This weeks Booking Through Thursday question:
Who is your favorite female lead character? And why? (And yes, of course, you can name more than one . . . I always have trouble narrowing down these things to one name, why should I force you to?)
Well this looks like an easy question doesn't it! And yet it is not. How to go through the characters who live in my memories and pick just a few of them. That task is not helped by the fact that I definitely am more hero centric in my reading, particularly in romances. A lot of times if the hero is to die for, the heroine can be kind of wishy-washy and it will not bother me at all. Unfortunately the same can not be said if it the characteristics are the other way around.
Onto the actual question then!
Eleanor of Aquitaine - as portrayed by Sharon Penman in When Christ and His Saints Slept and the Justin de Quincey novels, and by Elizabeth Chadwick in her William Marshal novels. Passionate, feisty, powerful, only woman to be queen of both England and France - what a woman!
I have to confess to being fascinated by Eleanor and even just the smallest of glimpses of her in a novel make me extremely happy!
Others that I thought about mentioning for a variety of reasons:
Claire Randall from the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon
Tatiana from The Bronze Horseman trilogy by Paullina Simons
Amelia Peabody from the Amelia Peabody series by Barbara Peters
Eve Dallas from the In Death series by J D Robb
Surely it's no coincidence that these strong and fascinating women have equally strong and fascinating men in their lives?? Just in these cases the author manages to give both characters balance in their books!
Posts
Yes, definitely Claire. She can do anything.
ReplyDeleteI agree about each of the women you listed, has equally strong and fascinating men in their lives *grin*
ReplyDeleteLook like we both have common with the heroine from Outlander and In Death. Of course I already knew that hehe.
I have not read, yet The Bronze Horseman, but I heard so much about it. Nor have I read Amelia Peabody. One of these days, I'm gonna have to go and read it :)
Happy Thursday Marg! I hope it was good day ;)
Julia-Yen
Julia, if you can get it you really should read The Bronze Horseman!
ReplyDeleteI definately agree about Tatiana!
ReplyDeleteClaire-Outlander
ReplyDeleteSarah Prine-These is My Words
Heloise- Heloise & Abelard by Marion Meade
Tatiana- TBH
Meggie-The Thorn Birds
Eve! I think I made it through 7 or 8 of the In Death books and had to quit because Eve got on my nerves so much! *G* Cracks me up when we all see characters so differently. Sort of like, who likes and dislikes Frank! :-)
I think you're right about a romance: it's all about the strong man character. Maybe that's because we put ourselves into the heroine's roles and the heck with how she's really written.
ReplyDeletewow! I had such a hard time even remembering the name of a character that I would want to choose. I have a very bad memory for names!
ReplyDeleteIt looks like you have a pretty good one!!