Tag: classic romance tropes

Romance Novels

Classic Romance Tropes ~ the tortured hero

Tortured heroes… women love them. Maybe it’s something about their dark brooding nature. Maybe we want to be the one woman to save them from themselves. Apparently I am not immune to the tortured hero myself since it seems I keep writing them into my books. Jack Gordon from my Red, Hot & Blue series was probably the first one for me. He grew up with a single mother after his drunk of a father left, but he and his brothers kept themselves on the straight and narrow. Now, Jack is in the military, basically a happy guy, but circumstances lead to him still being tortured. He’s watching his best friend TREY hook up with the woman he loves and his older brother JIMMY is missing in action during an undercover op in Kosovo. I torture my cowboys as well. Mason from ROUGH STOCK is the quintessential dark brooding cowboy, which made him the perfect counterpart for Clay, his happy-go-lucky best friend. When Mason and Clay find themselves both in love with same girl, Mason really has something to brood about until they try to figure out how to make this strange three-way relationship work. Then there are those broody […]

bull riding, Cowboys, Romance Novels, writing romance

Classic Romance Tropes: the older brother’s best friend

I was thoroughly enjoying procrastinating my work to read this blog post on Confessions of a Romance Reader when it nudged me into finally writing a post of my own that I’ve been putting off doing. I’ve blogged about classic themes in romance before–the marriage of convenience, opposites attract, and enemies to lovers. But there are a few more themes I find myself turning to again and again in my own writing, and one is the older brother’s best friend and/or best friend’s little sister. You know the stories. The plots have been written and rewritten… Younger sister has a lifelong crush on her older brother’s best friend but he sees her as a kid. Younger sister of the hero’s best friend is suddenly all grown up, but she’s off limits out of respect for his friend so he fights his own attraction. The conflict is inherent in the plot and makes the story even juicier. I must like this trope a lot, because look how many of my stories employ a variation of it! Bucked (Studs in Spurs series)- Sage grows up with a crush on the neighbor boy who ends up dating her older sister before leaving home. Years […]

Romance Novels

Classic Romance Tropes – the marriage of convenience

Classic romance tropes, those tales that have been told and retold for centuries. The Harlequin-esqe themes that have kept that publishing house in business, and at the top of the romance world, for years. Classic themes of love are everywhere–even in that newest sensation. You know the one, the book that shall  not be named. I personally consider Voldabook (AKA 50 Shades) just another retelling of the Cinderella story, where the plain Jane meets the prince, or sheikh, or millionaire (or billionaire, to account for inflation). He falls hopelessly in love with her and moves heaven and earth to be with her. Only in this version, he’s a damaged ‘prince’ wielding duct tape and a belt and only her love can save him. Anyway, today I’m focusing on another classic romantic device, the marriage of convenience. You know the type–the love story is centered around a couple who has to get married for any number of reasons, usually because his/her family needed the money to save the family land or title or whatever. Since I write contemporary westerns, I don’t have any titled ladies in danger of losing their family castle because it’s been entailed and will go to the next […]