/  Just an aside before you read today’s profile (Virna’s skipping her column this week)… I’m soon to live in the south [Texas, though, not Georgia] and I’m here now house-hunting, totally stressed as we work out contract details, missing my kids, and reading Gone With the Wind for book club.  Please forgive yet another reference to my favorite book, but how could I not write about a Southern hero?  And one that I love so much! And now, with no further adieu… 

Gone With the Wind (Margaret Mitchell, Scribner, 1936)  Rhett Butler: Bad Boy/Charmer/Swashbuckler Rhett Butler might well be one of the original bad boys/charmers/swashbucklers of the south.  He’s the quintessential scoundrel–a blockader during the Civil War and a man who is not received in Atlanta or in Charleston.  Despite his bad reputation [in a time when reputation is everything], he’s full of charisma and heavy on charm.   In Rhett’s own words, however, he describes himself thusly: “…I’m a damned rascal and no gentleman…”    No wonder he’s so loved by women everywhere!  

STATS:   35 years old to Scarlett’s 18 [remember, these were the days of the Civil War] and over 6 feet tall.  Black hair, black eyes, a slightly black soul, and connected with “something pleasantly scandalous” but lovable nonetheless.  

THE LOOK: “He was a tall man and powerfully built.  Scarlett thought she had never seen a man with such wide shoulders, so heavy with muscles, almost too heavy for gentility.  When her eye caught his, he smiled, showing animal-white teeth below a close-clipped black mustache.  He was dark of face, swarthy as a pirate, and his eyes were as bold and black as any pirate’s appraising a galleon to be scuttled or a maiden to be ravished.  There was a cool recklessness in his face and a cynical humor in his mouth as he smiled at her, and Scarlett caught her breath.   She felt that she should be insulted by such a look and was annoyed with herself because she did not feel insulted.  She did not know who he could be, but there was undeniably a look of good blood in his dark face.  It showed in the thin hawk nose over the full red lips, the high forehead  and the wide-set eyes.” “There was mockery in everything he said.  [Scarlett] disliked him heartily, lounging there against the booth.  But there was something stimulating about him, something warm and vital and electric.”   

LEADING LADY: “All that was Irish in her rose to the challenge of his black eyes.  She decided she was going to take this man down a notch or two.  His knowledge of her secret gave him an advantage over her that was exasperating, so she would have to change that by putting him at a disadvantage somehow.  She stifled her impulse to tell him exactly what she thought of him.  Sugar always caught more flies than vinegar, as Mammy often said, and she was going to catch and subdue this fly, so he could never again have her at his mercy.” Rhett’s thoughts on Scarlett:  “On the occasion of our first eventful meeting I thought to myself that I had at last met a girl who was not only beautiful but who had courage…When I first met you, I thought: There is a girl in a million.  She isn’t like these other silly fools who believe everything their mammas tell them and act on it, no matter how they feel.  And conceal all their feelings and desires and little heartbreaks behind a lot of sweet words.  I thought: Miss O’Hara is a girl of rare spirit.  She knows what she wants and she doesn’t mind speaking her mind–or throwing vases.” At one point in Gone With the Wind, Rhett, who says more than once that he’s not the marrying kind, proposes that Scarlett become his mistress.  Ever the pragmatic, Scarlett’s response is that she’ll get nothing out of that arrangement other than a passel of brats.  So much for propriety and a ladylike upbringing.   But then Rhett likes Scarlett’s lack of propriety and unladylike behavior. He says that he never does anything with a specific purpose and he never gives anything without expecting something in return.  He “always gets paid”.  He tells her that her beaux have treated her with far too much respect and that she needs kissing by someone who knows how to kiss.  Ahhh… The question is, has he met his match in Scarlett O’Hara? 

BOTTOM LINE: Rhett Bulter is like Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.  He’s an original and he’s larger than life.  He comes from a different time and just as Ashley Wilkes, Rhett’s gentlemanly counterpart, represents all that is refined and idealistic in the Civil War south, so Rhett Butler represents all that is scandalous and daring and pushes us to think about the southerners who knew that “our Southern way of living is as antiquated as the feudal system of the Middle Ages.”  He refuses to “fight to uphold the system that cast [him] out.”   Just like Scarlett, Rhett isn’t afraid to say exactly what he thinks and feels, even if it goes against the conventional wisdom or the beliefs of the time.  He’s one of my all-time favorite heroes and he always will be.  

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Create your own analogy along the lines of “Rhett Butler being just like Mr. Darcy”.  Who are two larger than life heroes to you, either from past literature or from contemporary fiction? AND/OR Who is your all-time favorite hero from the past?   

Night Into Day by Sandra Canfield, Harlequin Superromance 10/87

 STATS:  Quarterback for the Memphis Marauders, he’s aware of the conflict between his glitzy image and the fact he could still feel fear, just like he had when he was the kid “from the poor Irish Channel neighborhood of New Orleans…He had given up being scared of the bogeyman for being scared of being an ancient thirty-five in a young man’s game…He was also scared of that empty feeling inside him, that empty feeling that warned that one day he was going to wake up…alone in an overwhelmingly lonely and uncaring world.  And that wasn’t the way he wanted to be.” 

 THE LOOK:   “[A]n aggressive, near-arrogant chin.  A sharply chiseled jaw…steel-strength, softened by an obvious fun-loving spirit.” 

 LEADING LADY:  A travel agent who specializes in serving the handicapped, Alex Farrell has been struggling to remain self-reliant despite her arthritis.  When Patrick steps in front of her and asks her whether she’d like to run away with him, she’s struck by immediate desire and a sadness that she won’t ever be able to run anywhere, let alone with a gorgeous celebrity. 

 BOTTOM LINE:  This book details Patrick’s determination to convince Alex, despite his stumbles along the way, that he’s a man she can count on.  It is as tender and passionate as the hero Canfield has crafted.  He knows that loving someone means being there for them in good and bad times.   He also knows he has to fight Alex’s stubbornness with his own.  “No need to wish an Irishman luck.  He was born with it.  Besides, he’s too stubborn to settle for less.”

 QUESTION OF THE DAY:  I’ve read quite a few great books with disabled heroes or heroines.  Susan Andersen had a hero named Elvis who had a prosthetic hand.  Catherine Anderson wrote about a woman in a wheelchair?  Any good ones I’ve missed?  Or if you don’t know of one, are you open to reading about characters with disabilities?

No One Heard Her Scream by Jordan Dane (Avon, 2008)

STATS: Mexican stepson of mobster who warns the heroine, a detective investigating the skeletal remains of woman found in a burned down building, that “his benefactor” is a dangerous man.  He finds himself drawn to the detective enough to seek her out when he shouldn’t, leaving her single stems of white roses and then “allowing” himself to be blackmailed to feed her inside information on the man he hates. 

THE LOOK: “Full head of black hair, well groomed. And he smelled so damned good….But his most memorable feature–his eyes–she’d recognize anywhere….Deep brown honey melting under a July sun.  Was that an eye color?”  

LEADING LADY: Rebecca Montgomery is still grieving over the presumed murder of her little sister who has been missing for over five months.  When she finds the remains of a missing girl, she’s determined to bring her killer to justice.  When she meets Diego, she’s not sure if he’s a good guy or bad guy.  All she knows is he moves her in a way that is almost irresistible.  She takes a leap of faith based on some evidence but also her gut instinct that he’s a good man.

BOTTOM LINE: I found Diego wasn’t your typical hero.  He was strong and kick-ass, but also funny and suave.  Kind of like James Bond with a Mexican accent.  And the reason I liked him so much was that, unlike many heroes portrayed in movies and books, he was more like the Daniel Craig James Bond–one who could get his ass kicked, and experience fear, but still ultimately get the job done.  He seemed real and complex.  In addition, he never hurt the heroine emotionally or struck out at her because of his own emotional wounds.  In fact, he seemed extremely emotionally healthy, which is kind of unusual given the backstory the author set up for him.  But it worked.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Have you ever made an initial judgment of a man (maybe disliked him on sight) and then been forced to reevaluate?  

Naked In Death By JD Robb (AKA Nora Roberts) (Berkeley, 1995) 

STATS:  ”Roarke–no known given name–born 10-06-2023, Dubin, Ireland….Parents unknown.”  Irish billionaire.  Education?  Unknown.  Criminal Record?  No data. 

THE LOOK:   Black hair, blue eyes, 6′2″, 173 pounds.  ”He was almost ridiculously handsome: the narrow, aesthetic face; the slash of cheekbones; and sculpted mouth.  His eyes were blue, but the word was much too simple for the intensity of color or the power in them.” 

LEADING LADY: Eve Dallas, NY police detective hunting ruthless killers.  Tall, willowy brunette with “eyes the color of honeycombs and a mouth made for sex.”  Serious cop of the future.  Battered leather jacket and jacked up, short hair.  Weakness for food and coffee and….Roarke.  

Roarke first meets Eve when she comes to interview him about the murder of an ex-lover.  The moment he saw her, he knew he’d have her, but that was before he knew she was a cop.  He hates cops, but he can’t stay away from Eve anyway.  He plies her with gourmet coffee and in an act of supreme romance, keeps the button that fell of her jacket in his pocket.      

BOTTOM LINE:   In this continuing series, Robb has created two characters so layered and complex.  The first is my favorite, the moment they meet, the book in which Eve first lets down her guard and gives in to passion with Roarke.  Roarke is strong and ruthless and sexy, but his true appeal lies in his utter devotion to Eve and, despite his worry, his ability to let her be the woman and cop she needs to be.   

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Like the gourmet coffee Roarke gives Eve, what “simple” pleasure could a man give you to win you over?