We are happy to have author Jess Michaels at Smexy today. Jess is celebrating the release of Beauty and the Earl….
Broken
Jess Michaels
Hi everyone and a big thanks to Mandi for allowing me to hang out today here at Smexy Books. I’m a very large fan of the smexy stuff and always have been, so I feel like I’m amongst my people here. The cool thing is that as an author, I get to write as much of the sexy as I want to… and I want to write quite a lot of it.
The other thing I love to write a lot of is broken heroes. I can practically HEAR some of you smiling at that. What is it about those busted up, screwed up, bad boys that we all love so much? We love them in books and we love them in movies and television (Loki, Sherlock, anything Michael Fassbender plays). There’s something just so appealing about a handsome, raw man, balanced on the pin head of falling apart. To protect himself, he has hardened himself to emotion, perhaps he doesn’t believe he deserves love or that love is even real.
One thing that is often very real to him is sex. Proficient in pleasure, but never willing to get too close, that broken hero has never met his match. Until her. Until the heroine. It’s a dance that just never gets old to me, I can always find a fun new way to tell it that fulfills all my needs as a writer (and a reader).
In my newest book, Beauty and the Earl (out today!), I take that broken hero and drop him into the darkest well I’ve probably ever put a hero in. Liam, my hero, has been embroiled in a war that is generations old with the family of the Duke of Rothcastle. He never meant to fall in love with Rothcastle’s sister, but when they did and ran away to be married, the duke made chase and a horrible accident followed. One that physically injured both men and led to the death of Rothcastle’s sister.
The results for Liam are utter heartbreak, physical devastation and emotional destruction. He is broken in every way that matters, and that brokenness is made worse when his own sister (Ava) ends up marrying the Duke of Rothcastle (in Taken By the Duke, which came out last summer). In short, Liam is pretty f’d up. He isolates himself in a country estate, drinking and loathing himself and his enemy, cutting himself away from the sister who loves him.
Now maybe in real life, that would be the end of it. But this is romance! So of course Liam’s sister sends along a spy to try to crack her way into the life he has locked himself away in to. A beautiful spy, a courtesan named Violet. Now whether or not she can break through Liam’s shell, whether they can overcome all the lies she has to tell…
Well, you’ll just have to read the book. Like… now! NOW!!!!
Okay, before you go, who is your favorite broken hero?
Leave a comment with an answer to that question to win a copy of Jess Michaels’ previous book, Take by the Duke. Open to all through Friday, April 18.
Find Jess: Goodreads l Website l Amazon
Ripper from Madeline Sheehans Unbeautifully
Mr. Rodchester, Jane Eyre
Thanks for the post and congrats on your newest release. I love me a broken hero. I have two favorites: Sean from Christine Monson’s Stormfire and Jonas from Megan Chance’s The Portrait. He’s manic-depressive.
I don’t have a favorite. I love the scarred hero, especially the war hero. Some of my favorites are Reynaud St. Aubyn in to desire a devil by elizabeth hoyt and Alistair Munroe in to beguile a beast by Elizabeth hoyt. I also really liked tessa dare’s broken heroes like Colin Sandhurst, Victor Bramwell and Ransom
Zsadist from the BDB series
gonna go for an oldie but a goodie :) Mr. Rochester!! Thanks for sharing!
Rome by Jay Crownover from her Marked Men series.
Wren from Sherrilyn Kenyon’s “Unleash the Night” and Sydnam Butler from Mary Balogh’s “Simply Love”. Those are two books I’ve reread more than once and own both paperback and ebook versions. You can never be too safe :)
Elliot McBride from The Seduction of Elliot McBride by Jennifer Ashley. Mr. Rodchester is a good one too but I could never really feel sorry for him because he lied to Jane :( Thank you for the giveaway!
Gabriel Fairchild from Teresa Medeiros’s Yours Until Dawn. Such an amazing book and you can’t help but fall hard for Gabriel.
It seems trite but my first thought was Zhadist from BDB. Oh I still love that broken scarred heart ;-)
Then I moved on to Elliott McBride from Jennifer Ashley. That got me thinking about Karen Ranney’s broken heroes and has she got some good ones!
Thanks for the giveaway and for the great historical romance. Best wishes on your new release!
Dain from Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase is a favorite.
Faramir from Lord of the Rings. Thanks for the contest.
Anthony Earhart from Mary Balogh’s The Temporary Wife. I think we all like seeing someone broken find a form of healing through love!
Tristan from My Wicked Pirate by Rona Sharon