Romantic hero/heroine poll

[rachelmanija]

I am sick in bed and reading romance novels. If you love me, rec me something angsty. Does not have to be genre romance, just contain a romance and angst. I've already read the Lymond Chronicles, Gaudy Night, and all or most of Emma Bull, Laura Kinsale, Suzanne Brockmann, Lois McMaster Bujold, Ellen Kushner, and Marjorie Liu. If it's a famous work of fantasy or sf, I have probably already read it.

Create your own romantic hero/heroine below! I leave it up to you whether your choices reflect your actual fantasies, a character you'd like to read about, or just what you think would be most hilarious.


[Poll #1384291]

Comments

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

But secretly, he or she is actually...A book in your library
This is a real manga or anime series, isn't it.

[cat-i-th-adage.livejournal.com]

There is an old Chinese story about a bookmark that turned into a beautiful woman and married the pale and socially-inept scholar who opened her book. I am entirely unable to dig up the book that it's in right now, though.

[shewhohashope.livejournal.com]

A private investigator with changeable hair and eye colour, titanium skin who is secretly my sword.

I actually wouldn't mind a private investigator and/or someone who is secretly my sword.

I recently read Silver Metal Lover by Tanith Lee, which is angsty romance, plus the hero has LITERALLY silver skin. Because he's a robot/musician/ideal lover.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I read it! I only wish I'd read it first when I was sixteen.

Anyone who is secretly your sword is good! Though maybe a robot or freedom fighter from the future should be secretly your gun.

lois mcmaster bujold's barrayaran stories...

[catdancerz.livejournal.com]

all of them, they are all romances, really...and full of angst as well as humor...start with the warrior's apprentice

Re: lois mcmaster bujold's barrayaran stories...

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Already read them all, but thanks.

[sleary.livejournal.com]

Loretta Chase, Lord of Scoundrels
Joanna Bourne, The Spymaster's Lady and My Lord and Spymaster

Hope you feel better soon but not before you've gotten in some quality reading time!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I am reading The Spymaster's Lady right now and loving it!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

If my hero were the same colors as my dream horse from childhood, he'd have snow white hair and ebony skin.

I couldn't believe watermelon tourmaline was for real until I Googled it. Wow!

I wonder what the spirit of Gary, Indiana, would be like. Or Troy, New York.

[daedala.livejournal.com]

If you have not read Connie Brockway's All Through the Night, it is awesome.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I have, and it is!

[riemannia.livejournal.com]

Duke of Shadows by Meredith Duran. Partially set in India. HIstorical romance.

[sleary.livejournal.com]

Ooh, yes, this one was good. Looking forward to her new ones coming out this summer!

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Swordspoint, by ellen_kushner. My favorite book in the WORLD. M/M romance, intrigue, swordplay, a moderate dose of angst, and a VERY satisfying ending. Also the sequels, The Fall of the Kings and The Privilege of the Sword.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Already read and loved!

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

LJ Smith Night World omnibus(es. You've probably read these already.

JD Robb, Naked in Death. (I really love the first several of these.)

Diana Gabaldon: Outlander. The first couple chapters are deadly dull. Skip to the point where she crosses into the past. It's like some kind of cracked out fanfic of Jacobean Scotland, pre-Revolutionary America, primitive nursing, and botany. And Catholicism, Free Masonry, and hot hot men. Highly recommended in a very weird way.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Ha ha ha Outlander! Devoured entire series in a gulp several years ago; was later retroactively creeped out by all the rape. The first book is great, though, and the whole thing is strangely addictive. Loved the Neanderthal. And the smallpox scar. And the sexual experience gender reversals.

Love Smith, can't get into Robb.

[bravecows.livejournal.com]

I would eat watermelon tourmaline if it were a gummy.

Try slash fic for your romance needs? http://www.intimations.org/fanfic/ usually works for me when I want to roll around happily in fic that'll hit all my pleasure centres.

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Oh, also, I think you might really like Drop Dead Gorgeous, which is a Harry Potter fic. (Don't faint!!) It's a buddy cop story of Harry and Draco when they're adults. It's hilarious but extremely angsty, slash but very little sex (just angst!), and the style is incredible. I have the whole thing in a PDF file and I can send it to you. The fanfic author is now published and removed her fanfic from posted sites but says it's fine to send it via email everywhere.

I actually usually listen to it on audio. I can send you a link if you like to listen while sick. It's novel length.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Okay, send! (PDF; I'm having intermittent trouble with downloads.)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Angsty and bittersweet, Frenchman's Creek.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

The Big Sleep is probably the most angsty romance ever - even if he and Terry never get it on. And if you want to watch, not read, then what can match Casablanca for angst?

[oyceter]

Lord of Scoundrels is awesome, but not that angsty (also, have you already read it?).

I started the Duke of Shadows despite the India thing, and the hero is one-fourth Indian, and in the first chapter, it feels like all the Exoticised Ethnicities already. I mean, it could change, but I'm not betting on it.

The Megan Chance books I made you buy are INCREDIBLY angsty. Save Fall From Grace for last; that one's my favorite. And it has a female outlaw to boot!

I can't remember if you've read Shana Abe yet; hers are not very angsty but a little angsty.

[oyceter]

Also, if I could have checked "Lucifer" multiple times, I would have! And "your sword"!

[estara.livejournal.com]

Linnea Sinclair - Gabriel's Ghost & Shades of Dark (which tell one romance and its angst)
Her darkest sf romances, I think.
http://www.linneasinclair.com/gabrielsghost.html#excerpt
http://www.linneasinclair.com/shadesofdark.html#excerpt

Personally I like Finder's Keepers, Accidental Goddess and Games of Command better, as they are not quite so dark. But they're still highly competent women and the highly competent men who love them, mostly before the girls even realise it (especially in Games of Command and Finder's Keepers)

I bet you've already read Megan Whelan Turner's Attolia books, which would be romance (at least from the second book on) and quite angsty.

Since you liked Marjorie Liu, Meljean Brook and her Guardian books might also work in the angst and great characters department.
http://meljeanbrook.com/books

[estara.livejournal.com]

oops, it's Megan WHALEN Turner ^^
http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/15254/Megan_Whalen_Turner/index.aspx

[chomiji]

Martha Wells' "Fall of Ile Rien" series is quite a lot of fun. And yes, there is a romance - between two rather blunt, suspicious individuals.

You can read the first several chapters of the first volume here ... scroll down past the first screenful or so for links to the chapters (which are actually farther down on the same page).

[lanerobins.livejournal.com]

I'm seconding this. Martha Wells anything is great fun to read. The Wizard Hunters (bk 1) has one of my favorite openings ever: It was nine o'clock at night and Tremaine was trying to find a way to kill herself that would bring in a verdict of natural causes in court when someone banged on the door.

[octopedingenue.livejournal.com]

Transformation by Carol Berg is slashy id-indulgent WINGFIC. Stop after the first book, though, it tries to grow Plot by quashing the slash.

Blindspot by Kamensky & Lepore has cross-dressing and Octavian Nothing-style mystery!

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

I second Transformation! And I second not the sequels, too.

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

I LOVE THIS SURVEY SO MUCH. ♥♥♥♥

[canandagirl.livejournal.com]

I'd kill for purple eyes...yup. Definitely.

You should read the 'Elfquest' series. Or that other book I lent you! ;)

[gauroth.livejournal.com]

Not angsty, and now old enough to be considered historical novels, but have you tried Mary Stewart's 'romantic thrillers'? They are set in the (then contemporary) 1950s and 60s. 'Wildfire at Midnight' happens in '52, when Everest is being climbed and the Queen is about to be crowned - it's a different world. The murder mystery is twisty, the setting is a remote part of Scotland, and it's yummy. Or there's 'Airs Above the Ground' which combines a spy-story and the Lipizzaner horses.

Her heroines are strong characters (though one has to allow for the mores of the time) and they are, I think, wonderfully written. I suspect that if you like Dunnett you'll like Stewart. Her books about Merlin, beginning with 'The Crystal Cave', are pretty good, too.

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

Carolyn Jewell's Scandal. Really well-written romance, tons of angst, and it's justified angst. Something happened that was serious and took me totally aback half-way through. (I bought Lord Ruin because of Scandal's cool, but did not like it as much.)

[lferion]

I am very fond of Sheila Simonson's regency romances -- Lady Elizabeth's Comet, The Bar Sinister, Love and Folly, and particularly 'A Cousinly Connexion'.

[daedala.livejournal.com]

Wow, someone else has read these!

But Lady Elizabeth's Comet is the best!!!!!!!!!!

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

BEST.POLL.EVER.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I assume you've read Sherwood Smith's A Game of Kings? (Not particularly fond of the men, actually, but the romance itself was quite nice.)

I'm exceptionally fond of Loretta Chase and Marcha Canham, and some Jo Beverleys, especially her medievals.

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

Yes, definitely Loretta Chase. I mean: who else sets a romance in Albania? Also the usual good writing, decent research, and interesting heroes and heroines.

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

Romance suggestions:

Anything by Kate Fenton, but especially _Dancing to the Pipers_, _Balancing on Air_, and especially _Lions and Liquorice_ (aka Vanity and Vexation) (the spirit of P&P in a modern setting). Witty and wonderful.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips can be a bit sports-oriented, but any writer who starts off a book with her heroine walking beside a highway wearing a full-size brown-fur beaver costume (with removable head): what is not to love?

Lynn Kerstan's romances are excellent reads: generally set in the 18th or 19th century, often in India as well as the UK. Jo Beverley's Regencies and Georgian-era romances are also page-turners, particularly the Malloren series. Both of these authors do their research properly.