Please welcome writer buddy, Tami Dee, who's here to talk about someone we gals all fall for at least once...the bad boy.
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I have always had a fascination with bad boy hero's and their transformation into the men heroines fall for.
It takes a skilled writer to create a hero who is flawed enough where we the readers start off wanting to shake some sense into him, then, as the pages turn we see our hero grow into a man our heroine can be proud to love.
On the other side of the coin, there are some writers who have not quite mastered that aspect of the bad boy hero turning good. The writer will make a vital mistake by creating a bad boy hero who is frankly unredeemable in the reader's eye. When this happens, and a heroine goes from hating the bad boy to loving him, despite the fact that the bad boy did not grow at all, or was so bad at the start that no matter what he did later, it would not make up for his initial badness, that is disturbing to me as a reader.
What do you think? How important is it to you to 'see' the growth in a bad boy hero? In general, (Please, no specific books or authors, I'm not going there with these questions) what lines do you, the readers; draw in your mind as to what might be unredeemable behavior?
Have you read any GOOD examples of bad boy hero's growing and earning the heroines respect and love by the end of the story? (This you can say author names or book titles--kudos are always nice to hear)
One commenter will be selected to win a free download of my latest release, Chameleons Shadow.
Blurb:Lady Elisabetta Mitchell, a pampered daughter of a murdered English Marquis, is forced to flee the only home she's ever known. She now lives in poverty on the unfeeling streets of Southwark, London 1623. Caught between two worlds, she will do whatever it takes to survive.
Lord William Hunter, a nobleman with a secret. When an unknown woman rushes into his startled embrace, battered and afraid, he vows to protect this fair-haired beauty. Yet he cannot protect the girl who runs from him and his probing questions. He has to find her again first. And find her he will, no matter how long he must search.
Excerpt:
Prologue
London, England
February 1625
Lord Harrison Mitchell raked the bodies of his sister-in-law and niece with a dispassionate flick of his hard violet eyes.
A thin cackle escaped his lips, bouncing off the tall walls before returning to him with an unmistakable edge of madness. Blood pooled on the pale marble floor beneath his nieces head, mindful of where he stepped, he made his way back into the study.
His heart beat at a steady pace, his hands, elegant and long fingered, fisted and un-fisted at his sides, and his thoughts were already drifting to his mistress, who he would be seeking out as soon as this night's unpleasantness was behind him.
Harrison knelt beside the body of his only brother, Alexander, his younger brother. His lips pulled into a resigned line as he viewed the gaping dagger wound in his chest. The look of stunned disbelief still marred Alexander's face, as incurious in death as it had been the moment Harrison had stepped from behind the thick velvet curtains he had lain in-wait behind, and plunged the blade into him.
The scent of fresh blood jerked an unexpected gag reflex out of Harrison, and his stomach churned. Holding his breath he stared at the smudges of crimson stark against the chalk white pads of his fingertips in mild surprise, then distain, wiping them clean on the rug as he stood.
Satisfied he had left behind no evidence of his presence, barring the three dead bodies, he crossed to the window he had entered from, dropping to the ground with a grunt when his feet hit the hard packed earth.
Let the watch make what they would of the scene when they arrived.
Things had not gone exactly as he had planned, he admitted to himself with an inner shrug. Yet he had accomplished what he had set out to do. All that stood between himself and the Mitchell fortune now was his nephew, Nicolas.
His breath puffed out white in the chilled night air as he scanned the dark line of pines at the back of his brother's property, then he snorted. No terrified five year old boy could survive an English winter night while lost in a forest. The beasties would devour him before dawn, or he would freeze to death.
A light layer of frost crunched under his hurried steps as Harrison made his way back to his waiting carriage. He could not believe the brat had stumbled into Alexander's study, just as Harrison had plunged the dagger into his father's heart.
He rubbed his gloved hand over his ears. They still rang with the lad's horrified screams. A costly state of shock had momentarily paralyzed Harrison before he had lunged for Nicolas, but by then the boy had already ran out of the study, skidded through the entry way and out the tall double doors into the night, his night rail a trail of white as Harrison had panted at the wide open doors and watched as he had disappeared into the forest.
It hadn't surprised Harrison when, moments later, his sister-in-law, Lady Rachele and his niece, Elisabetta, alerted by Nicolas's screams, had ran down the sweeping staircase, stumbling to a stunned halt when they had caught sight of him standing at the foot of the stairs waiting for them, bloody dagger in hand.
He shook his head and pushed the rest of the night's unpleasantness out of his mind. His driver pulled open the carriage door and lowered the step, then backed away so he could climb inside. "That did not take long, My lord."
Harrison smiled at him, a thin twist of lips, "The manor was dark and quiet, I didn't bother knocking."
Harrison settled himself upon his padded seat and pulled the rug over his lap, his lips pulled into a satisfied smile.
Before long he, Lord Harrison Mitchell, would have everything he'd ever wanted.
Everything.
Buy links:
Amazon, Desert Breeze Publishing
Tami's web site: http://www.tamidee.com/
