Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

. . . Hmmm! I like the direction your imagination is taking.

Yeah, I must admit that there's something dead sexy about the alpha-male/take-charge hero -- as written by Heyer, at least! When I first read Regency Buck in 8th or 9th grade, I remember being strongly attracted by Lord Rule, while feeling guilty about it and resentful at the same time -- ambivalent about that kind of "father-figure" which both attracts and inspires rebellious counter-reaction in me. I want to kiss him and slap him at the same time. Sir Tony in The Masqueraders stirred up some of the same feelings, but since he was written as much more laid-back (most of the time), he had a "safer" feel to him.

However, I recall being most inspired to slap first and think about the possibility of kissing long afterwards by the hero in Faro's Daughter -- I quite see why Deb Grantham wanted so much to smack him down (even if she did find kidnapping and bondage a bit too far for her taste). I think the redeeming quality of a sense of humor in the hero (however ascerbic or dry that wit might be) was mostly lacking in that hero (Max? was that his name?), while usually humor was a prominent feature of the Heyer hero and covered a multitude of paternalistic sins.