I came up with the Driving Plot Force of my next book, Road To Desire, and spilled the details to my friend and fellow Regency author, Myretta Robens. Myretta (who is also a celebrity blogger for PBS when they show Pride And Prejudice!) frequently has to listen as I discuss my plot, or what passes for my plot, when I am figuring out a book.

“Your heroes certainly have a death wish, don’t they?” she commented. And it’s true: My last hero, Alasdair, wanted to take drugs until he expired; this hero knows he will die as a result of An Action he is Determined to Take. In fact, all the heroes I am considering have a dark edge that may or may not result in their death.

Why? I do wear black most of the time, but I’m not a nihilist. I write romance, for goodness’ sake! I think it’s because I believe in the inexorable saving grace of love–a force so strong it can bring people back from any brink. And what brink is brinkier than death?!?

In pondering the heroes that made me swoon the most, a lot of them had death wishes, or faux death wishes: Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre, most (all?) of Anne Stuart‘s heroes, and I am sure there are others. What makes that kind of single-minded, determined hero so darn attractive to me? Not sure, but I am set on a course for Death Wish heroes for a long time to come (except for the erotic novella I have in my head; the only death is the “little death” he is planning for the heroine. Heh, heh).

Do you find Death Wish heroes attractive? Who are your favorites?