Sarah Dessen's YA novel This Lullaby kind of fits, if you squint at it right, but ... yeah, this is why I forgive For My Lady's Heart the bizarre dialect.
There is some play with these tropes in Kristine Smith's Code of Conduct series, but although I really, really like the books, the romance is the least satisfying aspect of them.
You know, I think Anita Blake is an attempt to do a female James Bond, only possibly not consciously. But the conflict between getting to be the suave hero who sleeps around and being a girl (which in a gender-stereotype-normative enviroment means wanting emotional attachments) may explain the mess of the last several books in the series.
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Mon, Nov. 1st, 2004 09:47 am (UTC)There is some play with these tropes in Kristine Smith's Code of Conduct series, but although I really, really like the books, the romance is the least satisfying aspect of them.
You know, I think Anita Blake is an attempt to do a female James Bond, only possibly not consciously. But the conflict between getting to be the suave hero who sleeps around and being a girl (which in a gender-stereotype-normative enviroment means wanting emotional attachments) may explain the mess of the last several books in the series.