If you search movies with Romantic Heroes at Amazon.com, this is what you get: 

1.Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

2.Goldfinger

3. Last of the Mohicans

 4. Conan the Barbarian

 5. Superman, the Movie

 6. First Knight

 7. Lord of the Rings

 8. Dick Tracy

 9. Star Wars, the Trilogy

 10. Army of Darkness 

Check out the Chasing Heroes Library for more on heroes!

Question of the Day:  What do you think of this list?  What would be your number one? 

I had a hankering for a good western, with a strong cowboy, with tons of romantic elements, framed in the sweeping majestic landscape of the plains. So standing in my local big name bookstore I searched, searched, searched again, and searched some more. I found a few.  To give an exact count, I found five. Out of all the romances I was looking at, (which was two isles, filled on both sides) for a long time, I found five western based romances. And there was only one book for each of those five. So, it actually was only five books. Really five. No kidding five. On-line book stores carry a better selection, but many I had already read in the 90’s.

What happened to the cowboy?  Did he ride off into the sunset and just simply get lost? No GPS to bring him back over that ridge so we could see his romantic silhouette, urging his horse into a gallop against the blazing orange sky?  I guess not, because I sure couldn’t find him. Well, that wasn’t exactly true, I found five, and two were contemporary westerns. Do they count?

The world of publishing is fickle. For those who love to read and write westerns it is a year to year guessing game as to whether they’ll make a push back into the mainstream of romance. For the authors, they sit quietly on the sidelines waiting for the right moment to burst forward again. Even for RWA, which has a several excellent special interest on-line groups, there is nothing specifically for the western. They do have Hearts through History, which covers all the historical genres.

At every conference I’ve attended in the past, there was the whisper, that westerns were making a come back, after a long stretch of CPR. There hasn’t been a western on the best sellers list in years. I checked today, there isn’t one there, unless it is way down at the bottom of the heap, like number 1,000 or something.  So if their making a come back, where are they? Were is the romantic image, of the rugged no-nonsense cowboy, who sweeps he’s hat off his tousled head, as his spurs jingle, when a lady passes by.  

The market is flooded with kilts and highland lovers ever since the Outlander series was released. The brooding image of the sword welding Scotsman, hasn’t shown any sign of slowing down, although, the industry says it’s snowed under in tartans. Okay, not a bad place to be considering whats under the kilt. But, even with that thought, my hankering for that epic western romance has not been dashed.

I’ve written a couple of contemporay westerns, and entered one in a contest. It didn’t do well. The reason, the judge didn’t like cowboys. She made that fact perfectly clear when she claimed they were a cliche. And added that no one wore cowboy hats, at least not anymore. Really I got marked down for all that. There was more, but I won’t repeat it here. To say the least, my reaction was p-r-e-t-t-y strong.

So what is a cowboy loving girl to do? Hang in there, the CPR is still going on, there is glimmer of life in the subject, and just maybe my epic romantic western will make an appearance soon. I’ll keep looking.

Question of the Day: One of my favorite cowboys, of course was John Wayne. I loved Kevin Costner in both Dancing with Wolves, and in Open Range. I’ve got a lot more, but will save them for another time. Who is your favorite Cowboy?

Last night I joined a friend for the first of a four-part class on “The Power of Now,” a book by Eckhart Tolle, author of “The Good Earth.”  In a nutshell (and keep in mind I haven’t read the book), the class is about striving to be present and in the moment as much as possible, which means letting go of past and future worries, and concentrating on simply achieving peace (albeit a peace and joy that is not characterized by positive or negative emotion, but simply “is”).  To tell you the truth, I had a hard time with these concepts.  To me, any joy a person feels is always relative to the negative feelings they’ve experienced.  In addition, I don’t feel true peace or joy is ever sustainable because any human knows that it is transitory. 

In any event, it got me to thinking about what makes heroes in fiction so appealing, and to me one of the biggest things is that heroes are affected by both past and future events.  Usually they have suffered to a certain degree, but despite this they have a dream of the future (even if this dream is buried so deep they don’t even acknowledge it to themselves). 

Heroes are shaped by their past because it is what made them who they are today and, inescapably, it is what motivates their actions as they try to achieve their future goals.  Because I usually write about how a hero’s tortured past motivates him, I wanted to give a much more light-hearted example of how a hero’s past, even in a small snippet, can intrigue us and make us feel that much closer to him.

In Shannon McKenna’s Melt Down, Michael MacNamara is as macho as they come, but when the heroine teases him about being like her fairy godmother, he replies, “Oh great,” he said sourly.  “What a turn on.  Bippity boppity boo.”  To the amused heroine, he reveals that he raised his sister and that he “knows his Disney.”

To me, this small insight into the hero’s past reveals so much about who he is and he’s more than the macho, alpha, highly-sexed hero we’ve seen so far.  So while I definitely think being in the moment and achieving peace is a worthy goal, I also feel you achieve that moment by accepting and embracing all that has happened and can happen in your life.  In the end, it’s all good—if only because you have gotten past it and continue to dream of better.

QUESTION: FORGET THE PAST OR EMBRACE IT? 

Into the Shadow, Christina Dodd

Signet Paranormal Romance 2008

Book three of the Darkness Chosen Series

This is an incredibly sexy read, with two strong leading characters. Into the Shadow, is the third of the Darkness Chosen series about the Wilder brothers, who are born into a family whose ancestors had made a pack with the devil.

Karen Sonnet is the daughter of a wealthy businessman. She was raised to be tough and survive a man’s world. Now she finds herself in the Himalayan Mountains, trying to build an adventure hotel at the foot of one of the highest peaks in the world, the cursed Mount Anaya. Failure isn’t an option she understands, and not one her father will accept. Even though a stranger who makes incredible love to her haunts her nights and her days are filled with mishaps on the site, abandonment of the project isn’t remotely a consideration. Especially when she finds an amulet of the Virgin Mary on the ancient skeleton of a small child, buried on the site. She knows then she must keep it safe in order to save herself.    

Adrik Wilder is simply called Warlord, for obvious reasons. He heads a band of mercenaries deep in the Himalayans. He’s demanding, domineering and at times cruel. He doesn’t take no for any answer, and knows what he wants and goes for it, and not always in the most honorable manor. There are few who will challenge him, and few women who can resist him, not even Karen as he invades her dreams. He is both a warrior to fear, a chief to respect and swashbuckler to love. But when he rescues her from a landslide and kidnaps her proclaiming she is his mate, Karen fights against the incredible lust and attraction that encases them. The most shocking discovery about this man with eyes that are truly black, he can turn into a panther in the blink of an eye. This leaves her to really question if the high altitude of the mountains hasn’t left her completely crazy.

I read, Into the Shadow, from cover to cover in a day and half. This would be a great read as you lay on a beach, listening to the gulls cry and waves crash. Very entertaining and very, very sexy. The sex scenes were hot!  Someone throw some water over here, with lots of ice!

Can’t wait to finish the series. Did I mention it was very sexy.    

This was a fun read of adventure, love found and redemption of a dark wicked soul, who is humbled by love and lessons learned along the way.

Other books in the series:

Scent of Darkness

Touch of Darkness

Into the Flame, on sale August 2008

Question of the Day:  How do you feel about a hero who redeems himself after some very bad behavior? Do you believe it is possible to move on and continue to find him sexy and forget the rest?