Today I welcome journalist and fiction writer Jessica Cale, who bucked the trend for titled heroes in romance novels and explains the appeal of her hero, Mark Virtue.
Falling in Love With a Working-Class Hero
by Jessica Cale
With so many dukes and earls populating the pages of historical
romantic fiction, you might wonder why I chose to pull my hero from the working
class. Because dukes have the money, the education, and the endless supply of
bespoke suits, working-class men often get overlooked, and that is a dreadful
shame.
Why? Money and position aren’t everything. Lord knows
overcoming obstacles is harder when your resources are limited, but your wits
get sharper when you’re forced to live by them. Besides, there’s nothing sexy
about a man who can’t feed or dress himself without the help of servants.
Helpless is not a
word commonly used to describe my character Mark Virtue.
There’s a lot to love about Mark. After spending the uncertain
years after the Great Fire of London robbing coaches as a highwayman, he’s
decided it’s time to settle down and take his place as Southwark’s Master
Carpenter in truth instead of using the business as a front for his less reputable
activities. Two stints in Newgate are enough for any man, after all, and Mark
doesn’t fancy going back. Not as long as the warden fancies him as much as she
does…
Mark’s life hasn’t been easy. He may have grown up in a posh
house in St. James, but that doesn’t mean he’s anything other than thoroughly
common. His father may have been a war hero, but he ran a stable first, and it
was only through his mother’s second marriage that he was able to get his
apprenticeship at all. Years of back-breaking labor sculpted that body of his
as he built houses—and coffins—for his impoverished neighbors, often at his own
expense. He’s been poor and he’s gone hungry, but Mark takes his duty to his
community very seriously because he knows that although they may all be in the
gutter, they’re in it together.
That’s not to say he’d ever complain. He appreciates what he
has and he loves the life he leads. He’s smart, he’s resourceful, and he’s down
to earth. He’s an independent, self-made man, and he’s not looking for a
housekeeper or a trophy, he just wants a girl.
 |
| Jessica Cale |
One girl in particular.
Mark has always been popular with girls; just ask the Henshawe
sisters down at The Rose & Crown. Meg’s decided he’s hers now, but Mark
only has eyes for Jane. Jane the actress. Jane the seamstress. Lady Jane
Ramsey, the bloody bane of his existence, whose wicked smile and steel-gray
eyes haunt his dreams. As the daughter of an earl and an heiress besides, they
were never meant to inhabit the same world. Their only night together? A fluke.
Jane could no more live a day in Southwark than he could fit in at Court, and
he wouldn’t want her to.
Would he?
You can meet Mark in Tyburn
and read his story in Virtue’s Lady,
out now.
✥✥✥✥✥
Jessica Cale is a
historical romance author and journalist based in North Carolina. Originally
from Minnesota, she lived in Wales for several years, where she earned a B.A.
in history and an M.F.A. in creative writing while climbing castles and
photographing mines for history magazines. She kidnapped (“married”) her very
own British prince (close enough) and is enjoying her happily ever after with
him in a place where no one understands his accent.
You can visit her at http://www.authorjessicacale.com. Her first novel, Tyburn, won the Gayle Wilson Award of
Excellence in the Historical Category for 2015. You can find both Tyburn and Virtue’s Lady here.
4 comments:
Beautiful cover. Love those blues.
Thank you! The artist did a great job. :-)
CHARLES, I agree! What a wonderful blue.
JESSICA, thanks again for your guest post. After thinking about your post, I realized that the working-class traits that make your historical hero a hero are the same traits that appeal to women in contemporary romances about cowboys, police, firemen, military men, and men in other such jobs. I wonder why the difference? The much lower standard of living of working-class people in the past? Do you have an opinion?
You're absolutely right! So many of the traits are those that are seen as ideal today (in contemporary romance and real life), but I think people have a hard time imagining the lower classes in history, just because there's not so much written about them. Even in school, you get given this view of peasants or serfs as a single entity with a collective consciousness, and that's just bizarre to me. I think the preference for wealthy and titled heroes in historicals is mainly just an extension of the contemporary hero archetypes romances have been relying on for years -- the millionaire, the billionaire, the Prince, Sheikh, rich boss, etc -- that are more about wish-fulfillment. That's fine, and there's a place for that, but I don't want to see the poor or the marginalized left out of history OR romance.
The trouble is that they really have been. It's harder to research the lower classes, and it can be incredibly depressing, especially when you get into mortality rates. The standard of living was a lot lower, but in this series, I'm trying to show that that's not without its romance. What's more romantic than a man giving someone literally everything he has?
I would love to see more diverse heroes in historical romance. Just because you mainly read about the great and the wealthy in history books, doesn't mean the others weren't there. They had dreams, loves, and opinions of their own, so I think they should have their own adventures, too.
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