whole river of greasy, sickly sweet chocolate. It was days before I could pick up a book and try to read it without feeling a faint nausea and an uncomfortable tightness in my chest.  I spent those days wondering exactly what I'd done to myself because on the whole I'd enjoyed every single book I'd read.

Then I realised that what I was feeling was a stress reaction.  Which is ridiculous when I read romances to de-stress.  So why was I finding them stressful?  When I learned about the squick factor it clarified it for me.  There is an emotional pattern to reading a typical HM&B Romance.  It usually involves boy meets girl, some pretty severe angst and trauma that seems likely to part them forever, and then everything is resolved and people live happily ever after (unless of course you read a duet).

What is happening with many of the Moderns is that some aspect of the story is triggering the squick factor for me and when I get to the end I don't get that relief of unalloyed happiness that sweeps me away and all my cares and worries with it.

So what sort of things trigger my particular squick factor.  Keep in mind that for any other reader these may simply be part and parcel of their enjoyable experience.

1.  Hero in bed with Mistress in opening chapter.
After a squick reaction on Pancake Tuesday I decided to give up reading any book that started this way for Lent. So far I've put down three books on this account and am thinking of extending it to a lifetime ban. Oh yeah...and a new trend in books I hadn't noticed before, hero masturbating.  Two books in a week was a little much for me but wont stop me reading...yet.

2.  Heroine in sexual relationship with someone in opening chapter (Is a Master the equivalent to a Mistress or am I in the wrong imprint?)
So far one book put aside on this account and one audio book listened to the finish. It was a six hour trip...and there were extenuating circumstances.

3.   Heroine pregnant to some random guy not the hero.
This is actually a tricky one because I've read a couple where the heroine was pregnant to a brother or close relation of the hero either married or serious relationship and it didn't squick me quite as much as another situation where it was just a loser ex boyfriend. But I'd prefer not to go there and in most cases I haven't if the blurb has warned me but examples are easy to find if you Google.

4.   Too much detail about Heroes former Mistress. 
Especially when they turn up as family friends and the Heroine has to be polite to the woman who is usually undermining the marriage. Read two of these recently and definitely added to squick factor.

5.   Revelation, usually when the heroine is about to have sex with the hero, that she has had multiple casual partners in the past. 
About five of those twenty nausea inducing Modern's had a heroine with this characteristic.  Call me prudish but I feel more comfortable with a widow or just one serious relationship. Heaven forbid I should admit I like Virgin heroines best. If I want reality I don't look for it in a series romance novel.  (see comment above about stress)  Sorry gals but thats the way I am. I prefer to think the heroine shouldn't have to kiss too many frogs before finding her prince. The fact that the writing is brilliant and the books are mega sellers tells me that I'm in the minority on that particular squick factor but hey, there are also writers still catering for my old fashioned taste.

6.   Now in case you think I'm old fashioned about girls but not guys...  Major squick factor lately is the way the modern alpha male is constantly in bed with a woman. 
Like these guys can apparently rule the finance world, an entire country even, but cannot control one small appendage.  Excuse me, getting laid every night does not automatically translate into 'great lover'.  Experience is one thing but in bondage to a libido is a weakness not a strength.   This has become such an irritant to me that I put aside a book by an author I love for six months before I could force myself to read it because he turned up with his Mistress in the car to meet his arranged bride.  It didn't turn out to be quite as bad as I thought but the fact that he did sleep with other women during the enforced engagement and after he'd met his future bride was a definite squick factor even though I love the story.  Apparently this is quite acceptable because it is not uncommon in the Modern range of romances for a man forced into a marriage or engagement to continue sleeping around.  I'm certainly going to miss Penny Jordan here though because she is one author who actually wrote about heroes who were abstinent for long periods of time.

7.   No doubt there are other squick factors I could enumerate but I'll finish with the biggy.  The one that has paralysed my mouse click finger over the Add to Cart button on not one but two of my favourite authors and made me cautious about a couple more. The issue is infidelity. 
Any kind of infidelity once the hero and heroine have slept together but the deal breaker is marital infidelity.   After three books by one of these authors in which the hero is unfaithful, two within the bonds of matrimony and one after the hero has made the heroine pregnant, I've been forced into a three strikes and you're out emotional paralysis. I simply cannot make myself read any more of their books even though intellectually I know they will be well written and even the infidelity will no doubt be justified within the bounds of the storyline. But I still derive the greatest pleasure from a story where the hero is faithful even over a long and difficult period of time.

Unfortunately it isn't just particular authors that I can no longer trust to deliver my HEA with wholehearted joy. After thirty five years of reading HM&B romances I'm aware that once a trend is established it will spread among other authors seeking challenging story lines.  It will be justified because it is something that happens in the real world.  So I need to accept I can no longer be assured of picking up a HM&B and being certain of a stress free read as was once promised in 'A pleasant book.'

If it's a Happy Ever After then why am I so sad?

Spoilers for the following books in this blog post.  If you don't want to know, go and read them and come back later and tell me what you think.

Harlequin

Mills&Boon

Lucy Gordon - Miss Prim and the Billionaire
Lucy Gordon - The Italian's Wife by Sunset
Robyn Donald - An Old Passion
Kate Walker - The Sicilian's Wife
Rosalind Brett - Love This Stranger

You know that feeling that romance writers describe when the heroine feels a tightness in her chest somewhere in the region of the heart and a lump in the throat that won't go away by swallowing.  I know that exact feeling because I get it all the time when I read a romance with characters that engage me.  Usually it gets to the excruciatingly painful stage at around page 140 and I console myself that in another fifty pages it will all be sorted and I'll be smiling.

Except sometimes it doesn't happen that way.  Sometimes you get to the end and the tightness doesn't quite go away.  The feeling of wanting to cry lingers and even long months down the track remembering that particular story brings a catch to the throat.

I was reminded of this today when I finished reading Lucy Gordon's "Miss Prim and the Billionaire" and I found myself trying not to cry.  Technically everything should have been fine.  The usual suffering and angst followed by the getting together and the happy ever after.  All very nice. But the hero and heroine are still so very damaged from their history.  Torn apart in their youth, Marcel and Cassie's idealistic romance comes to a shuddering halt with the intervention of an obsessive third party.  Mistakes on both sides compound the issues and they have ten years of suffering and misconceptions to deal with when they finally meet again.  The blurb on the back asks the question. "Can it ever be the same again?"  Obviously not because they are not the same people.  Will what they do find together be enough to overcome the past and bring them a real Happy Ever After?  Frankly I'm not sure if I believe it in my heart, or why else would I be trying not to cry?

This is not the first Lucy Gordon that has left me feeling this way.  I often think of her lovely story "The Italian's Wife by Sunset" in this context.  The story of  Della, an older woman, and a fabulous young Italian alpha male looks to have enough angst in it without the addition of a tragedy that leaves you with the knowledge that their romance, however perfect at the end of the book, will probably not see them growing old and grey together.  Perhaps Carlo will get another story later. He's certainly gorgeous enough but I know I'd cry all the way to the Happy Ever After, knowing what I do about his first love.

New Zealand author Robyn Donald is another author that pretty much knows how to pull your heart out and trample on it, stab it a few times, wrap it in coarse sandpaper and then stick it back into the raw and gaping wound.  No wonder we love her writing.  Stories like "An Old Passion" where the young heroine is driven away and in desperation makes a fatal choice that seems to end forever the hope of a HEA.  When Merrin and Blase finally meet again the bitterness and guilt seem likely to keep it that way.  When the whole story is revealed and all is resolved you can't help but regret the tragedy of the wasted years and unnecessary suffering.


I first read Rosalind Brett's book "Love this Stranger" back in the 70's and it was a story memorable enough that when I saw a second hand copy on ebay I immediately wanted to read it again.  If thirty years hadn't passed to fade the memory a little perhaps I wouldn't have been so keen.  This is a story to wring the heart.  A strong alpha male who falls for a young eighteen year old tomboy who has a lot to learn about life and love.  What the hero and heroine go through to get to their HEA is gut wrenching.  Both protagonists suffer, Dave from the intensity of his feelings for a girl who is too immature to understand the depth of his love and the sacrifices necessary.  The heroine, Tess, finally matures but at a tremendous cost to those around her and to herself.  When they finally have their meeting of heart and mind in the very last paragraph of the book it comes with the sorrowful awareness of all that has gone before.

My final choice for a story that leaves me with a melancholy ache is Kate Walker's "The Sicilian's Wife."  Cesare is one of the most adorable heroes ever.  This poor guy, alpha male, super control freak, has been in love with Megan for years, ever since she was not much more than a child.  All that time he's been waiting because of an arbitrary decision by Megan's father about a suitable age for Megan to marry.  Then, just as he believes he is getting his hearts desire it all falls apart on him.  Megan is in trouble as a result of a relationship with another man.  What's a proud Sicilian alpha male to do when he's lost his virgin bride and apparently her affection.  Watching Cesare deal with these blows is hard enough until we add Megan's situation.  One stupid mistake after her pride was dashed by Cesare's seeming rejection has destroyed all her hopes and dreams in one fell swoop. They both get the marriage they desired with all their hearts but neither believes they will get a Happy Ever After.    While the story demonstrated how great Cesare's love really was I can't help feeling a little sad that after serving his time for his bride that moment of triumph was marred by circumstances beyond the control of both of them.  But then of course we wouldn't have a story. <smacks head>

So the questions I'm puzzling over are these.  Does a happy ending always make you feel happy?  Should it make you feel happy?  Is an ending where you wish it was different really a satisfactory result?  Or am I just taking this all too seriously?  These aren't real people.  They are constructs from some very talented authors who can create characters you care about, who engage you enough to want to travel the journey with them, no matter how painful, no matter how traumatic.  And I guess that is an end in itself if the journey is the reason for being there.  To travel with, rather than to. But I admit to loving my happy endings.  Because in every fictional happy ending there is a kernel of hope for the real world.

This blog is about my thirty five year romance with Harlequin Mills & Boon

I first began reading Mill's & Boon romances in 1976 when I moved from the country to go to boarding school in Brisbane.  An only child, I found the exigencies of boarding school life extremely stressful.  It was only natural that I turn to drugs.  My drugs of choice were the Mill's & Boon romances I could purchase at Woolworths at four for a dollar.  Five dollars could give me quite a stash.  As time went on I became a three a day addict and I loved it.  Authors like Elizabeth Ashton and Elizabeth Hunter, Sara Seale, Anne Hampson, the rather daring Anne Mather and a new American author by the name of Janet Dailey.  These and the many other regular writers became my daily diet and some books I still remember with great fondness.

Over the years as social mores and authors change Harlequin/ Mills & Boons have changed too.  Some changes I love and others I'm not so sure about.  Wanting to talk about these changes is one of the main reasons I decided to start this blog.  I will admit straight away that I'm rather an old fashioned reader so many people might not agree with my views.  I'm happy to debate them in a straight forward respectful manner.  But I will also state my opinions clearly and at times be quite opiniated.  It's my nature and the nature of blogs.  After all aren't most blogs designed to express opinions?

The title of the blog is 'A Pleasant Book.'  I have some lovely vintage hardcovers with the statement in print across the back cover 'such pleasant books'.  Inside the cover is the following declaration above a  sketch of a smiling woman. 'I always look for the "Mills & Boon" when I want a pleasant book!"

The screed goes on to say 'Your troubles are at an end when you choose a Mills & Boon novel. No more doubts! No more disappointments!  A Mills & Boon will give you hours of happy reading.' 

With the many changes over the decades since then I'm wondering if that statement is still accurate.  What exactly constitutes a pleasant book and happy reading?  What are the right ingredients to maximise the happy ending?  Do women really want something different from romance than they did decades ago?  What constitutes a hero and even more importantly considering the bulk of readers are women, what constitutes a heroine?

As I discuss these issues I will refer to books as I read them.  Some will be vintage books dating back to the earliest I have which were written in the thirties.  Others will be current modern issues from the Presents/Modern range and Sweet/Romance.   I don't read many of the other imprints so will not comment unless something comes to my attention I'd like to discuss about them.

A warning to readers of the blog.  There will be spoilers.  I will name any books discussed at the top of the blog post so you can choose to continue reading if you aren't worried about spoilers. Otherwise you can go and read the books and then come back and see if you agree.  Many vintage books as well as more current out of print ones are available on www.ebay.com and www.abebooks.com and of course www.amazon.com .  Current books are available on www.harlequin.com  including over 2000 old 1990's books that are being reissued gradually as ebooks.  www.millsandboon.co.uk also have current issues and ebooks.

I hope you will join in the discussion.  The romance genre has been looked at askance by intellectuals and social commentators.  But the millions of women who read them every day can't all be wrong.  If we are then perhaps we will enjoy being wrong together, in a very pleasant way.