Romances with female tops

[oyceter]

I've lately gotten into yet another bad romance novel* binge, and that plus quite a few conversations with daedala, as well as rachelmanija's recent review of Joey Hill's The Vampire Queen's Servant are prompting this post.

As Rachel notes, it's pretty hard to find sexually dominant women in romances. It has been getting slightly better, but a dominant heroine is still so rare that I still cheer when the heroine just takes the lead in a single sex scene in a book!

So here are the ones I have found! Please leave more in comments if you have them! I realize a lot of them are going to have a billion qualifications, since I can still count the number of dominant heroines on one hand, but even romances in which one of the sex scenes has the heroine taking the lead is good!

That said, my criteria is that the heroine has to take the lead in the actual sex scene. I've read way too many romances in which the heroine looks like she will take the lead or take control, but once it comes to sex, it's directed by the hero all the way. My definition of "taking the lead" is a bit fuzzy, but it usually involves tying people up, ordering them around, orchestrating the entire scene, etc.

Disclaimer: I'm not very knowledgeable about the BDSM scene, so the terminology below is adapted from book or review descriptions and possibly not accurately used. (Please let me know if anything is wrong and/or offensive!)

Definitely dominant
In which the heroine is no-questions-barred in charge and the hero enjoys submitting to her

• Evie Byrne, Damned by Blood - More vampires! The prose isn't great, and the guy is in charge in the first few sex scenes, but I like that the book is about the heroine hating being submissive and taking control later.


• Megan Hart, Pleasure and Purpose - the third novella in this collection has a Domme.


• Joey W. Hill, Mistress of Redemption - BDSM erotica. Prose and world weren't enough for me to get through this. On the plus side, the heroine's Dark Angst is that she literally tore out her lover's heart and ate it. Not quite as good as the zombie dinosaur apocalypse of A Witch's Beauty, but hey, I'm not complaining!


• Joey W. Hill, Natural Law - BDSM erotica, same world as the above. The prose and plot are kind of terrible, but the psychological look at breaking down the male sub is kind of awesomesauce. (Also, still annoyed about Mandarin collars = Japanese clothing!)


• Joey W. Hill, The Vampire Queen's Servant and The Mark of the Vampire Queen - I haven't actually finished these, but from a skim and from Rachel's report, the prose is kind of terrible and there is a lot of sex.


• Joey W. Hill, A Vampire's Claim - same world as the above books. It had too much sex and not enough character for me, and it veers so far to the dominant heroine that I had consent issues with how she was treating the guy.


• Laura Kinsale, Shadowheart - The heroine discovers her own SM tendencies while also discovering her own political power. Still one of the most explicit female tops I've read in genre romance that isn't erotica or erotic romance.


• (ETA) Stephanie Vaughan, Cruel to Be Kind - femdom in a small town teaching a guy to be a sub. I love the heroine and the early scenes where the hero is like "What is going on?!" but ultimately don't really like the hero.

Almost but not quite there
In which the heroine enjoys topping or inflicting pain, but the power dynamic isn't kept through the entire book

• Joey W. Hill, Ice Queen and Mirror of My Soul - same world as Natural Law and Mistress. The heroine is one of the best Dommes in the series' exclusive BDSM club, so we get scenes with her doing that, but the books are mostly about her learning to sub for a male dom.


• Lydia Joyce, Shadows of the Night - historical romance in which the heroine dislikes her lack of control over her life and finds out she likes SM and hurting her husband, minus points because her husband basically forces her to do it.


• Anne Rice, Exit to Eden - I haven't read this for a long time, but IIRC, the heroine is a Domme at a BDSM club, and the hero is a reluctant sub, but when they are out of the club, she dominates less.

Single scenes
In which the heroine takes control in at least one sex scene, even if it's not really about her being the sexually dominant partner

• Connie Brockway, All Through the Night - she's a thief and ties him to a chair at one point and fondles him. No sex.


• Nicola Cornick, One Wicked Sin - she ties him up in one scene!


• Megan Hart, Layover - Novella. there's a lot of hints that the heroine likes to take control, but it's less overt than some of the other books here.


• Megan Hart and Lauren Dane, Taking Care of Business and No Reservations - One of the two heroines in the book likes bossing around her lover. I haven't read the second but assume it has more bossing around, as the characters are the same.


• Elizabeth Hoyt, To Seduce a Sinner - heroine is annoyed her husband is "wham bam thank you ma'am," seduces him.


• Elizabeth Hoyt, Wicked Intentions - heroine ties the hero up in one scene!


• Victoria Janssen, The Duchess, Her Maid, the Groom, and Their Lover - one of the side female characters ties the hero down and has fun with him. The primary romance has an older woman in charge, though my feeling was that she didn't always want to be in charge.


• Julia Quinn, When He Was Wicked - Francesca gets to direct one sex scene and is literally on top.

* I have nothing against the romance genre, and I think a lot of people's denigration of the genre is sexist in nature. However, I also dislike the frequent heteronormativity and racefail of romances. Also, this particular binge was particularly bad because I read all the books by romance authors I like, nothing new is coming out from them for a few months, I have started reading other people's recs even though their tastes are not mine, and I have started randomly picking books off the library shelves, which... is not a great way to get quality books.

Comments

Books in a similar vein

[estara]

Single scene, where the fairly innocent heroine is encouraged by the hero to tie him up: Emma Holly's regency erotic romance Beyond Innocence

The whole book about a dom finding the man of her dreams (at the end they are fine taking turns), and trying all kinds of others out meanywhile, Emma Holly Black Lace erotica
The Top of Her Game

Re: Books in a similar vein

[oracne]

LOL, I was commenting on that Emma Holly one at the same time!

Re: Books in a similar vein

[estara]

Four minutes later, Hah! Do I win something?

Re: Books in a similar vein

[oracne]

You win...some rope/silk stockings/cravats?

Re: Books in a similar vein

[estara]

I'll take the silk stockings, thank you ^^

Re: Books in a similar vein

[oyceter]

Oooo! I have largely not read Emma Holly, am super glad she has a femdom one!!!!!

Re: Books in a similar vein

[estara]

Well, she has a fem sub one, too! And two menage books in her erotica line ^^. At least. Righ, I remember a third menage one.

Oh, maybe you'd like the menage one where the girl is sort of possessed by the memories of an ancient queen and dominates both the men she's in love with? The man also have a m/m thing going but mostly she is their ultimate focus. It's her apocalyptic futuristic vampire storyline - the good crack. She loses her virginity happily and never looks back ^^ - Demon's Fire. This even has the menage as romance.

[oracne]

Hey, I'm on that list! I can add that there're female-dominated scenes in The Duke & The Pirate Queen as well (not hugely kinky or anything).

There's also a single scene in one of Emma Holly's two historical romances, but I can't remember if it was BEYOND SEDUCTION or BEYOND INNOCENCE b/c the titles are so similar. I think it was the latter.

In historicals particularly, several times I've seen the hero "teaching" the heroine to be on top, which doesn't count, but is interesting in an anthropological/genre sort of way.

[oyceter]

You are indeed on the list! I am eagerly awaiting getting my hands on Duke & Pirate Queen!

[oracne]

I hope you enjoy it!

[phi]

Which authors do you like? I've paperbackswapped books 1 & 2 in Dirk & Steele, based on fuzzy memories of you reviewing them kind of favorably in the past. I've kind of discovered a liking for romances in the last year (once I got over my misogynist denigration of the genre) but picking books from the library at random has not led to very many happy reading experiences.

I should add I have no interest in historicals, especially not historicals set in western europe, and a preference for paranormals.

[oyceter]

picking books from the library at random has not led to very many happy reading experiences.

Ahahaha, oh yes. I find romances have a much higher random pick-up strike-out rate for me as well, because the back cover copy all sounds the same.

I tend to read more historicals than contemporaries, so sadly a dearth of recs! Of the ones mentioned above, Evie Byrne and Joey Hill are contemporary paranormals and Megan Hart is contemporary (with the exception of her Order of Solace series, which is vaguely EuroAlternaWorld).

Marjorie Liu, yay! Yes, I definitely like her, though I've bounced off her Hunter's Kiss series. She tends to have lots of multiracial characters without much racefail and TOTAL CRACK WORLDBUILDING. My favs are Taste of Crimson (alpha female werewolf!), Shadow Touch (angsty psychics!), Dark Dreamers (multiracial heroine being super awesome!), and Wild Road (amnesia!).

Nalini Singh also has a lot of multiracial characters, but unfortunately, she also has a lot of Starbucks description (mocha, caramel, chocolate blah blah blah). She also tends to like her guys super alpha and animal-like, which turns me off, but I do like some of the interesting things with gender and emotion.

Meljean Brook does absolutely over-the-top crack with angels and demons and Guardians and vampires and nosferatu and anything else she can think of. She has two multiracial heroines, one (Demon Moon) of whom is awesome but stuck with a hero I want to slap (anything from heroine's pov is fun, hero's pov is all Starbucks description and Orientalizing), one (Demon Bound) of whom seems to have a multiracial background thrown in there and never mentioned again. I like that a lot of her women are older and/or more powerful than the heroes they're matched up with, and her take on vampires and bloodlust is a really interesting twist. She says most people have responded better by starting with Demon Night, which kicks off most of the plot arc stuff.

I haven't read Eileen Wilks, but ladyjax has been reccing her to me for forever. I think the heroine is multiracial and has a kickass Chinese grandma, but there was a lot of werewolf alpha stuff in the beginning I wasn't in the mood for.

Shana Abe's drakon series is paranormal historical, so YMMV. She tends to do cool and angsty heroines, but most of her heroes are asshats. Dream Thief is my fav, and the latest in the series (Time Weaver) feels more straight-up fantasy than romance, and I feel the strongest relationship in it is between the mother-daughter figures.

As you may have noticed, Joey Hill can be very hit or miss. My fav of hers is A Witch's Beauty, which has OTT angel-mermaid crack and a dinosaur apocalypse and a heroine who is severely scarred and half evil. Natural Law is probably the best of her femdom ones. Hill tends to have obvious roll-your-eyes Orientalizing (she named her half-elf half-Japanese heroine Elyssa Amaterasu Yamato Wentworth AHAHAHAHA); it's so obvious I mostly point and laugh but YMMV.

For non-paranormal contemporaries, I like Jennifer Crusie, who is funny and feminist, but unfortunately very white feminist.

There's also Jeannie Lin's Butterfly Swords. It's a historical, but I figured I should mention it for POC author and Chinese heroine and setting in Tang Dynasty China. I haven't read it yet and am sad the hero is a white guy, but I bought it to support non-Euro historical settings. Also, Lin says she based a lot of it on her love for wuxia!

[estara]

seconding Eileen Wilks! and Meljean Brook and how about Ilona Andrews?

[estara]

Also, if you can bear Shana Abe's heroes to read, you should handily be able to deal with the alpha bits in the Eileen Wilks.

[oracne]

Thirding Eileen Wilks! I like the way she handles the main continuing relationship.

[phi]

Nalini Singh -- ahahahaha. That's how I got into romances as a genre -- thanks to Ms Starkey. The alpha male changeling stuff is annoying but not a dealbreaker. Her angels series on the other hand - blegh. I can't get past how the 'romance' is essentialy rape, rape and more rape.

I haven't read any of the others you listed, so I'll have to check them out.

[oyceter]

I totally forgot to reply to the comments for this post... -_-;;.

Hahaha Ms. Starkey can be blamed for so many things!

Will be interested to know what you think about any of the ones you end up picking up!

Meljean Brook also started a new steampunk romance series with The Iron Duke... I started reading it and stopped because I thought the faceless horde of villains was E. Asian, but Jane on Dear Author mentioned she liked the treatment of the biracial heroine and race in general in the book, so... I may try it again.

I also just found a Joey Hill short story in Lace with Desire about a black female sub who is in the army and ends up getting blinded and severely scarred in battle and still gets to have hot sex! I skimmed it really fast because there are some standard "Oh Joey Hill really?" moments in there, but mentally bookmarked it because the black heroine in a non-Black-audience-targeted line plus differently abled is SO RARE in romance.

[phi]

I totally raced through the first eight in Dirk & Steele while I was at my parents. There were definitely some eye-rolling moments, and holy crap, she likes multiple (confusing) plot lines, but overall, thumbs up.

[oyceter]

OMG the plot for Red Heart of Jade? Makes no sense! Also, she's really terrible at place descriptions; I know she's actually been to Taiwan, but it doesn't sound anything like the Taipei I know.

[sqbr]

I came here indirectly via my network, and this comment is everything I've been looking for (romances about dominant women that aren't aggressively racist! Who knew such things existed?!) *adds books to "to read" list* *adds you to my reading circle, since you always have interesting things to say*

[oyceter]

Hi! I have seen you around as alias_sqbr! Also, awww, thank you, and haha, hope I don't run out of interesting stuff to say...

Also, OMG, if you know any other non-racist romances with POC and/or romance with dominant women, I would love more recs!

[sqbr]

Hmm. While I was looking for recs for romances with dominant women when I found this entry, it was partly to see if that was what I've been missing from regular romances, and I've realised it's not. Having tried (and been horribly skeeved by the power imbalance in) "Shadowheart" and thinking about it some more, what I care about is the overall power relationships between the characters, and while what happens during the sex scenes is an important part of that it's definitely not my overriding concern.

Poking through your journal, you've already read Loretta Chase and Meredith Duran, who are the two authors who play around with power relationships in a way I like. Plus it was you who got me into Marjorie Lui via 50books_poc (and from there romance novels in general, come to think of it. yay you ^_^) and she is alas the only romance author I've liked with POC protagonists. I saw you couldn't get through Duke of Shadows, I liked that she at least tried to poke at the evils of colonialism and was willing to have a hero who was less white than "part italian" but I can see how all the exoticism would be too much. I had wondered how much of my enjoyment of the book was only possible through the emotional distance of never having been exoticised myself.

[oyceter]

Ahahaha. I wish there were a ton of romances I was missing! I mean, there could be! I am just... less optimistic now than I used to be, since I have done a fair amount of googling and reading and such.

For overall power relationships, I have just started reading Suzanne Brockmann, who has the nice dynamic of the guys usually falling head-over-heels for the heroine, giving her a lot more of the emotional control. I was particularly surprised by this in her Navy SEAL series, but pleasantly so! Connie Brockway also has the woman pushing more in The Bridal Season (I like it) and The Golden Season (sadly not so great). Oh! And there is Megan Chance's (out of print) Fall from Grace, which has a hardened female criminal and the guy who loves her. He is also a train thief, but she's got the cold and emotionless thing down.

Meljean Brook also tends to write paranormals with Guardians (angel-like but used to be human), demons, and vampires and cracked out worldbuilding, and I really like that she tends to have older, more experienced heroines with younger heroes. That said, sometimes older means 200 years instead of 60, given the paranormal, but still! The first two books in the series are very weak in terms of structure, and it's probably easiest starting out with Demon Night. I read the back cover of that and thought it would be all big guy protecting human girl, and while some of it is... the relationship dynamics were much more interesting than I had anticipated.

...uh, you may have noticed I have a thing for icy heroines.

Yay! I am glad you liked Marjorie Liu! Yeah... I couldn't get through Duke of Shadows, I think because the part-Indian hero in the British Raj setting with basically all white people made me think too much of the part-Indian (Native) hero in US Western romances, in which that bit of POC-ness only acts to make them more romantic or something. But ahaha, I also have a hair-trigger temper when it comes to the East India Company.

[sqbr]

Ooh, they sound promising, thanks! I'll see if I can track them down.

I was VERY DUBIOUS about Duke of Shadows and it (mostly) won me over, but I think that may have something to do with overidentifying with heroine (eg amongst other things my husband is of mixed white/Indian descent and I like painting :)) and definitely don't feel confident saying it would appeal to anyone but me.

[oracne]

I forgot to mention Kresley Cole - she has female domination, but also a lot of very OTT male domination (which I read mostly as satire).

[oyceter]

Ooo, thanks for the rec! Will have to look up her stuff.

[oracne]

Cole can be pretty hysterical. I love the way she does the Valkyries.

[inkstone]

I never wanted to pick up Mistress of Redemption because that's the one where the guy is the skeevy dude from Natural Law.

[oyceter]

I luckily read it before Natural Law, but yeah, never finished. Though that was more because of "shifting landscapes dream domination SATAN WHUT?!" and OTT violence.

[thomasyan]

Have you read anything by Pat/rick Califia? I read and liked Doc and Fluff ages ago, but haven't read much since. There was a collection of short stories, and I remember there was one with sex between aliens and humans that didn't work for me, but I didn't spend time trying to figure out why. I'm not sure you'd like Califia, but thought s/he was worth mentioning.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

I am a huge longtime fan of Califia's writing (both non-fiction and erotica), and would heartily second the rec for anyone looking for femdom fiction -- with the big caveat that these stories are almost entirely queer BDSM erotica, frequently *very* heavy on the SM side, so they may not be the best match for someone who is looking for het genre romance with a more dominant-than-usual heroine: aside from his back catalog being predominantly lesbian fiction with a small subset of M/M, the short stories are often PWP smut without the emphasis on a developing relationship and HEA ending that's pretty much mandatory for genre romance, and the BDSM is often serious hardcore edgeplay, unflinchingly described. Mortal Companion might be the best starting place for a potential reader coming mostly from a paranormal romance background -- there's a developing M/F relationship at the core of the story, and it's novel-length so there's just more room for plot and relationship/character development than the average short story. It's been a while since I last read that one so I can't recall if there was actual femdom from the heroine, but the hero is a bisexual switch vampire and the main antagonist is his estranged and vengeful domme lesbian vampire sister (they both appear in a couple of earlier short stories), so there's probably some femdom and queer content in the novel along with the central het pairing. (I'm pretty sure there are at least a few flashback scenes involving some of Ulrich's earlier male lovers.) For readers looking for very explicit lesbian BDSM short fiction, OTOH, pretty much any of his short story collections except Hard Men (which is entirely M/M material) is worth a look.

(That short piece with alien/human sex you're remembering is, I think, almost certainly one of the stories from Melting Point -- I can't recall the title and seem to have lost my copy so I can't doublecheck it, but it's novella-length and involves a somewhat Kzinti/Hani-like felinoid species, matriarchal with males and females mostly living separately; a human spaceship crashed on their planet at some point in the distant past and the descendants of the spacers are now kept as slaves by the felinoid aliens.)

[sisterjune]

I LOVE YOU FOR THIS. LOVE. YOU. This is like my biggest kink and I NEVER see it ;_; Shadowheart was one of my fave romances of all time because of this. and Its no surprise romance fandom was lukewarm about it cause of all the lady being in charge scenes. I don't know about the erotica though, I don't dislike erotica but I often find it dull because I am just barraged with sex scenes before I even really know or care who anyone is. also terrible prose is dealbreaker :( Still there should be something in here for me somewhere. I might just re-read shadowheart lol. (so is it bad that part of the reason I want to be a writer one day is so I can write romance novels where the lady is the boss...all the time. 8Dv)

[oyceter]

I am so behind on replying to comments! Sorry!!!

Mostly I wanted to say:

(so is it bad that part of the reason I want to be a writer one day is so I can write romance novels where the lady is the boss...all the time. 8Dv)

DOOOOOOOO ITTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[lenora_rose]

I picked up Shadowheart for a generic "It seems like it might be good" vibe, heard her name recommended later as general decent romance, and read it and was pleasantly surprised by almost everything in it, above and beyond just the dominant female (yay!), including the fact that the historical setting and attitudes went slightly deeper than window dresssing. Although I'm still slightly unsure about the fact that he basically does rape her to take her virginity, I loved the fact that she took back control right then and there.

I was noticeably less impressed with Wicked Intentions - not for the lack of dominant female, but for the lack of romance in the romance. (Actually, the excerpt from the next in the same series sounded so much more promising)

Lately I've been looking for more dominant/submissive romances AND more lesbian romances (Because I seem to be able to find m/m almost as readily as het, but good f/f is much harder), it sounds like I should try Pat Calafia, at least the novels. (These two things I'm looking for may occasionally cross but don't actually have to, so the whole list is helpful.)

[oyceter]

Ahaha, I totally forgot to reply to these comments!

Yeah, I still don't like that he rapes her in the beginning. At least it was very clear that it was against her will and not pleasurable? Oh romances! You make my standards so low!

Wicked Intentions I wasn't very impressed by and have pretty much forgotten about the main romance, but like you, am looking more forward to the next book. And really want to see what she does with Silence, because that seems like an extremely non-standard romance set up.

[daedala]

Megan Hart's Switch is...interesting along these lines? The setup is weird, and I actually disliked the main romance, which makes me wonder if that is how she wrote it (there's a lot of information about the past that doesn't come out until the end, when I'd already given up on the character) or more about my own internalized classism. But the heroine was interesting, and how she goes from allowing others to control her to taking control herself worked well for me.

Also, there's a secondary character that I really hope she gets back to. I'm not sure how the heroine treats this character is entirely ethical.

[oyceter]

Oh that's interesting! I've actually disliked the main romance in several of her books that I've read, but I think she does some interesting, thinky things. Oh! Will be curious as to what you think if you ever read her "Layover," which is hot. I love the dynamic, but I also feel she backs away from the femdom thing at the end to placate the Spice Brief audience.

[daedala]

You are right! I do have that, and I have read it; I liked it quite well, but I didn't think about it in this context, because I don't tend to remember shorts all that often, and it does back off from the femdom a lot. Which was too bad, really.

I am reading the Nicola Cornick now! The heroine-ties-hero scene was hot, but sadly Lottie is in no way dominant. Which would have made for an interesting book! But very different.

Did the last Elizabeth Hoyt have a heroine-on-top scene? She often does, but I can't remember. And I just finished it. I was not too impressed, obv. (I read romances. I'm used to "good" characters who nevertheless are exploiting others. But this was just too much for me and I thought the treatment too shallow for the level of importance in the plot.)

[oyceter]

The one with Hero in it? I just finished it! IIRC, no heroine-on-top scene, sadly, though I did like the main couple talking to each other. I think I also liked it more than it probably deserved, due to external mood factors and really being in the mood for romance.

[daedala]

I have liked very bad books for no reason except I was in the right mood for them, and I wouldn't call the Hoyt very bad! Just problematic. I did like Hero, though I wished she'd had more of a spine when the information about the distillery came out. I thought she should have used that to stop the marriage with Mandeville (her brother would have found a way), tell Griffin where to get off, and run to Gretna with the footman or something. Actually I thought the brother pressing for the marriage was pretty out-of-character too.

Maybe Griffin could have her back if he actually stopped distilling of his own accord and dealt with the consequences, rather than passing them off to the lower-class gin distiller. Er, I'm ranting about the book, not you, and I probably don't remember it right!