Jennifer Robson: Why I love a tortured hero
Jennifer Robson, author of After the War is Over, explores why she (and the rest of us!) so love our tortured heroes.
Jennifer: My new novel, After the War is Over, begins in the early months of 1919. The Great War is over and Charlotte Brown, my heroine, is trying to make a life for herself amid the ashes of a world that has been brought to its knees. Although Charlotte is determined to devote herself to her work among the poor and dispossessed of Liverpool, she is unable to ignore the plight of the only man she has ever loved.
Edward Neville-Ashford, who has recently inherited the earldom of Cumberland, was broken in body and spirit by the war. On one of the first occasions that Charlotte sees him after the war, she senses the shadows that afflict him, "lingering in his voice, his manner, and his weary gaze." When she does summon the courage to ask if he will talk to their friend Robbie about his problems, Edward lashes out at her.
—
"Will you at least talk to Robbie?" she pressed.
"He's been grumbling to you, hasn't he?"
"I think he's right to be worried."
He sat up straight and looked down his fine, proud, aristocratic nose at her. "You think he's right? Whatever can you know of it?"
"I was a nurse. I took care of men like you. I saw how they suffered."
"Men like me? You mean the crackpots, shaking and stammering, covering their ears whenever a door slams shut? You think I'm like them?"
"There's no shame in it—"
"Of course there is. Everything about it is shameful, beginning with the way people like you talk about it. As if you know. As if anyone who wasn't there can possibly understand."
"I didn't say I understand."
"Don't. Don't even think it. Your problem, Charlotte Brown, is that you believe you can fix everything. But you can't fix me. Nothing can, save oblivion. The same oblivion I was desperate for, but was denied by well-meaning doctors and nurses like you. So save me your concern and your pity. They're wasted on me, and we both know it."
—
We can see that Edward is broken, but is he beyond help? That is the question that bedevils Charlotte, who stakes her heart and future happiness on her hope that he can, and will, find peace.
I know I'm not alone in my love of the tormented hero, for some of my favorite authors have created memorable characters whose appeal is only heightened by the storm clouds of misery that seem to hover over them. Here's a short (and far from comprehensive) list of my faves — but I'd love to know who you would add to the list. Who are the tortured heroes you long to save?
• Sir Alistair Munroe from To Beguile a Beast. To be honest, all the heroes in Elizabeth Hoyt's Four Soldiers series are memorable, but Sir Alistair is the one I can't forget. (The fact that he's a Scot and adores his elderly dog is merely icing on the cake).
• Piers Yelverton, Earl of Marchant, from Eloisa James's When Beauty Tamed the Beast. Clearly I have a thing for this particular fairy-tale-inspired trope. And he's a doctor, of the especially irascible variety. Ahhhh …
• Captain Christopher Phelan from Lisa Kleypas' Love in the Afternoon. The hero of the final installment in the Hathaways series suffers horribly in the aftermath of his experiences in the Crimean War, yet that only makes him all the more worthy of Beatrix's love.
• Corporal Samuel Thorne from Tessa Dare's A Lady by Midnight. I adore all of Tessa Dare's heroes, every last one, but Corporal Thorne is the stand-out for me. He is so deliciously grumpy at times, but underneath that tough exterior is a marshmallow center that made my heart simply melt.
Find out more about Jennifer Robson and her books at www.jennifer-robson.com.