Playing Favorites

When I was trying to think of something to blog about, I started to make a list of possible topics, which then led me to think about lists in general. I love lists. I love to make them, love to categorize and organize things, whether it's to-do lists or Christmas lists or lists of places I want to visit before I'm too old and tired to travel.

So then I thought, hey, it's a blog for romance readers and writers, so how about a list addressing one of our favorite topics?

Heroes.

We all love heroes, or we wouldn't be reading romance. And we all have our favorite kinds of heroes, don't we? Whether it's the urbane and powerful billionaire, the hard-bodied Special Forces soldier or the football-loving guy next door, romance heroes are always a fun topic to discuss. And since this is a blog with comments, and therefore interactive, how about we all make lists?

Name your five favorite kinds of heroes, and if you can, list a real life or fictional example of that type of hero.

I'll start:

1) BAD BOY LOOKING FOR REDEMPTION. I love a good redemption story, and I also love a bad boy as long as he really wants to be a good boy (to a certain point). Sawyer on LOST is a great example--he started out as a darned-near irredeemable bad guy but over time, he grew and matured as a character until last season, he was actually the hero of the series. Still, even though he grew emotionally, he never really lost his edge. Fictional heroes don't have to.

2) HERO WITH A TROUBLED PAST COME BACK TO HAUNT HIM. Consider this the sequel to the redeemable bad boy: the full blown hero forced to face the consequences of his past sins. One example of this kind of hero is Mel Gibson's Benjamin Martin in THE PATRIOT. A peaceful farmer with a family to raise, he's trying to put the violence of his past behind him. But the Revolutionary War requires men with war experience, and Martin has to face down the specter of his earlier savagery and try to find a new path, somewhere between the brutality of his past and the false idyll of his present in order to forge a better future.

3) THE CHARMING ROGUE. I'm a sucker for a sexy, sarcastic-tongued devil. I like a guy who knows how to face danger with a witty quip and who isn't afraid to laugh at himself--and others. A guy who loves women and doesn't apologize for flirting his way through a whole bunch of them. Of course, in romances, the fun of this kind of hero is taming him and turning him into a charming rogue who only has eyes for you. From TV's Rick Castle of CASTLE, Tony DiNozzo of NCIS and Sean Spencer of PSYCH to saucy movie pirate Jack Sparrow of the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN movies, charming rogues are always fun to fantasize about. Especially if that witty tongue is also a defense mechanism, hiding a hero's secret pain...

4) MY FAVORITE GEEK. I think I've blogged before about my penchant for a brainy, nerdy guy. I love them, especially in fiction. Because usually, behind the pocket protector beats the heart of a tiger, both in terms of courage and sexual attraction. Some of my favorite TV heroes are a bit nerdy, like Chuck of CHUCK, McGee of NCIS, and Gus of PSYCH. I also think that behind the stiff cravat and shiny Hessians, Mr. Darcy might have just been a bit of a Pointdexter himself--he was socially inept, romantically inarticulate and hung out with people like Bingley. Come ON.

5) THE PROTECTOR. It's almost a romantic suspense cliche--the cop, the bodyguard, the FBI agent, the soldier--but I love the protector anyway. I especially like one who gets sucked into protecting someone without quite knowing how it happened. The hero of my third book, Maddox Heller of FORBIDDEN TOUCH, is just such a hero. He's hiding from the world in the Caribbean, determined not to be anybody's hero ever again, since it went so badly the last time. But when Iris Browning literally stumbles into his life with a mystery to solve, and it becomes clear that Iris herself might be in danger, Maddox learns that old hero habits die hard.

So, there are my favorites. What are yours?