Spies Learn From The Best

I am in awe. I just finished reading Anne Stuart (the other goddess I worship)'s newest romantic suspense, Black Ice. The book is exactly what I needed to kick me in the butt, to remind me why I started writing single title romantic suspense. I wanted to write the kind of hero that everyone thought was irredeemable, and shouldn't be in a romance.

Once upon a time, I didn't even like reading this particular genre in the single title format because the few I tried were always about serial murderers, and after about the tenth balding sexually depraved serial killer toying with the brave heroine, I just stopped. In the smaller books, I enjoyed Linda Howard's spies and really loved the Silhouette Intimate Moments categoricals with its larger-than-life sexy heroes.

Linda Howard's single titles were great too, but I remained just a reading fan, preferring to write medievals (yes, yes, I really thought I could write a medieval...hahaha...you don't want to read that particular manuscript, believe me). Then, I glommed on Anne Stuart and fell in love with her older gothics, the ones that always reminded me of Wuthering Heights' Heathcliffe, the bad boy come back for revenge. And it was sooooo cool to see her anti-heroes get their revenge and their women.

After that, I searched high and low on every UBS shelf, but there were no dark contemporary heroes in single titles quite like those old gothics. Anne Stuart was writing categoricals at that time and yes, I bought every one of them, and devoured them too. Remember Heat Lightning? Yum. She was always pushing the envelope, developing edgier spins to her hero's darkness and angst, but I always wanted more from all her stories; I felt that the length and format of categoricals kept her from pushing the envelope even more.

Then one day, Ms. Stuart came out in single title. Night Fall.

She achieved goddess status that day ;-). That is still one of my top ten romance books. *Note. I rate my favorite books on emotional response from me, not on good/bad stories. A book could have the worst plot/scene, like Elizabeth Lowell's Chain Lightning and I still love that darn story because its emotional pull was awesomely intense.

After Night Fall came Moonrise and then one more, Ritual Sins. Then...nothing. Although still great reads, Ms. Stuart's single titles became shadows of those three books. I met her at a conference and asked why she hadn't done another dark, dark, dark hero like Richard from Night Fall and she told me that many readers didn't like those books and had written enough emails complaining that they were expecting the usual Anne Stuart. She had to tone it down, she said.

I was flabbergasted. I had thought those books, with their different kind of hero, was exactly what the genre needed. A real Assassin. One who actually is on the way to losing his soul, only to be redeemed by love.

Anyhow, I went on writing, and since I was unpubbed at that time, I didn't have any constraints about real assassins as heroes ;-). But I still wished for another Stuart like those three books every time I buy a new Anne Stuart. I reread them often and each time the exercise taught me how to write better.

2004-05. It's been a long time coming. Into The Fire, her last book, came very, very close indeed, and with Black Ice, we get the full taste of the really baddest boy Ms. Stuart has ever penned. I am in awe. What a sexy, seemingly irredeemable, totally amoral man. And she skillfully got me to fall in lust and love with him. He was more frightening than the spy in Moonrise, more callous than Richard Tiernan in Night Fall, more everything! And I still want him to have his happy ending because he won me over.

Black Ice pushes the envelope of the bad boy theme like no other book I know. What I love best is that there is no angst involved. Regret, maybe. Pain, lots of it--emotional and physical. But the hero never blames anyone or anything; he accepts what he is.

I shall go now, purpose renewed and heart full of fierce concentration. Hide in the corner. Eat lots of chocolate. Reread. And start writing that proposal. Thank you, Ms. Stuart, for another valuable kick in the butt.

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