From the website Writing Tips Oasis
The heroine clichés
The heroine clichés are often worse than the hero’s clichés, because they almost always show the woman as having a passive role in the plot, rather than an active one. She can be among the following:
- An ugly duckling until she cleans up.
- Socially awkward, has one friend.
- Has many family members to take care of.
- Is in dire financial straits.
- Is probably quite short or extremely, awkwardly tall.
- Is insecure about herself and lacks self-confidence despite being excellent at what she does.
- Her job is usually low key: maybe she is a writer, an artist, a painter, a waitress, or she might hold a job at the hero’s company.

My heroine goes against every one of these cliche heroine ideas. Ella Henry is an It Girl, a young writer who inherited wealth, has loads of friends, and is a bit of a hot mess! Everything I wish I was at 25, I guess! Although Ella is a bit of a Libertine something I could never be. What would mum say??
My hero is a probably a few of the above but he’s a returned soldier so he’s got some good reasons to be struggling with fitting back into life. The there’s my other hero
Libertine
/ˈlɪbətiːn,ˈlɪbətɪn,ˈlɪbətʌɪn/
Learn to pronounce
noun
A person who freely indulges in sensual pleasures without regard to moral principles.
“his image as an unbridled libertine is a total myth”
Similar:
playboy, rake, roué, seducer, adulterer, debauchee, sensualist, voluptuary, hedonist, profligate, wanton, reprobate, degenerate
adjective
1. characterized by free indulgence in sensual pleasures.
“his more libertine impulses”
Similar:
licentious, lustful, libidinous, lecherous, lascivious, lubricious, dissolute, dissipated, debauched, immoral, wanton, shameless, degenerate, depraved, debased, profligate, promiscuous, unchaste, lewd, prurient, salacious…
Yeah yeah yeah, we get it…. Oh but wait….these are my favourites!
loose, fast, goatish, randy, horny, raunchy, concupiscent, lickerish…??
Lickerish? Really? I’m surprised I didn’t find this one in The Bride Stripped Bare. Oh how I would have loved that book in year 10 when I couldn’t get enough of books that my parents wouldn’t have approved of if they’d known what I was reading!
Oh and here’s the opposite of Libertine…
chaste
puritanical
2. freethinking.
In twelve minutes Furious Fiction starts… I am almost at my word count for the first day of Nanowrimo. I’ve been at work all day (ugh) and can’t wait to get home and write!
😜 concupiscent 😎 – cant wait to read this romance – sounds like a bit more than sparkle 😜.
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Yes I’m trying my hand at something a bit saucy 😛