DFRAT: 5 Reasons Why Older Heroines are More Interesting by Rebecca Rogers Maher

Dannie Marino is hiking with colleagues when a sudden blizzard separates her from her group. She’s rescued by Lee, a dangerously sexy stranger who leads her to a remote cabin to weather the storm.

When the night inevitably ends in an intense erotic encounter, Dannie is both shocked and liberated by her response. But being intimate means letting herself be vulnerable, which isn’t her style. Lee tries to reach out to her, but she avoids any emotional entanglement by pushing him away.

Snowed in and unable to hide from each other, Dannie and Lee must both face up to their most closely guarded emotions. When the storm abates, will they be able to stop running from the past and live fully in the future?

 

~~~*~~~*~~~

The mid-life crisis is no joke. It knocks you flat on your backside and makes you question who you truly are and what you really want.

 

I spent my twenties and early thirties trying to please everyone I knew. Then one day I woke up and could not do it anymore. I was done. Something needed to change or I was going to pull a Thelma and Louise and drive a Thunderbird convertible into the Grand Canyon.

 

Lots of my friends are going through a similar upheaval. Many are recovering from divorce or waking up from the zombie-like state of round-the-clock childcare, while others are simply realizing that their lives are not turning out the way they had planned and they’d better change things quick or they’ll end up shriveled and bitter with their whole lives behind them.

 

This, to me, is an interesting time of life to write about.

 

I like innocent virgins as much as the next guy, but as a writer, I’m drawn to stories that are relevant to my life now. I want realistic conflicts and strong characters. I want real women who are going through real things with real men. I want stories about characters that are like the women I know: strong, afraid, brave, smart, funny and ON FIRE.

 

So I write “older” heroines. I’m here today at Novel Thoughts to tell you why.

 

 

1. Older Heroines Have Real Problems.

 

I know some people read romance for the escape. I do too. But I also want to identify with the characters, to feel what they feel, to suffer and triumph along with them, and to see how they fight through what stands in their way. I can only do this when the characters and conflicts are realistic.

 

Older heroines have made mistakes. They’ve done some living and they’ve fallen on their faces a few times. They’re dealing with career trouble, failed relationships, fertility and parenting, infidelity, aging parents, illness, their own changing bodies, and their sexuality, all in the context of a ticking clock—in short, real stuff. Interesting stuff. Stuff I want to understand better.

 

 

2. Older Heroines Know Their Way Around a Bedroom.

 

They’ve had sex before, if you can believe it. And they might have even liked it. They might actually, literally, know their ass from their elbow. They don’t have to be reluctantly introduced to anything, or patiently taught, or seduced into sex. THEY KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING. Maybe, like most of our heroes, they haven’t had sex LIKE THIS—emotional, moving, connected sex. But they didn’t just fall off the virgin truck either. And frankly, that is refreshing. Because it’s 2012, and women should be allowed to have rich sexual lives that don’t require a more experienced hero to justify them.

 

 

3. Older Heroines Have History.

 

Often younger heroines are given a kind of false gravitas to make them seem more solid, like a miserable childhood or an unrealistically stellar track record in their professional lives. This rings untrue, and pulls us out of the story. But an older heroine has had time to develop a history—a childhood, an education, a good long stint at work, a few relationships—and these experiences make her a more developed character.

 

The older heroine’s history—especially if it contains true suffering and pain—also makes her ultimate romantic triumph much more moving. You know that she’s fought for it, that she’s earned it and deserves it, and that makes for a more satisfying story.

 

 

4. Older Heroines Have Real Friends.

 

By the time you hit your late thirties—hopefully—you’ve got friends. Not just school pals or drinking buddies, but the kinds of friends who have seen your placenta and held you while you sobbed your heart out. These friends make wonderful secondary characters in stories about older heroines. They too have had time to build a history, both as their own people and in terms of their relationship to the heroine.

 

 

5. Older Women Are Not Invisible.

 

You wouldn’t know this by looking at popular media. Oh, it’s changing somewhat. There are lots of actresses like Jennifer Aniston and Julia Roberts who are working steadily, playing vibrant roles, well into their forties. And there are more and more romance novels being written about older women, which is a wonderful thing.

 

But we all know, as women, that the older we get, the more we start to disappear. We’re not up there on the billboards anymore, because that’s a young woman’s game. There are fewer and fewer popular books, TV shows and movies about women our age. Men notice us less. Teenagers act like we don’t know what we’re talking about.

 

We don’t have any control over that. We live in a youth-obsessed culture, and more’s the pity. But what we don’t have to do is make each other and ourselves invisible.

 

Romance novels are written by women and for women. Most of us readers are in our thirties, forties and fifties. We exist. Yeah, we’ve screwed up a thing or two. Yeah, we’ve got some wrinkles to show for all the hard work we’ve done. But our stories are interesting. They matter. And I would rather read those stories, and write them.

 

My latest release is a contemporary romance novella called Snowbound with a Stranger, about a 38-year-old divorced nurse who is struggling with burnout. Dannie is a realistic woman. Her problems are real. And when she meets the hero, Lee, you know she’s earned the right to love and be loved by him.

 

Tell me what you think about older heroines in the comments below. A free copy of Snowbound with a Stranger goes to one random commenter, so join in the chat!

 

 

Rebecca Rogers Maher lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and children. She is the author of the Recovery Trilogy—I’ll Become the Sea, Snowbound with a Stranger and the forthcoming Fault Lines (September 2012)—from Carina Press.

http://www.RebeccaRogersMaher.com

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Snowbound with a Stranger is now available from Carina Press.