Thursday, August 22, 2013

The Tortured Male

by Deanna Wadsworth

Today I wanna talk about one of my favorite things... the sexy tortured Alpha Male.

This is definitely a trope in the romance world that I LOVE!

One of my favorite authors, Sherilyn Kenyon, does a great tortured Alpha Male. He's usually an angry man cut off from others, a loner, but deeply lonely because of people in his past hiring him and destroying his ability to trust. One time I reread ALL her books in a row, from Fantasy Lover to Acheron (I don't recommend this because they get real predictable—Sorry Sherilyn!) but I was attempting to study how she made these type of characters so appealing.
I found a few common threads, and thought I'd share them.

1) The hurt was always far in his past, so it was believable that he was ready to heal and the story did not have too much angst

2) Hero resisted falling for the heroine with words and actions, but while in his POV the reader got a window into the truth, that he was fighting himself and wanted to be loved

3) A stubborn protagonist who refused to give up on him and saw thru his tough guy act

4) Finally, he made the grand gesture where he did the one thing he swore he would never do again... All for love!

LOL I never get sick of it! There is just something so endearing and sexy about this type of hero, a man who can be healed by the love of the right woman... or in the case of what I write, the love of the right man. ;)

Why do readers eat up these characters and fall in love with them so easily?
I think this type of hero captures the heart of the reader because the crux of a good romance novel is the idea that love conquers all, even a broken past.

What do you think? What is your favorite type of hero to read? The beta hero? I would love to hear from you!!

Deanna Wadsworth might be a bestselling erotica author, but she leads a pretty vanilla life in Ohio with her wonderful husband and a couple adorable cocker spaniels. Her fascination with people and the interworkings of their relationships have always inspired her to write romance with spice and love without boundaries.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Agreed. Sherrilyn's men are dangerously delish, terribly addictive.

I like to READ the alphas, but mixing it up with a gentler soul now and then is a refreshing breath.

By the way, RED RIDING HOOD is the ARe Cafe Book-A-Day giveaway today!
http://www.arecafe.com/groups/are-book-a-day-giveaway/

Barbara Elsborg said...

I don't like the heroes to be TOO macho. I don't care how damaged they are underneath but if they're too ...ohh you know... it puts me off. Lori Foster has some brilliant heroes but also some that I find too overpowering. I think I like a combination of alpha and beta - I'm going to call it gamma!