Petite heroine, big hero
A classic that requires no explanation. Perhaps the most egregious example of this trope is *** by ***, in which the hero is a seven feet-tall Scottish moutain to the heroine’s five feet. She loses her virginity during a protracted sex scene that inevitably brings to mind the following:
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A
Abduction
Alcohol
Allowance
Almack
Arranged Marriage
Arousal
Aunt
Austen
B
Bad
Baby
Baron
Barons suck. The hero is never a baron, and the baron is almost always a FOE.
Bath
Blackmail
Beauty & The Beast
Best fiend
Best friend
Blue ruin
Another word for gin. Bad parents often fall prey to blue ruin before dying of a shameful disease, setting the stage for the trauma of a dark past.
Bluestocking
Bodice
Brandy
Brother
A necessary prop to the start of a series. See Julia Quinn, The Bridgertons, in which the author has Lady Violet Bridgerton push out eight kids in order to populate her eponymous series. See also, th… by Courtney Milan.
C
Cap
Carriage
Transportation vehicle in which the heroine will often get fingered for the first time. Ruination and abduction are common side-effects of riding in a carriage with a rake.
Cinderella
Climber
Common
Consent
Cousin
Climax
Compromised
Confinement
Cravat
Crisis
D
Dandy
Dark past
Debt
If the hero incurred the debt through his own dumb, careless, or rakish behavior, he will need to be redeemed.
Deep hymen
Disease
Dowry
Duel
Duke
Because a girl should reach for the stars and why bag a millionaire if you can bag a billionaire, our hero is often (okay, almost always) a wealthy and powerful duke. His brothers too, and his friends. Most of the fictional peerage is actually made of dukes, and that guy over there with the hot abs and dark past who beats up randos in underground fights is actually a secret duke, too.
A predominant and highly versatile species among historical romance heroes, dukes are generally stiff and proper—for example of extra-starchy dukes, see Mary Balogh’s Slightly Dangerous (Bedwyn saga #6) Eloisa James’s A Duke of Her Own (Desperate Duchesses #6), or Eliza Braden’s The Truth About Cads and Dukes (Rescued from Ruin #2). However they can also be dangerous rakes (Yes, Lisa Kleypas’s legendary Lord Saint-Vincent counts because he eventually becomes a duke: shut up), reclusive and disfigured Beast-types, juvenile assholes, and more rarely, plain nice guys, like our bro Robert in Courtney Milan’s The Duchess War (Sinister Brothers #1).
E
Earl
Entail(ed)
Epilogue
Eton
Evil family
F
FOE (Fat, Old, & Evil)
A revolting Dickensian caricature, he’s the heroine’s evil uncle who plans to kill her or marry her off to snatch her inheritance; the washed-up roué who’s bullying her broke ass into to becoming his mistress, or who’s trying to lock her into a forced marriage. He covers up the stench of greed, lechery, and insufficient personal hygiene with bad cologne; scone crumbles and all manner of unspeakable organic compounds inhabit the flabby flaps of his sweaty jowls; he drinks too much and his teeth are crooked and yellow; he’s either super stingy and starves the heroine, or a spendthrift up to his neck in debt (and consequently starves the heroine as well).
The FOE is everything vile that ever roamed the Earth, and he’ll never get his limp, cheese-crusted sausage inside the heroine’s virgin cove because the hero is going to step in and punch/knife/shoot/ruin/arrest him. Also, he’s a baron or a mere sir most of the time, because those are the distributor brands of British peerage.
Father
French letter
Forced Marriage
G
Gambling
Genteel poverty
Gin
Good
Governess
H
(Gaming) Hell
A disreputable but highly profitable gaming club (See also: gambling). Dark heroes who grew up on the wrong side of the blanket or among commoners often rise above their station by building a gaming hell from scratch in obscure circumstances. Heroines generally don’t get to run their own gaming hell, except in some rare exceptions. For examples of heroes who own a gaming hell, see: anything ever written by Sarah MacLean, Dreaming of You (The Gamblers of Craven’s, #2) by Lisa Kleypas, or Notorious Pleasures (Maiden Lane, #2) by Elizabeth Hoyt.
Hiding
Honor
House party
Hymen
I
Illness
Illness is a brief or prolonged medical condition that unfairly kills good people like the hero or the heroine’s parents or their sister (more rarely a brother.) Examples of illness include tuberculosis, scarlet fever, measles, cholera, the flu… Illness is not to be confused with disease, which kills bad people such as evil relatives and FOEs. Example of good, perfectly decent illnesses can be found in:
Indiscretion
Inheritance
Instalust
The moment he saw her, his pants tented: he had to have her. My absolute favorite occurrence of this trope can be found in her majesty Lisa Kleypas’s It Happened One Autumn (Wallflowers series #2), in which the stiff and self-contained Earl of Westcliff finds Lillian, our heroine, piss-drunk in his study, her finger stuck in an empty bottle of pear brandy. At the sight of her bleary gaze and swollen finger, Westcliff immediately sprouts a raging boner, and eventually hauls Lillian upstairs to his bedroom to plow all that pure snow. All throughout, he’s perfectly aware that she’s too drunk to clearly consent, but . . . irrepressible instalust. (Lillian later claims dubious consent despite the fact that she was drunk. I suspect this was a later addition during edits, because early she appears to believe that this is all a dream and is pretty pissed to wake up naked in Westcliff’s bed.)
J
Jaded
Jove
K
Kept woman
Kidnapping
King
Kiss
Knave
L
Land
Last season
It’s the heroine’s last season in London, her ultimate chance to land a duke before her evil family throws her to the wolves, or force her to wed a FOE. The stakes have never been higher.
Love
Love-hate
London
Low born
M
(Matchmaking) Mamma
Marriage
Marriage of convenience
Marquess
A peerage title that sits below that of a duke in the order of precedence. Marquesses are generally rakes. See for example:
Milksop
Mayfair
Money
Mother
Muslin
N
Not my baby
O
Orgasm
Oxford
P
Papa
Paroxysm
Petals
Poverty
Prim (and proper)
Propriety
Plump AF
Polite society
Prinny
Pure widow
Q
R
Rake
Rakehell
See “Rake”, but with rosacea, cyrrhosis and syphilis. Lisa Kleypas (her again) is particularly talented at redeeming red-nosed rakehells through farming and outdoor activities (The Hathaways, The Ravenels). ***, too wrote perhaps a remarkably solid example of rakehell-turned-landowner:
Redeemed
Reformed Rake
Revenge
Rival
Ruined
S
Scandal
Scarlet fever
Scorching
Secret baby
Sister
Sir
The lowest of the low. Our hero is almost never a mere, lowly sir. Except when he is and that somehow works out, such as in Julia Quinn’s To Sir Phillip, With Love (Bridgertons #5), or Lady Sophia’s Lover (Bow Street Runners #2) by Lisa Kleypas (her again!) See also: FOE.
Social plunge
Spectacles
Spinster
Spirited (heroine)
A euphemism for dumb and hyperactive. The spirited heroine is a feisty, determined, plucky, noisy little thing, who won’t let a rake ruin her, not even if he’s a duke! Spirited heroines generally make terrible decisions and get fingered in carriages. Georgette Heyer’s Léonie in These Old Shades is notorious example of an insufferably spirited heroine.
Starch
Stiff
T
This is all a dream
“Evie stiffened and whimpered in surprise at the realization that she was naked…that St. Vincent was making love to her and had been for some minutes.”
It’s not dubious consent, or even butt-rape, it’s all a dream: pure heroine dreams that the hero makes love to her, while he’s actually popping that cherry like there’ll be no tomorrow. This trope is more commonly found in older titles, as most readers today find it barely palatable (Unless the book is super dark, the hero is a total rake, and the creep factor is what we’re here for.) See for example: It Happened One Autumn, Devil in Winter (Wallflowers #2 & 3) by Lisa Kleypas.
Title
Ton
Traitor
Trauma
Tuberculosis
Two fingers
U
Ugly duckling
Uncle
Untried
(See Virgin)
V
Valet
Viscount
Virgin (heroine)
She’s pure as the driven snow . . . until the hero shows up with a plow. Occasionally, she also believes she lost her virginity in her sleep to some FOE, but it turns he lied and even though she was tied naked and drugged to her eyeballs in his bed, the FOE couldn’t spare five minutes to rape her. For an example of this particular sub-trope, see: Viscount Vagabond, by Loretta Chase.
For (rare) virgin heroes, see Outlander, by Diana Gabaladon, or *** by ****