Guest Post: Who Doesn’t Love A Handsomely Hot Hero? by Denise Moncrief
Who doesn’t love a handsomely hot hero? Well, at least I do. Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. If they were all the same, that would be boring, and then these guys wouldn’t be heroes, would they? When everyone is the same, no one stands out.
When I begin writing the hero, I have to confess, I don’t have a mental picture of the man yet. Maybe that’s because I’m a certified pantser—I usually don’t outline or do character sketches before I write. I have the opening scene and the end in mind. Maybe I have a few scenes in the middle written in my head, like the moment when the hero and heroine first kiss. But usually I allow my characters to lead me through the plot. After all, it is their story.
My hero’s physical features develop along with his character. Sometimes I have to revise my manuscript to make sure his description is consistent throughout the book, but I don’t mind revisiting my hero. I like him. That’s why I wrote him the way I did.
So what are some of my favorite features in a handsomely hot hero?
- Piercing eyes. His eyes have to capture the heroine’s attention and melt her to her core. His eyes have to be so expressive that she can’t turn away. She has to gaze into his eyes until she becomes uncomfortable or until she wants to immerse herself in the man and never leave. Hot eyes.
- Give me a man with a mustache, a beard, a ponytail, or a chest full of hair. I don’t want a smooth pretty boy. However, I have to say some of my heroines go for the Hollywood handsome type. He has to be a man that doesn’t mind getting a little messy, because real life can be messy. After all, I’m not looking for perfection. I love my heroes to perfectly imperfect.
- None of my favorite heroes are unscathed. They either have internal scars or external scars. As Steve says in Purgatory, “Scars are beauty marks. The hallmarks of survival. They proclaim the strength of the human spirit. A scar is nothing to be ashamed of.” A scar means my hero is a guy with many layers, with a past that he carries with him. More than a one-dimensional character. He’s lived a little and survived.
- Sometimes people select a certain tattoo because the ink symbolizes something for the wearer. When my hero has a tattoo, it means he has a story to tell. A man who isn’t afraid to tell the world what he’s all about. Unashamed of the man he is or the man he’s becoming.
- Okay, my heroes have muscles just because I like men to have muscles. In fiction, those muscles are a symbol of his inner strength. I don’t want smooth and sweet. Give me ruggedly handsome and sweet. A tough man with a marshmallow core. A man who is at his toughest when he’s being vulnerable with the heroine. A man with a strong heart that breaks easily. After all, it takes more strength of character to admit weakness than it does to pretend vulnerabilities don’t exist.
What kind of hero has the ability to take his heroine’s breath away, to capture her attention? Does a romantic suspense hero have to be…perfect? Please, no. I think the perfect romantic suspense hero should be beautifully flawed. Where’s the tension-building conflict between the hero and heroine if the hero does everything right? No one is perfect and I don’t want to read about perfection. Give me the baggage, the quirks, the scars, and the inner turmoil. The more, the better. Just as long as there is something about the hero the heroine can’t live without. Not that she has to have him to survive, but that she wants to survive with him.
Title: Laurel Heights
Author: Denise Moncrief
Blurb: Murder, revenge, and nightmares. Can their love survive the haunting of Laurel Heights?
A dark cloud of deceit hovers over her family tree…
Left an estate by an aunt she’s never met, Laurel Standridge takes possession of Laurel Heights, hoping it will be the safe haven she needs to recuperate from her ill-fated relationship with Rand Peterson. Secrets long buried rise to the surface when her cousin James is murdered and dumped on the highway just outside the gates of Laurel Heights.
Her past trails her to the mountains of Arkansas…
Caught in an obligation Chase Peterson feels he cannot ignore, he agrees to help his brother Rand take back the property he believes Laurel stole from him, but Chase remains at Laurel Heights after he discovers Laurel took nothing of Rand’s away with her except nightmares, fading bruises, and a broken rib.
Unexplained disturbances shatter her hopes of a normal life…
Are the strange bumps, thumps, and bangs reverberating through the night caused by the murderer of Laurel’s cousin James, someone Rand has sent to exact his revenge, or a disturbed soul existing in another dimension, trying to communicate with the living? Drawn together by the intrigue surrounding Laurel Heights, Chase and Laurel become hopelessly entangled in a relationship that goes deeper than lust. Can their love survive the haunting of Laurel Heights?
Genre: Paranormal Romantic Suspense
Buy:Amazon | Smashwords
Excerpt:
She lay still beneath her comforter, listening to the unusual sounds coming from the lower floor. The house made a lot of noises, especially at night. She sucked in a ragged breath when it made a few more. Thuds and bumps sounded like footfalls. Was someone in the house or was she being paranoid? Every shadow reminded her of Rand. He was in prison and would be incarcerated for a very long time, probably the rest of his life, but he could easily send one of his loyal subordinates to find her.
She wrapped her fingers around the grip of the baseball bat she kept next to her bed and hoped she wouldn’t have to use it. Confronting an intruder with a hollow piece of aluminum seemed like a lame defense. She had been considering purchasing a gun, but hadn’t done so yet. Maybe it was time. She’d have to buy one under the radar because she didn’t want anyone doing a background check on her. Acquiring a shotgun shouldn’t be too hard. It seemed everyone in Arkansas owned a firearm of some sort.
She threw off the comforter, rose from the bed, slipped across the room with the bat over her shoulder, and opened the door to peer down the hallway toward the front stairs. Nothing moved. The house was quiet. Maybe a little too quiet. Only moments before, a symphony of strange noises had disturbed the night. It was as if opening her bedroom door had turned off the sound.
She stared at the back stairs directly across from her bedroom and considered going down to the first floor to check the door locks, but nixed the idea. Locked doors wouldn’t keep someone out of the house if they really wanted to get in. Better to barricade herself in her bedroom and keep the bat close by. She slammed the door shut.
No moonlight filtered through the flimsy fabric covering the window. The moon hid behind a thick cloud cover. She tugged at the curtains, pulling them tighter to keep out the night. Before she stepped away, she caught a glimpse of something not quite right. Peeking between the curtain panels, she stared across the backyard. On the other side of the grimy window, a dim light flitted back and forth inside the detached garage.
She shivered with apprehension. The structure was derelict, unlike her garage in California. The four-car garage had been attached to Rand’s half million-dollar house. They had been living in the two-story, five-bedroom house for at least a year, but the place had never seemed like home to Laurel. Everything belonged to Rand. By the end of their disastrous relationship, he had treated her like a possession as well. Actually, maybe he had all along.
Comparing her life then to her life now brought up memories of the beating Rand had given her and his attempt to attack her again. If Foster hadn’t shown up when he did, she’d probably be dead.
She glanced at the clock beside her bed. It was nearly four in the morning, the darkest hour of the night. Who could possibly be snooping around her place in the dark? Who would be in her garage at any hour? She contemplated calling the local Sheriff’s Office, but decided against it. She didn’t want cops involved in her personal business. No. She would find out who was messing around her property without involving local law enforcement. Eventually the intruder would show himself, and she would be ready for him.
About the Author:
Suspense, She Writes
Where the road to happily ever after takes a suspenseful detour. Fast paced twists and turns that keep you turning the pages. Romantic happily ever after moments that take your breath away. Paranormal romantic suspense that keeps you on the edge of your seat.
Want to know a little bit more about Denise? She’s a Southern girl who has lived in Louisiana all her life, and yes, she has a drawl. She has a wonderful husband and two incredible children, who not only endure her writing moods, but also encourage her to indulge her writing passion. Besides writing romantic suspense, she enjoys traveling, reading, and scrapbooking.
Accounting is a skill she has learned to earn a little money to support her writing habit. She wrote her first story when she was a teen, seventeen handwritten pages on school-ruled paper and an obvious rip-off of the last romance novel she had read. She’s been writing off and on ever since, and with more than a few full-length manuscripts already completed, she has no desire to slow down.
You can connect with Denise at
http://www.facebook.com/DeniseMoncriefAuthor
http://www.twitter.com/dmoncrief0131
http://www.amazon.com/author/denisemoncrief
Hear, hear! I don’t want Mr. Perfect either. Men with scars are more interesting. I like a rugged man. And tats are an added bonus. 😉 Thanks for sharing a little about your craft and your heroes!
Bookworm Brandee recently posted…**Jumble Your Genres Review ~ Exposed: Just One Night Part 2 ~ Kyra Davis**
I agree, Brandee, that “None of my favorite heroes are unscathed.” Jamie Fraser from Outlander is one of my favorite heroes. He’s survived some brutal events including a flogging. In my head it was horrible. Then Starz put it on screen and it was 100 times more horrible than I had imagined!
Terri M. recently posted…A Note from the Director: My Favorite Thing About Fall
omagosh Terri! I felt the same way. Remember how in the books, Dougal tells Claire that about the flogging and she is like, “I can imagine” and Dougal tells her it is one thing to hear about it, it is another to have actually seen it done? Wow, that scene was brutal!
I am the same Brandee… I like my hero rugged and a little tortured.
I’m not a fan of ‘staches because I live in a French province and they are WAY too common around here, not to mention the creep factor. Do the accent in your head, and you’ll totally get where I’m coming from. LMAO Six pack abs, and tats are a given though. RAWR!
Carmel @ Rabid Reads recently posted…Review: A Dangerous Witch by Debora Geary
RAWR, indeed!
Guys with mustaches are not appealing to me at all. But I agree on the handsome hot guy – it’s definitively a plus in a novel.
Rosa @ Bookish Findings recently posted…Introducing Amazon’s Next Generation Of Kindle Devices
Me neither Rosa. I’m not into facial hair.
sooo of course a handsome hot guy is goo for all occasions, but dont forget, sometimes our hero is NOT handsome hot guy, and yet we still love him! Think Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre.
Oh I agree about the handsome hot guy! But it’s so interesting to discover how different everyone’s opinions of this are. I love men with beards, long hair and tattoos!
yes, we all agree handsome hot guys are good! But what is handsome to some, might not be handsome to others, of course. I for one and NOT into beards… lol