Saturday, April 23, 2005
Eloisa on TSTL heroines
For me, the essence of a TSTL heroine is the moment when the hero thinks (with agony) "The Danger! She had no idea of the danger into which she just rode..." and he clutches her to his medieval breast while she snuffles quietly into his jerkin.
The thing about TSTL heroines is that they can remain loveable and yet put themselves in the grasp of villains without noticing what they're doing. Julie Garwood writes brilliant, brilliant TSTL heroines. Sometimes it's merely the hero that the heroine antagonizes by throwing all his dogs (and their bones) out of the castle. I love the moment when she sits down and "makes a tapestry in his colors"--all hung up neatly by the time he gets home from doing a little extracurricular hunting.
These are brilliant books because Garwood does the impossible of making us love someone we wouldn't respect in normal life, and that allows us to be thrilled by the danger she gets into and then thrilled by the hero's agony trying to keep her alive.
The thing about TSTL heroines is that they can remain loveable and yet put themselves in the grasp of villains without noticing what they're doing. Julie Garwood writes brilliant, brilliant TSTL heroines. Sometimes it's merely the hero that the heroine antagonizes by throwing all his dogs (and their bones) out of the castle. I love the moment when she sits down and "makes a tapestry in his colors"--all hung up neatly by the time he gets home from doing a little extracurricular hunting.
These are brilliant books because Garwood does the impossible of making us love someone we wouldn't respect in normal life, and that allows us to be thrilled by the danger she gets into and then thrilled by the hero's agony trying to keep her alive.