I think it is the struggle to come to terms with these things that makes the characters come alive. Your heroines are sometimes described as emotionally cool . Leigh from Prince of Midnight was equally as wounded as any of my heroes, but for some reason, this is not as acceptable in heroines. Or maybe I just have not been able to make the heroine s wounding come across well. Some readers complain that my heroines are too wimpy, and yet when I wrote strong ones, they are considered too strong, if not bitchy.
Readers have no forgiveness or margin for error there, as they do for the hero.
In many romances, the sweet, innocent heroine redeems the jaded, world-weary hero, but in FMLH, it works the other way around. I enjoyed doing it a great deal. What I've learned is that no matter what sort of heroine I write, somebody won't like her. So I've just given up worrying about it and write what seems to me to work for the book and the particular chemistry between the characters. . FMLH was your first medieval, with dialogue written with a realistic Middle English flavor which brought much joy to this English lit major.