Quiet Strength
There is no shortage of 'strong' women in romantic suspense…none at all.
We've got cops, private investigators, sharpshooters, bail bondswomen…the woman who seems to be the type to leap tall buildings in a single bound, while wearing four-inch heels, and she'll land on the other side without breaking her stride. Her hair will be perfect, her make-up be pristine and she'll give the hero a smoldering look on her way to her next butt-kicking.
Yes?
A little over the top?
Eh, yeah, probably. But you have to admit, there's no shortage of the strong heroine in romantic suspense. And I like a strong heroine.
Sometimes, we have her opposite…the push-over.
I don't like the pushover, but here I was writing…writing about her.
Although, to be honest, she was more of a victim than a pushover.
A few years ago, she divorced her husband, after years of abuse. Physical abuse. Mental abuse. But even the divorce wasn't enough to make her feel safe and she started to run. Hitting the road, never settling down, Hope stayed on the road. She never stopped fearing he'd come after her. And she just might have kept on running. But then she was attacked and it had the weirdest effect on her. It pushed her to the wall, and she found her stopping point.
After all the hell she'd been through, Hope finally found her strength.
I knew it was there…it would have to be for the story to work out, but it was still kind of fun to watch her emerge. She won't ever be the heroine to leap buildings in her four-inch stilettos, but she stopped hiding. She stopped cringing her life away.
She looked inside and saw what the hero saw all along…
Without all that hair, she didn’t look so fragile, he realized. Not that she really was, he was coming to realize. A fragile woman would have broken after what had been done to her. No matter what people thought, Hope hadn’t broken. She had been forced to bend, to take unimaginable shit and heartbreak.
But she hadn’t broken.
She had to be one of the strongest women he’d ever met.
Does the quiet strength work for you? Who are some of the heroines (even the heroes) that come to mind when you think of quiet strength? Shiloh Walker will be giving away a $15 gift certificate to Amazon, Books A Million, or Barnes and Noble (winner's choice) to one person who leaves a comment.
Shiloh Walker
