Sofie Darling’s Top 10 Favorite Heroines in Literature:

10. Lily Bart (The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton)

My apologies for starting the list with a tragic heroine, but I love Lily Bart. In the beginning of the novel, she is very difficult to like. She can be petty, small-minded, and superficial. But as Society knocks her down, notch by notch, Wharton deepens Lily and paints a sympathetic portrait of a woman who could never catch a break. How I wept and wept for Lily Bart.

9. Jane Eyre (Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte)

Quite simply, Jane never gives up. Life isn’t easy on her, yet she always picks herself up and gets on with it.

8. Penelope (The Odyssey by Homer)

Penelope doesn’t get enough credit. Odysseus was away from home for twenty years—twenty years!—both fighting in the Trojan War and journeying home. All the while, Penelope tended house and raised their son. But that’s not all: she had to fend off some rather aggressive suitors who would take their home by force. How did she do it? By employing a cunning that more than matches that of her wily husband.

7. Becky Sharpe (Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray)

Becky Sharpe is the ultimate anti-heroine. She’s bad girl, through and through. But she’s just so darn compelling with her can-do spirit. If only she would use that power and energy for good, but she never will. She’s a true scoundrel, that one. But, oh, how her antics make me smile.

6. Anna Karenina (Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy)

Another tragic heroine who’s a bit of a bad girl. But she’s more than that, too. Anna is deep and complex and a victim of her own desire. Tolstoy admitted that when he set out to write Anna Karenina, he didn’t like her. But over the course of the novel, she changed his mind. Her final chapter before she meets her tragic end is one of the best chapters in all of literature because of the sympathy and sensitivity of Tolstoy’s portrayal. She’s a character the romance writer inside me would love to redeem.

5. Submit Channing-Downes (Black Silk by Judith Ivory)

Submit Channing-Downes is the rare heroine in historical romance: she isn’t all that likeable. In fact, her name is a delicious irony. She’s intelligent, possessed of a wry sense of humor, and the perfect match for the notorious Graham Wessit. I reread this book once a year.

4. Anne Elliot (Persuasion by Jane Austen)

Anne Elliot is one of the quieter heroines of literature. But one shouldn’t underestimate her. Years ago, she was persuaded to give up the love of her life because he wasn’t “good enough.” When he returns, she proves she’s no mouse, but rather a lioness who will have her love and happy ending.

3.Bathsheba Everdene (Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy)

Bathsheba Everdene is a beautiful, larger-than-life heroine who, when she gets an idea in her head, she just goes for it. She is flawed and doesn’t always make the right choices, but her heart is pure gold. Hardy doesn’t always give his heroes and heroines happy endings, but I’m so glad he gave Bathsheba hers.

2. Elizabeth Bennett (Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen)

I’m not sure I have anything to say about Lizzie Bennett that hasn’t already been said. She is, quite simply, the archetype heroine for the modern historical romance, just as her love, Mr. Darcy, is for the hero. She’s lovely, intelligent, witty, and headstrong. And she gets her man. Oh, how I wanted to grow up to be her.

1. Dorothea Brooke (Middlemarch by George Eliot)

Dorothea Brooke will always be my favorite heroine. She begins the novel as a headstrong and naïve girl on the cusp of womanhood. The type who makes grand, idealistic statements about a world she’s never experienced. Then life and a disastrously bad marriage knock her about. But, ever spirited, Dorothea doesn’t stay down for long. Eventually, she finds her way and, bravely, her love.

Thank you so much for inviting me over today. This was so much fun!

Three Lessons in Seduction

Lord Nicholas Asquith needs his wife. Too bad he broke her heart ten years ago.

Can he resist a second chance at the love he lost?

When Mariana catches the eye of the man at the center of an assassination plot, Nick puts aside their painful past and enlists her to obtain information by any means necessary, even if it means seducing the enemy agent.

Even if the thought makes his blood boil.

Only by keeping his distance from Mariana these last ten years was he able to pretend indifference to her. With every moment spent with her, he feels his tightly held control slipping…

Can she trust the spy who broke her heart?

Mariana spent the last decade forgetting Nick. Now she has the chance to best him at his own game, an opportunity she can’t resist, even as her view of him begins to shift. Increasingly, she wants nothing more than to seduce her own husband . . . 

It’s only a matter of time before mad passion ignites, a passion never convincingly extinguished. A passion that insists on surrendering to the yearning of the flesh and, quite possibly, of the heart.