Heroines who remind me of girls I knew in high school, Part ONE

I recently made a list of heroines I identify with in a comfortingly seamless way during the act of reading--like they’re an other me.

This made me think about heroines I love reading about just as much, but don’t identify with as completely. I have decided this happens when the heroine isn’t A) vulnerable enough in a way that resonates with me, or B) she is vulnerable enough, but way too different than me, like a different animal.

Sometimes I prefer that. Reading about heroines like these is like having an adventure with a friend who is fascinating or admirable in some way, rather than a comforting proxy self. Reading should take a person to new places and new realities.

On my heroines I totally identify with list, some people mentioned Sookie as a heroine they identify with, and I really thought about putting her on that list, because I am CRAZY about those books, and I love her and I enjoy being in that wonderful world she inhabits. Especially if Eric is hanging around. (I may even splurge on the new book coming out in May, even though it’s in hardcover. Please, don’t ask me why I can’t show my face in the library anymore. That’s a topic for another day.) However, while I identify with Sookie often, she is often an othergirl to me—in a good way.

Anyway, thinking about all this, I realized this weird thing: when I think about heroines I love reading about but don’t 100% identify with, I think about girls I knew in high school and I put them in categories from high school. I don’t know why, as I am MANY years past high school. Maybe I’m just not over it. Without further ado:

Sookie: (Southern Vampire mysteries by Charlaine Harris)
I had a best friend like Sookie - sweet, sexy, blonde, smart, her own easy fashion sense, all the boys loved her. (I know supposedly boys don’t like Sookie because of her telepathy, but you know. I think they sort of would.) Sookie is also vulnerable and her world is delightful to dwell in, but she is so the opposite of my high school self—I was not pretty, smart but not a high performer, and a total moron when it came to boys, hair and fashion. So while I identify with Sookie in a pleasurable way while reading, I identify with her as a best friend rather than a proxy self.

Phedre: (Kushiel’s Series by Jacqueline Carey)
Phedre is the mysterious girl I would’ve admired from afar and been in awe of. I would’ve wanted to be friends with her, but she would’ve run with a cooler group and taken more obscure classes. Her cleverness with guys would’ve mystified me, too. And if I’d ever talked to her, like at parties, I would’ve said stupid things, being so in awe of her. I would’ve wished desperately to be her, just for one day. Though I frequently identify with her during the act of reading, Phedre is very othergirl.

Riley Jensen: (Riley Jensen Guardian Series by Keri Arthur)
Riley’s kind of a wild girl, and she loves to have fun. I had groups of friends that contained wild girls like her, and every once in a while, a Riley would befriend me for some inexplicable reason, and we would drive with the music too loud, and she would rampage around at the Walgreen’s, maybe get us kicked out of the A & W and it would seem like an incredible adventure to me. Eventually our friendship would fizzle, because I could never keep up with a Riley. Not that I didn’t long to.

Tomorrow: Anita Blake, Margrit Knight, Jezebel, Savi Murray

6-10 of the 10 coolest things about Keri Arthur's Riley Jenson Guardian series

6. Memorable hero entrance. I loved the entrance of Talon in Book #1, Full Moon Rising, for its over-the-topness. Setting: werewolf nightclub. Talon’s way across the club and up on the stairs, but our heroine, Riley, feels the sexual energy radiating off him, turns to see. “He walked down the steps, stripping off his shirt as he did so and tossing it casually toward an empty table.” I love that he throws off his shirt. Insert the requisite description of leather pants and erection, then, “The force of his aura rolled before him, hitting the women nearest him like a tidal wave. Sighs and stares followed in his wake, but he didn’t stop, his gaze on mine as he strode toward me.” Ah, the classic nightclub entrance. It sort of reminds me of John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. But in a good way. “He stopped when there were still several feet between us, his gaze sliding casually down my body before rising to meet mine again. The lust that surged between us caressed my skin until I felt like I was glowing.” And then they have sex like nine times. I believe the term “inferno of lust” is utilized at one point.

7. Quinn, an excellent and complex lead. Though it is understandable that certain astute readers are becoming fed up with the recurring problems between Riley and Quinn (cue the Richard and Anita music - I think about Van Morrison for some reason) but there is one significant difference for me: whereas Richard, in a way, yielded up his treasures early on, and went on to become a somewhat dried up automaton, our secretive and mysterious Quinn has yet to yield up his riches. I believe the solutions to many problems are within him, and within his and Riley’s relationship - their interaction and growth. That’s my big hope, anyway. Plus, I like him. He’s a secretive and mysterious badass.

8. Keri Arthur manhandles the reader on setup. I don’t know that this qualifies as cool, but I’m putting it in because it’s interesting to me as a writer. Like, if there is something she wants you to know, she’ll repeat it all over the place. I suppose sometimes it feels redundant, but it’s way better than when writers just expect you to have an encyclopedic knowledge of their every musing, and they bury important stuff in the middle of a paragraph on page 8, and then on suddenly on page 199 you’re like, WTF? If there is a key thing you have to get, Keri Arthur goddamn makes sure you get it. She’s taking care of the reader in her own manhandley way.

9. The blurbs on the cover. Who is writing these? Keri? The publicist? Some of them are great. Like, “Half vampire, half werewolf, all trouble…” I love that one. Or this: “Desire. Temptation. Seduction. Let the night begin.” That one’s great too. But this one is sort of crazy: “Between desire and bloodlust is the sweetest sin of all.” That’s a whole lot of tundra between bloodlust and desire for a human like me, in fact, I think it would encompass every sin, sweet and not. For a werewolf vampire, however, I’d imagine the spectrum between those concepts is razor thin. And you never quite find out what that sin is! This inquiring mind wanted to know! Okay, and this last blurb earned endless derision from my husband: “In a realm without inhibitions, there’s nothing more seductive than temptation…” The “nothing more seductive than temptation” part is really what got him, but really, when you think about it, the entire blurb is sort of insane. And now that I think about it way too hard, in a realm without inhibitions, temptation probably wouldn’t exist, because it relies on forbiddenness.

10. Strong supporting cast. I especially like Riley’s gay brother, Rhoan, who is a fully drawn badass and all-around fun fellow with his own robust relationship drama that I’m sort of getting into. I also like the boss, Jack. Like Quinn, I believe he has treasures to yield. The next book, The Darkest Kiss (!) comes out in April 2008! Color me definitely reading that one.

1-5 of the 10 coolest things about Keri Arthur’s Riley Jenson Guardian Books

1. They deliver. A friend of ours, when asked why he, a fabulously intelligent person, prefers action adventure movies to art house films, had this two-word reply: “They deliver.” That’s my overall feeling about this series. Steamy sex? Delivered. Violence and thrills? Delivered. Monsters? Delivered. This is my total go-to series in the way the Anita Blake books once were. Oh, the steaminess drops off a bit in book 5 but strong plot thrills deliver plenty of fun.

2. Good creepy bad guys. The bad guys here are bad in creepily creative ways, which I really like. Sometimes the bad guys and their nefarious plans can get a little TOO creepy. Which brings us to #3.

3. The reader doesn’t always get what she wants, and sometimes is put through a bit of hell. I sometimes find the urban fantasy/paranormal romance genre lets the heroines out of awful situations too easily. As a reader in the act of reading, I want things to be easy and tension to be resolved quickly, yet when it is, that drains a bit of drama from my fun experience. When I read urban fantasy, I like to feel like I’ve gone through something. The best book for this is #3, Tempting Evil, with the madman-scientist villain!

4. Strong central quest. I like a heroine who has that. Riley Jenson wants a family and a picket fence. With every book she seems to get further away from that goal, but hey, the night is young. This particular quest is pedestrian, sure, but that doesn’t matter.

5. Wanton sex. Riley Jenson, as a vampire/werewolf combo, is totally into having sex with lots of different partners. (One at a time - not all at once.) Arthur gets away with this because she portrays its being in the werewolf nature so very well. In this world, werewolves go to clubs and dance around naked and have all kinds of sex. In fact, it is dangerous for them not to get a certain amount in during the full moon week, though many eventually settle down with a single partner. I tend to remember reviewer complaints of the implausibility of Riley Jenson having sex with a guy, say, while sadistic bad guys are hot on her heels. Yes, that is a problem in Book #2, Kissing Sin, I think. The most egregious infraction occurs in a scene that involves her riding a horse shifter—they’ve escaped an evil villain’s lair, and they stop by a stream to rest and drink water, I believe, where they have sex. Mind you, they were both in their human forms at the time. See "wolf sex vs human sex" below for an enlightened discussion of that topic. Anyway, yeah, yeah, inappropriate for the action and tension level. But I got over it.

Coming soon: 5 more