The Bitch Heroine

Well I just finished another Kristen Ashley book, Creed, and this one had an interesting heroine. Sylvie is hired muscle and works on the shady side of the law. She also openly likes sex, is willing to tell a man that he's just an available cock to her and nothing else and like most Ashley heroines never gets her way. Although unlike them, she admits she just gives in because she doesn't have the patience to fight.

But it got me thinking about bitchy heroines. If I was in a novel, I'd be considered a bitch. I'm opinionated, loud and curse like a sailor. I've also been known to lead sweet Southern women into lives of ridicule and sexual innuendo.

Modern women are hard to write. If they're independent, vocal, comfortable in their own skin and making it in this world then how can a man come in and make it all better? But if she crumbles in her life-coping then how is she a real modern woman?

My favorite heroine of all time is Quinn in Jennifer Crusie's Crazy for You. Quinn can stand up for herself and she does. She leaves a man she feels stagnant with, goes after a man who turns her on, and makes choices that make her happy. Quinn rocks and she does it with humor, guts and never turning the corner into whining or bitchiness.

I'm working on a book right now and the heroine is a business owner, a smart woman and just a little bit close to bitchy. I don't want readers to dislike her so I think there might be a bit of rewriting in my future.

It's funny though. Women today have to work full time, keep the house clean, raise kids, do all the errands and make decisions, while facing a world that still classes them as second class citizens. And we do it. We do it daily and still laugh and love and curse like sailors.

I don't think I'd want to be a romance heroine but I'd be interested to see a woman who is trying to keep it all together who mkes love and romance work in her life, just as another part of it.

(This post is somewhat convoluted since my daughter is doing magic tricks, the cat is scratching my chair and my stomach hurts. I promise to get it together at another time.)