I’ve been wondering if one of the problems I’m having writing this current book is my hero, Rafe.  Not because he’s not everything you’d ever want in a man – intelligent, funny, kind, deeply attractive and, oh yes, he just happens to be very wealthy, too – but because he’s just too gorgeous.  There’s something overwhelming about him, and I know Miranda (the heroine) feels that as well. 

Every time I have a hero who is good-looking and/or very nice, I run into strife.  The old clichés of tall, dark and handsome don’t really do it for me.  I think I get on better with the hero who seems rather ordinary at first until the heroine gets to know him.  Or an irascible hero can be fun to write,  too.  So mixed results for me in the first round of the Pick Your Own Romance survey.  It looks as if the two categories of hero to be knocked out will be ‘Solid, reliable, safe, ordinary’ and ‘Strong, silent’ (can’t believe Guy in Woman at Willagong Creek could get so few votes!) However, the exasperated and irritable hero is still in with a chance.  He’s in the lead with the charming hero (oops, Rafe falls into this category), both trailed by the typical  Alpha man.  But there’s still time to make a difference to the result, so if you haven’t yet voted, have a go.  We’ll make the cut on 1st April, when I get back from Scotland. 

In meantime, all this talk of hero makes it an appropriate point to introduce my first reader’s blog, and I’m delighted to welcome Juanita Sheehan.  Juanita first contacted me as a reader, but it turns out that she is a writer too, so I’m very grateful to her for letting me include her thoughts on a hero here. 

“As an aspiring Australian romance writer I am finding the right choice of a hero difficult. But, like Jessica, there are two types I am definitely going to avoid; I mean of course Sheiks and Royals. These boys seem to be having a renaissance that I can’t understand, and I wonder if I’m missing something here. Could it be those steamy novels of writers such as E. M. Hull and Ethel Dell, once so beloved of our great-grandmothers, are enjoying a new audience today?

Either way, the choice of either model leaves me cold, especially after having met several real life sheiks, most of whom have few teeth, live in close proximity to their goats and are quite ineligible as heroes, to me anyway. As for any royal personage, tall, dark and handsome as the case may be, who is supposed to solve all our heroine’s sexual and financial problems in one go, I still remained unconvinced.  Such a romance seems to present too many pitfalls for any modern woman to handle, as history shows.  A case in point happened here a few years ago when a wealthy socialite fell in love with a handsome flight attendant, a prince in disguise of course, only to have her enchanted world come crashing down when he eloped with his best man on the eve of their wedding. It’s hard to make a romantic novel from that, at least from the heroine’s point of view. 

So, obviously, readers will expect a more prosaic hero from me when my books hit the stands. Look out for the garbage collector with the bedroom eyes; the sexy coal miner (I live near Newcastle, NSW); or the sultry, darkly handsome postman … the list is endless – but, you will note, there is not one sheik or royal amongst them.”

Thanks, Juanita!  My thesis was largely on waste disposal in the pre-modern town, so I’ll look forward particularly to reading the one with the garbage collector hero!   What about the rest of you?  Does a down-to-earth hero do it for you, or is there anyone out there prepared to stand up for the sheikh and the prince?

And finally, on a completely different note,  I promised I would mention that The Breast Cancer Site is having trouble getting enough people to click on their site daily to meet their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman. It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click where it says "Click Here to Give - It's FREE!". It won’t  cost you a thing - their corporate sponsors /advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate mammogram in exchange for advertising – and it’s in a very good cause.   Breast cancer is a terrible disease that touches so many of us nowadays, so if you have a moment, do click  and pass it on to others if you can.