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

[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.