Introducing My New Spy, Heath Cliffe

Gasp! Last night--out of the blue--I realized I omitted one of my FAVORITE books in the Best Book list! I'm talking about DE BOOK that turned me into a writer, for goodness' sakes--how could I have forgotten about it?!

I blame it on the injured wrist ;-).

I'm talking about another first person book, Bronte's WUTHERING HEIGHTS. It was, in essense, my first romance that brought an awareness inside me that emotions are powerful and human beings are capable of powerful emotions. Before that, romance was all sweet and fated; charming and funny; something to sigh over and dream about.

WUTHERING HEIGHTS changed all that for me. For the first time, I appreciated what it meant (to me as a teenager) to love or feel in a bigger sense of those words. There was a shocking rawness between Heathcliff and Cathy that drew me into their world. Let's just say I touched the darkness, and barely understanding it, began my journey as a writer ;-).

I still reread this book every few years and it still gets me in the gut every time. I love Heathcliff, even his mad cruelty. I love Cathy, even her selfish possessiveness. There was a little bit of everything in this book--the gothic beginning, with the first POV and "beauty and the beast" story; the larger than life romance; elements of the gothic-horror genre; madness and angst; the cinematic presence of the moors and fog; a ghost story; and finally, a bittersweet sliver of happy endings for the heirs to the tragedy.

It's strange how I can forgive a character like Heathcliff. It'd never work in the romance genre today, of course, what he did and especially that ending. There are enough taboos in this book to make the traditional romance lover scream in horror--even a hint of sex with a corpse! It's even more remarkable since this book was written and published in the 19th century, when the "novel" was still in its infancy, when authors usually interject their omnipotent commentary into their stories. Emily Bronte ruled!

So...we smoothly segued to my new writing project--The Hell Experiment--as I call it. Actually, the working title is A View To Kill. Or A Dangerous Woman. Take your pick ;-).

I was talking to a buddy about my prologue, which is unusually long for one since it's now running around 20 pages, how I want to set up the three book series with it. I have to introduce Hell from the hero's POV because she is going to be the most dangerous woman EVAH. The female super soldier spy with a talent that goes beyond just your average spy.

Who would be interested in such a woman anyhow? Hence, the prologue. Her monitor, the person who's going train her, will introduce her as he watches her. The thing is, his character is right on this side of gray, if you know what I mean. He's going to be darker than Mr. Ricardo Harden from Facing Fear, down to those sexual thoughts and games, and who could top Hard-On when it comes to those topics? I mean, without crossing the romantic line.

You see, he watches her even when she's supposedly having those private moments a woman should have. Not only that, he admits to doing it without feeling any moral guilt at all. And yes, he admits to having a pretty healthy male reaction to her.

So the prologue is going to be dark and dangerous for ME, since I'm trying to win the reader over and my friend is already warning me that even though SHE as the reader is totally excited and enraptured, other readers will probably be turned off. It's like Harden's first scene in Facing Fear--his sexuality and his use of sex sets the tone. But at least I gave Harden a world-weariness and some angst, even at the beginning, that hinted that his darkness was a product of pain. My current anonymous hero--The Monitor--doesn't show any angst here at all. He just admits that he likes, and his weakness is, dangerous women. There is a coldness and arrogance about him that can either make a reader weak in the knees or make her hate his guts ;-).

Ah well, the point is...he is sort of a Heathcliff. I need to make the reader love him so much that she'll forgive his dark arrogance and his, sometimes, heartlessness. And yes, he's a master of seduction--how can he not be? ;-) He likes dangerous women, so he likes to seduce them, yes? Now, if I can just line up nine COS Commandos and even an anonymous tenth never-mentioned before, a "trainer", whom I shall name Heath Cliffe in honor of my first dark hero, and strip them nekkid and go inny-meenie-miney-mo, which one of you is the hero...who would you choose, dear readers? LOL. Yes, I've been reading torture magazines again!

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