Guest Post

Hi guys!

So today Patricia, author of Luck of The Devil kindly did a guest post for the blog. Enjoy!

Being the youngest daughter of the Devil isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The days of teenage rebellion and vows of chastity made just to tick off her father are over, and now all Faith Bettincourt wants is a nice, quiet life. Unfortunately, thanks to the unexpected arrival of her demonically-downsized sister, a ditzy succubus roommate, and dear old Dad himself, Faith’s plans for a relaxing vacation spent watching reruns go up in flames.

Now it’s all Faith can do to keep the family reunion from Hell (literally) under wraps, and the angelically-inclined hottie across the hall from realizing there’s something weird about his neighbor. And, thankfully, it’s working. Until an angelic stalker shows up in a bid to steal her powers and take over the world.

Forget watching reruns. With the way things are going, Faith will need the luck of the Devil just to survive until Monday.

What I Want in a Hero

As a romance novelist the perfect man is always on my mind. Finding him is sort of my job. Whoever knew that putting my fingers on a set of computer keys would mean I’d become a matchmaker for people who only exist inside my mind? But that’s what I am. A matchmaker. And, since my heroine always comes first in a story for me finding the perfect man is always on my mind.

Personally, I never realized how lucky I was. I found the perfect man when I was fifteen years old and even though I was young, and stupid, enough to let him go he showed back up on my doorstep eight years later when the time was right. I married him ten months after that and while it’s not always a fairy tale happily ever after, it hasn’t been too bad.

That’s not an interesting story though. Nobody cares about a fairytale where everything works out the first time. We all want that but it doesn’t make for a good read. No, what a good story needs is a heroine who hasn’t gotten it quite right yet. And a hero who’s just as flawed as she is. That’s what makes a romance novel exciting. It’s not the happily ever after at the end it’s the will they or won’t they journey beforehand.

But in the new millennium not any old hero will do. Don’t get me wrong, I love an old school romance novel as much as the next girl but one thing I think is great about our genre is that our heroes have evolved along with us. Our heroines aren’t damsels anymore, they can kick butt quite well on their own thank you very much, and they need a man who’s evolved enough to let them take the lead whether it’s taking a hands on approach to dealing with a bad guy like my heroine, Faith Bettincourt, or jamming crosses in the foreheads of bad guys Betsey the Vampire style. No matter what technique a girl uses she needs a guy who can back her up in a pinch.

It’s a new age for the romance genre and not just any swarthy good looks and broad chest will do. The times they are a-changin’ and our heroes are changing along with it. Now they’re smarter, funnier, and braver than ever before. More importantly the modern hero is more secure in himself than ever before. He has to be after all. Otherwise how could he keep up his sexy while letting the heroine save him? Because at the end of the day my heroines are always smart enough to save themselves, and everyone else for that matter, and a strong woman needs a man who’s strong enough to let her lead.

So, what do you think? What do you want in a hero guys? Let me know in the comments! Happy reading!