Brenda Joyce

Historical/Regency Ireland

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There's a trend in Romance today toward the Beta Male hero.

Not swashbuckling or aggressive, Beta Males are sensitive, intuitive.

They respect women and treat them as equals, not possessions.

Blech.

If I want that, I can get it at home.

No, give me an Alpha Male who's big and overbearing, who never met a rule he didn't disdain, and who masters all he surveys.

In other words: Give me a hero by Brenda Joyce.

And make him Tyrell de Warenne, the infuriatingly self-possessed, too-gorgeous-for-his-own-good hero of Joyce's exceptionally romantic and entertaining "The Masquerade."

Tyrell has lived his whole life preparing to become the next Earl of Adare. He's a singularly decent guy, but no saint, not with his dark Irish good looks and charming hauteur.

Plain, well-natured, Elizabeth Fitzgerald has long been charmed by Tyrell. To be exact, she's been in love with him since she was a chubby 10-year-old whom he'd rescued from drowning.

When Elizabeth attends her first masquerade ball costumed as an alluring Maid Marian, she dreams of catching the eye of the young lord who is well above her social stratum.

Tyrell is smitten and invites her to a midnight tryst in the gardens, promising carnal fulfillment of innocent Lizzie's not-so-ingenuous fantasies.

Elizabeth shows up on his doorstep two years later with a child she claims is his.

Tyrell knows he can't be the father -- the minx never showed for their rendezvous!

Still, he'll claim the boy and allow Elizabeth to continue to care for the child under that most delicious and melodramatic of romance novel conditions ...

Elizabeth must become Tyrell's mistress.

Brenda Joyce is one of today's best writers of grand and entertaining historical love stories like "The Masquerade."

She grabs a reader and tugs her by the heartstrings through exquisite sensual tension, seemingly unrequited love, and interactions in which the hero treats the heroine's feelings with so little care one is shocked at just how delightful it is to read about it.

Yeah. You read that right.

Joyce is one of the few authors brave enough to write an attractive hero who's kind of a jerk by today's standards.

Like Tyrell de Warrenne, some of Joyce's heroes are men who normally wouldn't act like such idiots, they're simply crazed with emotion over a woman.

Or, like Devlin O'Neill of Joyce's fabulous "The Prize," they really are jerks, but are brought to their knees by a woman's love.

How can critics of Romance fail to see the power of the heroine in those scenarios?

Joyce knows well how to make us like her heroes: she lays the case for their redemption throughout the novel, making us see in them the redeeming qualities admired by her resolute heroines.

And Joyce's heroines are powerful, if not in a 21st Century way.

They're determined to give generously of their love and loyalty, and eventually choose the paths in life best for them with or without the men they adore.

If you love a well-written, grand romance -- and a virile Alpha hero -- why not …

Buy the book.

MORE: www.brendajoyce.com

Next Week's Review and AuthorView: "Million Dollar Dilemma," by Judy Baer