My Essay Answers For Uh, Question 1

What in the world was I thinking!?

Name your all time favorite hero!? There are days I'm not sure what my favourite colour is let alone my favorite person. (Aside: You may note that favorite/favourite are getting interchanged - I am doing that AAR poll and when you e-mail to authors and such I don't want to come off as a dope. You guys? You can take it.)

So let's have at it, shall we.

*rocks back and forth in chair, stares off into the ether*

No way around it, it's going to get ugly - now would be a good time to bail if you are in a rush to get somewhere.

I'm going to start with the man who made it so I never want to read anything else but a great romance book. I met him soon after starting romance. I had picked up a book at my friend's house while sitting around the pool. I was floored by what I was reading and yet, there was a childishness about the book.

Ha! Lookit me, already seeing through the drek of what could be a horrible romance.

Anyways, I decide I need to read more books like this so I force my friend to pick out a romance book from the 4' section at Coles. She acted very pissed about it and finally handed my Katherine Sutcliffe's Renegade Love. I was snagged by the cover and I think the back blurb but I would have to double check that.

So began my love affair with heroes who are dark, tormented and who believe they are unlovable. Kid Davis - yum. Not only that, he was matched with a heroine who started out young and naive but grew into a wonderfully strong woman.

Kid Davis was taken from his family in an Indian attack. He was raised by them and trained and beaten and humiliated. We don't meet him until he is taken into custody to be transported on a wagon train. He is not gentle or sweet and does everything he can to stay away from Rachel. The book starts slow but it had me hooked and there are scenes that are sweet, sexy and downright terrifying and I loved all of it. Whenever debates started about forced seduction and what it is I think of this book. I don't care what anyone says, Rachel wins hands down.

With that kind of hit early in my romance reading it would only be likely that one day I would pick up an Anne Stuart book and discover an author who can make you believe in the things that go bump in the night. The very first book I read by Stuart was in a short story anthology and the hero was Death. Yep. Death. How's that for dark? All the same, my favorite hero of Stuart's would have to be Simon from Lord of Danger. He manages to fall in love with his plain wife when it's the last thing he needs. Again, there are scenes where Simon's vulnerability are shown beautifully, at least for me.

So dark heroes are my favorite and Anne Stuart has definitely written some of my favorites. I do have to say that the hero from Ride the Fire was also a favorite for me. I would suggest that he is an alpha but one of the better kind. One who can have compassion and share his life with the woman he loves as opposed to ordering her around (although he tries).

Okay, I need to head to bed but, this is my semi-answer to question one. Semi-answer because I can think of a few heroes that I would like to mention so I can see a 1a. in my future.

See, I knew you guys didn't really want to know my answers!