Meggan Connors {Guest #Author}

Ah, the broody hero.

Mr. Darcy. Heathcliff. Mr. Rochester. Any character as played by Jared Leto.

These are the tormented souls who populate our romance novels. Well, they populate the romance novels that populate my shelf, anyway. If we’re looking at the classics or historicals, we’re usually talking about an educated man who lives alone. He’s probably of noble stock, and, thinking he has something to prove, he tortures himself with work, sneers at societal norms and the delicate dance of courtly life, and pines for a woman he can’t have. Or the one he can have, but doesn’t think he deserves.

In the cases of Rochester, Darcy, and Heathcliff, these men could also use some serious social skills training, too. I mean, wow. One of my favorite lines in Jane Eyre is this one, spoken by Mr. Rochester,

“You—you strange—you almost unearthly thing!—I love as my own flesh. You—poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are—I entreat to accept me as a husband.”

Honestly, what kind of proposal is that? “You’re not pretty, and you’re broke and you’re short. Wanna get hitched?” That part about loving her as his own flesh would be totally romantic if he hadn’t just spent the entire book proving he loathes himself.

Yet I love that line. I can’t explain it. Something about Mr. Rochester just does it for me, and has since my sophomore year in high school. Also, Michael Fassbender playing Mr. Rochester was, quite simply, delicious. (He does tormented very well, but then, he’s half Irish, and we Irish—even mutt Irish like me—are a broody lot.)

In modern movies, the broody hero drinks too much coffee, sleeps too little, and desperately needs a shower and a shave. He listens to the likes of Evanescence, Tori Amos, or any artist that my husband would refer to as “depressed, whiny boy music.” Maybe he plays the guitar and composes his own music. Perhaps he’s a cop who has seen too much, a man who rides his motorcycle too fast in order to outrun his demons.

He is a lost soul, searching the cold, cruel world for his other half. His wounded heart just needs the love of a good woman to be whole.

And we eat it up.

But here’s my question: Would you actually want to date this kind of man?

The answer is…no.

Sure, the brush of his shadow beard against the hollows of your neck is…oh, hell’s bells, it’s intoxicating. Just hearing the roar of his motorcycle is enough to give you palpitations. He strums his guitar and he may as well be strumming his fingers against your skin. He’s not into sports of any kind, unless you count being winded from early onset emphysema as sport. Instead, the two of you will talk about Rilke or Keats or Shelley or Lord Byron. He’ll probably have something deep to say that will blow your mind.

We love a dark hero in romance novels. I certainly do. But, as it turns out, the hero of my own personal romance isn’t some dark and broody character. He watches The Simpsons and loves football. The music he listens to has far more to do with naked chicks than it does the meaning of our existence. He couldn’t play the guitar if his life depended on it. He laughs loudly and often.

At the end of the day, that’s what I want to come home to.

But gads, I do enjoy visiting the brooding hero every once in a while.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR…Meggan makes her home in the Wild West with her lawman husband, two children, and a menagerie of pets. She is a member of Romance Writers of America and the Sacramento Valley chapter. When she’s not writing, she can be found playing with her kids, hiking in the mountains, or reading a book.

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When her father loses her in a poker game, Lexie Markland is sent to work in the household of Nicholas Wetherby for one year to pay off the debt. Innocent, but not naïve, she is savvy enough to know she must maintain her distance from this man, who frustrates her with his relentless teasing but whose kisses bring her to her knees. Because although she may be just another conquest to him, it’s not just her heart in jeopardy should she succumb to Nicholas’ considerable charms.

Since his brother’s death almost a year before, nothing has held Nicholas’ attention for long—not women, not booze, not even an excellent hand at cards. Nothing, that is, until he meets the woman he won in a drunken night of poker. Intrigued by his prize and her chilly reserve, he makes it his mission to crack Lexie’s cool demeanor. But even as passion explodes between them, the question remains: will Nicholas be able to take the ultimate risk…and gamble on love?

• Publisher: Soul Mate Publishing
• Publication date: 12/15/2011
• Format: eBook

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