I apologize to our readers. We've promised you Lynn Crain, but due to circumstances beyond our control, she's not guest blogging with us today. Since Gracen was busy getting ready to go out of town (have a safe trip!), I volunteered to help her out and fill in today.
Before I get to what the title means, I'd like to begin with the video that inspired this whole post! While on Facebook, I saw this video posted by Eloisa James:
This video is so fun! I think it's great that Eloisa got involved in this! The fact that she was featured with two other writers (Connie Brockway and Teresa Medeiros) gave me the idea that, well, writers always seem to need fun! It started with a simple word substitution "writers" for "girls" but I couldn't just leave it at that, and here's what I came up with, so I hope you like it:
(to the tune of Girls Just Want to Have Fun)
By Carrie Hinkel-Gill
I wake up and check my email
My editor asks where’s your latest manuscript
I reply I’m not finished yet because
We writers, we want to have fun
Oh writers just want to have fun
The phone rings in the middle of the night
My editor yells you’ve missed your deadline again!
I tell her that I’m working on it right now
But writers we want to have fun
Oh writers just want to have -
That's all we really want
Some fun
When the manuscript is done
Writers - we want to have fun
Oh writers just want to have fun
Some villains take a beautiful girl
And hide her away from the rest of the world
I want my heroine to walk in the sun
Oh writers we want to have fun
Oh writers just want to have
That's all we really want
Some fun
When the manuscript is done
Writers - we want to have fun
Oh writers just want to have fun
We want to have fun,
We want to have fun....
Okay, so I hope you enjoyed that one! Now, as I was contemplating this song, another one popped into my head, Naughty Girls Need Love Too by Samantha Fox. Originally, I thought to do a parody for the song, but when I got to the line "I want my heroine to walk in the sun," and I thought about the last couple of books I read, it dawned on me that we do an awful lot to our heroines these days. They get kidnapped, they fall down wells, get poisoned, jump from windows, all sorts of nasty stuff. Some of them are merely "innocent" damsels, but an equal number are not so innocent. Take, for example, Kat Martin's heroine in Reese's Bride. Elizabeth lied to the hero, she broke their original betrothal for a marriage to an older, richer man and then comes to him years later asking for help, but still doesn't come clean about her lies.
While Elizabeth does have some legitimate and understandable reasons for what she did (one of which is that she was too weak to go against her dying father's wishes), I'm not so sure that Samantha James' heroine of Bride of a Wicked Scotsman, Maura, has any truly good excuses for her naughtiness, and she is certainly naughty!
There's a whole intricate story behind this, but to simplify things, Maura needs a mythic Celtic item, Circle of Light, to restore the good fortunes of her lands, as they went barren the day it was stolen by the Black Scotsman. 200 years later, after the death of her father, Maura conspires with the family butler to get the item back, but the scheme isn't exactly above board. She knows who he is, seeks him out, tells a tale to get invited to the Masquerade Ball of a Baron, doesn't tell him her name, shamelessly flirts with him as they both happen to be dressed as pirates (great scene!!), tricks him into marrying her by arranging to have them caught after a "night of passion" that he can't remember, then makes her treachery worse by arranging for the forced marriage to be performed by a pseudo priest! Then, she has a chance to come clean and save herself, and possibly her relationship with him, but she doesn't take it and risks losing him forever! Maura may be a very naughty girl, but as you find out in the end, she too needs love, not just a physical encounter.
I want to know, what "naughty girl" heroine(s) have you read about that need love? Tell us her name, the book she appears in, the author of that book, and what she did that makes her qualify as a "naughty girl".
More than one and can't decide, tell us about them all!
To help you with your choices, here's the video of Naughty Girls by Samantha Fox:
What a great way to start the day! That video with Eloisa was so adorable!
ReplyDeleteMargay
My computer is acting up today and I couldn't look at the video, but I thought your song was fantastic...
ReplyDeleteI would say that Annabelle in a Matter of Class by Mary Balogh, was a "naughty girl", as she ran away with her father's coachman, was caught and brought home compromised, then she was not marriagable in the "ton" for which her father wanted to her to marry a high nobleman. who then refused. She had to marry a less than noble man... Even though he was the rich son of Coal Mine owner who her father a lord, loathed...
I liked the video for the first song. I could alwasy relate to that one. But unfornately my brain won't work today and remember any heroine who was bad. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteHi Kathleen,
ReplyDeleteWhat was Annabell's reason for running away?
However, being "compromised" is such a vague term in those historical novels, isn't it? *grin* Was she really physically compromised, or was she just situational-ly compromised?
Does she love the rich son of a coal mine owner?
Thanks for bringing up the book, sounds interesting!