I’ve been sensing a trend in romance-land lately: a preference for older heroines. She might be a spinster. She might be a widow. She might even be a courtesan. She’s not the traditional innocent girl making her debut. She’s what I call a lady who has lived a little.

Some of the ones I’ve enjoyed lately are Your Scandalous Ways by Loretta Chase, The Widow’s Club series by Sophia Nash or The Girl Bachelor Series by Laura Lee Guhrke.

I see them as heroines that are a little more like the rest of us. We might not have it all figured out when we’re in our teens, or lived happily ever after with the first man we fell in love with. That’s one thing I have in common with Angela Sullivan, the heroine of my new novel, The Rogue And The Rival (have to plug the new book ☺). Neither she, nor I, knew a heck of a lot about men or romance at that age.

Blinded by love at 17, Angela gave up her innocence to the man she loved. Lord Frost loved her back, but couldn’t marry her—something he neglected to tell her until it was too late. Forced to leave her family home, Angela found refuge at Stanbrook Abbey. She swore off men and prepared to take her orders of poverty, obedience, and chastity.

But then one day an injured rogue, Phillip Kensington, is brought to the abbey, desperately in need of care. The task of nursing “Lord Invalid” back to health falls to Angela. But she does more than that—she goes and falls in love with him. Phillip falls in love with her, too. Before they can ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after, he’s forcibly taken. Not knowing all the facts, she believes that he abandoned her. Lots of heartache for one girl, right? (Don’t worry, it ends well!)

When Angela finally makes it to London for a season, she’s had two broken hearts, been kicked out of her home, and left the abbey after six years. She moves in with her aunt, Negligent Chaperone, Lady Palmerston. Angela also secures a position as an illustrator of the serial novel Darcy Darlington And The Diamond Of Desire that appears in the newspaper London Weekly. That’s a lot of living for a twenty-something woman in the Regency-era.

To quote the Dixie Chicks, she’s “taking the long way.” But here’s the thing with taking the long way—you still get there (where ever “there” may be) eventually. The arrival may be all the more sweet and rewarding because of the lengths it took to get there. For Angela and other romance heroines like her, she still gets her happily-ever-after, even if she’s taken an unconventional path to it.