You are currently viewing Badass Heroines

Badass Heroines

*Flushed from the success of reading all the Old School Historicals set by those modern doyens of the Romance genre, Sarah and Jen from ‘Fated Mates’, Kelsey and I embark on Season 2 of our Besties Book Club: Current Chart-Toppers.

Kelsey is a badass. In fact, she’s been so busy being a badass that she didn’t join me for Book Club this month. Even such clickbait texts as “She’s going to tie him to the mast!!!!” got zero clicks. You can see the situation was pretty dire.  If she was allowed to write this blog, Kelsey would probably apologise and would cite work-place stress. People apologise all the time when, really, they should take a damn bow. They’ve been fighting for a saner work structure. Or they’ve been resisting an insane one by withdrawing. And, either way, they deserve a round of applause.

Take my own heroine. She’s a Shared Living provider, part of an amazing group of people who share their homes with special needs adults. The outcomes for these residents are terrific compared to institutional spaces. But, yeah, it’s super demanding work. And then the pandemic happened and the work just never stopped because home. What’s that? A majority female workforce? Working from home? Doing care work? Yep, no way we could use that social and economic legacy in a time of crisis to create an impossibly demanding and underpaid environment.

Kelsey has been busy taking a stand against the limitless demands on her labour. She has been busy being badass.

Hey, you know who else knows a badass heroine when she sees one? Sarah MacLean. I cannot believe I’m only meeting these grown-up, kick-ass women now. I’ve been feeling pretty guilty about the fact that, one Christmas novella aside, I’ve never read this big name author. Which is insane. She writes late Regencies with just the dreamiest of stepbacks. It’s the signal all of us Old School Historical fans look for. And I know from her podcast, which I’ve been a huge fan of for nearly two years, that she’s going to give readers those sweeping Old School stories with the current politics I need. My only excuse for not immediately blowing through her whole cannon is that I was almost too invested in her being amazing to actually read her stuff.

Thank god that we’ve dedicated this year’s Book Club to tackling some of the biggest names in the current Romance scene! Because I’ve never loved playing catch up more than I have reading the three ‘Bareknuckle Bastards’ books. MacLean’s heroines are just gems. Too often a strong female lead has to be either reckless to the point of foolhardiness or impervious to the point of inhumanity. But the three women in these books are allowed complex, even contradictory, characters. They can be socially timid and privately untamed. Or professionally confident and personally insecure. Or outwardly ruthless and inwardly grieving. They’re always nuanced. They’re always badass. 

The other evident hallmark of a MacLean romance that I adore is how wonderfully networked the characters are. The Bareknuckle Bastards are first and foremost three siblings who go to the mat for each other (literally), but they’re also the centre of a close-knit community in London’s Covent Garden. And if a world filled with burly men with dockers’ hooks and ships full of contraband cargo doesn’t sound like female-focussed storytelling, then you haven’t read Gail Carriger’s book on The Heroine’s Journey Of course storytelling is gendered, but any sex (or none) is allowed to go it alone in a hero’s adventure, or bring people together heroine-style to defeat a bigger adversary. In this case, the crushing class system of 19th century England.

We were only scheduled to read Wicked and the Wallflower – and, right out the gates I get one of my favourite tropes, the scarred hero – but it’s impossible to read just one of these. MacLean writes a tight-knit trilogy. I sometimes resent being sucked right into the next book to ‘find out what happens to X’. Not here. For starters, the emotional payoff of each successive book is greater than the sum of its parts. Secondly, each one is just damn good on its own. Brazen and the Beast, Book 2, is the lovely, creamy centre of this layer cake. A tall, curvy heroine takes no prisoners – until she ties the hero to the mast!!!!! I will say no more. 

For the full payoff, you’ve got to read Daring and the Duke. MacLean really takes the finger, ie the risk, here. She’s always applauding other authors for attempting bold shit and here she practices what she preaches. The third book pairs our only female bastard with the enemy duke who a) colluded with the Bareknuckle Bastards’ evil father to get the title b) maybe tried to murder them as children c) tried to sorta murder her brothers as adults, and d) threatened to harm both previous heroines. So how the hell is this going to work out?!  Actually, surprisingly well. Yes, the book has all the angsty feels, but what really impressed me was the lighter moments that were as surprising as they were organic. Daring and the Duke felt at times almost like Derek Craven gender-reverse fanfic. Our bastard queen owns an impossibly glamourous women’s bordello with gaming tables. She cannot allow herself to feel. She has a factotum. Needless to say, I was a fan.

So yeah, this series feels like a rallying cry for heroines and heroines’ journeys, as well as being a real flex of writerly chops. A round of applause, Sarah MacLean.

Up next: Will my adoration of this author last when we attempt her much-hyped recommendation of Kresely Cole’s ‘Immortals After Dark’ series? It’s just your average twenty-part paranormal series filled to the back teeth with supernatural alphaholes. What could go wrong?