I wrote a post, “Undressing the Hero: Judith Ivory’s Untie My Heart” for Heroes and Heartbreakers that went live today.
Now on to today’s topic. I don’t intend to make “unusual heroines” a weekly thing, but I do want to know…where are the romance heroines who are academics?
Career academic who solves murders, yes: Quieter than Sleep
But not so much with the heroines in contemporary romances. Bluestockings or so-called bluestockings in historical romance novels, yes, pretty often. I think of them as a different category, since most of them were educated at home or through an indulgent family, not at all the same thing as today’s academic world. (There’s a list of bluestocking heroines at All About Romance here.)
My question is more aimed at contemporaries. Where are the romance heroines fighting for tenure, balancing writing their dissertation with the demands of their billionaire lover, having to skip an anniversary dinner because of a conference? If there are women academics in romance novels, how often do we actually see them do anything, well, academic?
I mentioned on Twitter that I was writing this post, and promptly got some suggestions!
Victoria Dahl’s upcoming novel, Bad Boys Do, features a heroine who’s an instructor at a university, which means no job security–a great touch of realism!
The heroine in Erin McCarthy’s Hard and Fast is working on a Master’s degree in sociology.
The heroine of Judith Ivory’s The Proposition is a linguist, but isn’t shown to be associated with any particular university; she might be considered more in the “bluestocking” category.
I would be grateful for any further recommendations.
“Tolstoy Lied,” by Rachel Kadish, features a protagonist fighting for tenure as she works through a tempestuous relationship. Very good book. One of the most invisibly-written present-tense novels I’ve ever read; as in, I forgot that it was in present tense while reading, whereas with most things it always jars me a little.
That sounds really interesting, thank you!