Oct. 21, 2021

Bad Boys & Gentle Villains

Bad Boys & Gentle Villains

Does a bad boy or villain hero give you a bit of a thrill? A little tingle? Dark romance unsettles me, but there's something reassuring and  protective in the gentle villain/noble demon, who chooses any means to the end of protecting you from hurt and harm. They'll burn down the world for you when needed--and what's not to love about that?



https://www.confessionsofaclosetromantic.com

More on the Morality Pet and Morality Chain tropes at tvtropes.org. Every aspect of these story tropes fascinates me and I can spend hours following the links on this site.

You can find my guest listener Monique at the fantastic Her Entrepreneurial Spirit podcast.

Movies/TV Shows

Watching the characters in Dangerous Liaisons out-evil each other is delicious up to a point, but it ends with most of the players' lives in tatters.

The Talented Mr. Ripley with its glamorous 1950s Italian setting, is so charming at first: you watch rich, beautiful young people living an indulgent, luxurious lifestyle. But it quickly devolves into tragedy, and by the end, this story seriously creeped me out.

My best friends on the block had Grease on VHS and I lost count of the number of times we watched it.

The setting, plot and main characters of French Kiss make it one of the most delightful rom coms of the 90s.

The bit that I watched of Shadow and Bone was excellent, but I need training wheels before I can get into most world building like this.

Books

If you enjoy world building, the sexy, sweeping and captivating fantasy-romance series  Blood and Ash is wildly popular for a reason.

Return Billionaire to Sender is part of the Billionaires of Manhattan series by Annika Martin, and they're not your typical arrogant, hot rich guy romances. Every one I've read has been full of clever banter and plotting, funny, sharp heroines and sexy bad boys who adopt them as morality pets only to become the better men they were always meant to be.