In an interesting conversation in the comments for Harper St. George’s recent release The Devil and the Heiress. Marian posted a link to an article that said:
The rakes in historical romances are, by and large, not actually rakes. They are not libertines, they do not sleep around, there is no consequence to their health or fortune due to their continual abuse of both or either. If they drink, game or have women it is generally in exactly the sort of amount and intensity that a reasonably wealthy man of a certain rank would indulge in before he married, just enough to make him experienced, not so much as to make any difference to a potential long-term partner.
This rings true to me–heroes, especially men in historical romance, are far more progressive and feminist than they were back in the day. This is not a new issue although in this article from 2018, the author posits that there are more alphahole heroes than there used to be.
In any case, it feels to me, in 2021, that rakish heroes–truly rakish heroes who do bad things–are increasingly out of favor. It’s hard to see Susan Elizabeth Phillips writing an Alex today or Lisa Kleypas offering an HEA to the Sebastian of It Happened One Autumn. Today’s historical romance heroes are often clearly good men who have always done the right thing, more or less.
Do you agree with me? And if so, do you like this trend or not?
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My mental image of the “true rake” has always been the Vicomte de Valmont from Dangerous Liaisons–a man who uses sex like a weapon and only for his own pleasure and purposes, without regard for others. Also: not a guy you could EVER really trust, no matter what he told you. And trust is at the basis of the HEA, right?
IMHO when historical romances say a hero is a rake, they really mean a playboy/player, who’s hot/good in bed, can get laid any time, anywhere, all the straight ladies want him, etc. BUT he’s not really a jerk (anymore). Some comedian said men are as faithful as their options, which suggests that getting a HR rake to settle down with one person is a triumph of true love, because that man could be out there still getting other lovers–he just only wants the one he married. George Clooney is the quintessential HR rake–mega-hot at age 60!!, famous, rich, etc. but also (apparently) a genuinely decent man.
I agree. And I’m not bothered that the term has changed in meaning in romance over time–language is fungible. I do think it’s interesting to see what, over time, a rake has meant in romance.
Agreed, and I wish there was a way to distinguish a man with serious faults, who would need to reform before the story’s end, from either 1. a rich, sexy guy who’s completely decent but who gets called a rake so there’s something to put in the blurb 2. a rich, sexy guy who, before the book started, got bored with all the women falling at his feet, so by the time his path crosses the heroine’s, he’s already given up his life of debauchery and is ready to be a devoted and faithful husband.
Now that I come to think of it, I tend to equate Valmont – and maybe someone like the Earl of Rochester – with the word “rake”. As you say the term now indicates a somewhat “watered down” version, where the playboy aspect has been emphasised and the more negative connotations have been swept under the carpet.
I think Marian has hit the nail on the head with this definition:
a rich, sexy guy who’s completely decent but who gets called a rake so there’s something to put in the blurb
I think it’s also a way to show that the hero is NOT a beta hero but nor is he necessarily an alphahole.
I noticed in the comments people vary in their definition of the term “rake.” Here is a really interesting interview with Sarah MacLean where she describes a rake and what his typical story arc would be: https://www.oprahdaily.com/entertainment/tv-movies/a35034695/what-is-a-rake-person-romance-novels/
Here are a couple of good quotes: “Romance is the only genre that routinely centers the woman’s gaze—the identity and experience of women in the world.”
”If you look at romance novels as reflections on society writ large, then you’re looking at a text that is about women and the struggle against patriarchy. When we say the story is “reforming the rake,” we mean the story is breaking patriarchy down to a place where we can stand equally with men.”
She also says that George Clooney is a modern day reformed rake. He needed to meet a truly exceptional woman to give up his rakish ways.
If you limit the idea of a rake to a man who has slept around, I think that definition makes a lot of sense. And that–a libertine–is the technical definition of a rake.
Yes, I agree. A rake might be moral in many areas of his life, but he does not wish to be married, so he sleeps around, aka, Simon in Bridgerton. His reformation would not require the writing prowess that the reformation of a true scoundrel would require. I would argue that a scoundrel is worse than a rake, in that he does a variety of bad things intentionally, with little or no remorse. In Lord of Scoundrels, Sebastian truly is a scoundrel, intentionally hurting people for his own entertainment. Thus his reformation requires a significant backstory, meaningful motivation to change, and the hero demonstrably struggling in order for us to accept his change of ways. That Chase accomplished this is a credit to her writing gifts, and that is the reason this book is so popular.
I’m super down to use scoundrel rather than rake!
I think the term “rake” is really liberally interpreted by a lot of people. At its heart it’s, as you say, a libertine. For me rake always had a roguish, womanizer vibe to it. The guy who didn’t want to be tied down to one woman. For current times it was George Clooney, it used to be Warren Beatty and others.
The whole idea that a rake has to be truly depraved, or working outside the law or a number of other things I think is really something that romancelandia has built up based on decades of books. I don’t really think it has anything to do with the technical definition of a rake.
Agreed. Over the years it’s become synonymous with debauched.
Judith Ivory wrote wonderful “rakes” if we’re considering serious dissolute behavior as well as sexual non-conformity/excess. Bliss has Nardi de Saint Vallier – strung out on chloroform- and Beast has the fabulous Charles Harcourt deceptively stalking his own fiancee. Then there’s Stuart Aysgarth in Untie My Heart. The chair!! None of these, however, have the multi-partner sexual excess history all over the pages.
Perhaps the most realistic portrayal of a rake’s uncertain future of faithfulness is Georgette Heyer’s Venetia when Venetia herself takes Rake Damerel’s possibility of straying with a verbalized acknowledgement.
The only heroes I can think of I’ve read about recently that fit the above version of “rake” would be in M.C. books. Not Kristen Ashley- she has some sorta sketchy but not really bad guys in her motorcycle clubs.
They’re definitely not everyone’s taste. Sometimes when I stumble into one I get aggravated and ask myself why I’m reading it if it’s just going to raise my blood pressure.
I confess I like the Sebastian kind of rake. I don’t want a truly awful person as a hero.
I find Ashley’s heroes to be too all about daddyism.
She’s one of those authors that act like not having kids is a tragedy.
In “Walk Through Fire” the heroine “gives up” the man she loves (by insultingly dumping him thereby making him embittered for decades and ruins her life) because she finds out she can’t have kids and of course doesn’t talk to him about it. When she finds out decades later he is divorced with kids she approaches him again and after much drama, Yada, yada, he basically tells his daughters they should be nice to her because she can’t have children so all she can have are her cats. My eyes rolled back in my head SO FAR at that one.
I meant they all treat their women like they’re babies. But that is gross too!
Oh yeah they do that too. There are a few books where the woman actually stands up to it but in most of hers they revel in being “taken care of” in a childish way.
In “Sweet Dreams” when the 40-something heroine’s Dad has a heart attack her, her Mom and her sister all need a male substitute for the Dad because they all fall apart. It’s said explicitly as he was the one who took care of “his girls”.
Yes–it’s just too “you’re just a little girl who need a big strong man” for me.
I rarely read historicals any more but I know my tolerance for truly rakish heroes has decreased over the years to approximately zero and I imagine I’m not alone. Throw in the lesser writing skills of today’s HR authors, the publishers’ tendency towards risk aversion and their penchant for silly misleading titles and I guess it does add up to bland heroes who aren’t in fact the devils or rogues or sinners they’re cracked up to be.
But making a real villain appealing to modern readers would be a tricky thing to pull off. I loved Gaffney’s To Have and to Hold back in the day but a recent attempt at rereading was abandoned in repulsion. Yet the saintly version of Sebastian in Devil in Winter was one of the biggest disappointments of my HR reading life.
I still find Sebastian compelling. I think it’s in part because I’m a devoted mystery reader and in so many mysteries, the evil people are usually unredeemable. I love stories where something gets people to genuinely change for the better. Kinsale does that for me.
I love Kleypas’s Sebastian. I want a hero not a sociopath and when the guy is just so bad and able to hurt people without remorse it makes me doubt his ability to change. I think I’ve read too much about true crime and sociopaths to trust a guy who never felt remorse over anything he did.
I actually meant Kinsale’s Sebastian.
Which Kinsale?
UGH. I just realized I’ve been writing Kinsale when I meant Gaffney.
In my defense, my home just flooded and it’s been nuts. But still. Rookie mistake.
Wow! Sorry about the flood. And the Gaffney was a darn good book.
I never thought of him as a ‘rake” because rake has a less serious vibe to it. More like playboy.
I never thought of rake or playboy as synonymous with someone who would force or blackmail a woman. It was more like they are very charming tempting rogues and don’t follow society’s rules. If you are a woman and mess with them, don’t expect them to play by gentlemen’s rules. But they weren’t rapists or “dangerous”. Love ‘em and leave them types.
This is the way I use the term “rake” as well – a ladies’ man and libertine, someone who indulges in what society would consider a vice. But I wouldn’t look at a mafioso type who murdered people and think, “yup, he’s a rake.” And yeah, raping or blackmailing women is out. Rake, not psychopath.
Exactly. That’s an anti-hero I guess? I’m not sure what word I would use for them.
That about sums it up for me, too. I agree that making a real rake appealing to a modern audience would be tricky, and honestly given the penchant for HR heroes with 21st century sensibilities about pretty much everything, I can’t see one of the trad publishers touching one. I’m not sure I necessarily want to read about one – unless the redemption is extremely well done – for me, it’s mostly about expectation. The term has become a shorthand for a certain type of character, and most of the time, there’s nothing rakish, roguish or devilish about them at all. It’s been a long time since I picked up a book with one of those words in the title and expected to find an actual rake/rogue in it!
In real relationships, people screw up. They stray, they yell, they self-sabotage. Hopefully, in most, those are not the norm. But I like stories when those things happen and people learn from them and don’t do them again.
I think it also depends on what your definition of one is as well. Rhett Butler was considered one because he wouldn’t get married to a woman he got caught after dark taking a buggy ride with and he told a bunch of arrogant young men the South didn’t have the wherewithal to beat the North in the war. He also refused to enlist, ran goods against the blockade (for pure profit) and had a long term relationship with Belle Watling (and presumably other ladies). But he was the one in love with Scarlett and built his life around her so he “reformed” on his own, was faithful and adored his daughter. Scarlett was the hold out.
I guess it all depends on what is “rakish” enough on your scale. If you read Jane Austen it doesn’t take a lot to be considered one in “realistic” situations in the 19th century. You don’t have to be running a criminal enterprise and in and out of every brothel in London to qualify.
Rhett is not, to me, a rake. He was a rebel who always did the right thing.
But he was considered a “rake”, The “rake” in fact for many years in terms of literature and movies.
In that old “rake hell” kind of definition of a guy who disobeyed society’s rules and had a reputation as a womanizer.
He was, many believe, based on her first husband who deserted her after four months of marriage.
I remember watching a mini-series or made for TV movie about her real life. Didn’t she take as her second husband the guy who was the best man at her first marriage?
That was one of the things I loved about Rhett as a character – he wasn’t redeemed by the heroine’s selfless love and willingness to put up with whatever he did. He changed on his own, from a man who made her an offer to be his mistress (and Scarlett’s reply to that was priceless) to a man who was willing to marry, settle down, and be a good father to his child and stepchildren. Thanks for bringing up this great example.
Rhett was a great character and really the prototype for so many great romance novel heroes. His willingness to be a shark in business, get his hands “dirty” that way and not be a “gentleman” really set the standard for so many modern romance heroes.
I see a bit of Rhett in a lot of Kleypas’s heroes in particular. The more “crass” plain talking, money making go-getter vs. the “angelic” more aristocratic Ashley Wilkes.
Absolutely. I see a lot of Rhett in both Jack Devlin, the Hero of Suddenly You, and in Zachary Bronson in Where Dreams Begin.
Yes, quite a few of hers. It’s that old ‘you think you want this guy, but what you need is a guy like me”.
I think the most charming thing about Rhett is he sees exactly who and what Scarlett is and loves her in spite of, or even because of it.
That’s a lovely thing!
Actual rakes aren’t often my choice of hero. I don’t mind morally ambiguous necessarily, but dissipation doesn’t usually interest me. I’m not a fan of heavy drinking, drugs, gambling, or sleeping with every woman who moves. (I really can’t get past the venereal disease thing with sexual libertines.) I can rarely be made to care about such a person or whether they change. That said, I like heroes that are complex and, well, doing something. I liked all the heroes in K.C. Bateman’s Secrets and Spies trilogy, for example, or Joanna Bourne’s Spymaster series (or the first two books, I haven’t read the rest.) . I also really enjoyed Anne Stuart’s Ice series. Those were morally grey characters, but not because of dissipation.
I don’t have enough long term experience with historical romance to really know if real rakes are getting written less or not, but I can say I’m generally not interested in them. I did love the heroes of Heyer’s These Old Shades and Venetia, who were both morally grey, and I’m sure there were others along the way.
I agree about dissipation, I have an unwritten stupidity clause and if the hero (or heroine) violates it I can’t deal with them. People risking venereal diseases for no good reason is one sure way to violate the clause.
I apply it to women as well as men. When I read about a heroine choosing to become a prostitute for no good reason or not deciding to become a courtesan vs. woman for hourly hire then I can’t sympathize much and feel like I’m just being manipulated by the author.
And Miles Calverleigh in The Black Sheep. He and Damerel are the ultimo rakes in my many years of reading HR. And I did also loved Reggie in MJP’s The Rake. It was such a compelling story.
A lot of what is on the Amazon romance Kindle best seller list looks to have very bad guys or at least lots of serious dubcon. I’m wondering if all the rakes have moved to self-published contemporary/fantasy romance.
Rakes to me equals a certain amount of dissipation, lots of excesses. Then there are “bad boys” or morally grey characters because of their choices in life–stealing, spying, mafia, corporate raider, etc. I am more likely to find the reform of a hardened bad boy easier to swallow than that of a true rake. I wonder if readers’ love of complex heroes has shifted to redeeming the bad boys rather than the dissolute rakes of historicals. At least indiscriminate, sexually active modern heroes can practice safe sex. ::shrugs::
I think it’s not that we necessarily want to see more of them… for me anyway, it’s about the expectation raised by the word that the hero/male MC is going to be a certain type of person – and then he’s not. So many historicals have “rake” “rogue” “devil” in the title, and then all the guy turns out to be is, as that article says, someone who behaves in a way that was more or less the norm for a man of his rank at that time. Those words should, IMO, indicate someone who is rather more than that – these days, however, they don’t.
Picking up on what you said about complex heroes though… I’m not sure there are all that many of them left in contemporary m/f romance, certainly not that coming out from the big publishers. As someone said on another discussion, once the big names come into play, everything seems to get the edges smoothed off.
It’s interesting to think about the heroes of the Ice series by Anne Stuart. Those leads are all killers but they only kill those who deserve it. That kind of moral ambiguity is hard to pull off but, in general, she does. Some of the more recent contemps I’ve read with Mafiosa leads have men who, really, haven’t been stone cold killers or dealt drugs or truly sinned.
I agree that the well-done story where someone who is truly screwed up and has done reprehensible things–Sebastian in To Have and To Hold, for example–are vastly more enthralling to me than leads who have a bad reputation but are really lovely men.
I confess I haven’t actually read many contemporary stories about “bad boys” in the past 5 or 6 years at least. Like motorcycle clubs, mafia, or such. I’m not even very interested in the corporate bad guys, although I could read a well done story in that setting if it came along. But I see what you’re getting at about the titles that mislead. I pretty much don’t believe them anymore, and would honestly be surprised to find a true rake in most newly published historical romances.
I often think the authors use “rake” to mean the man is attractive to women. A real rake is not an attractive character—he’s a user who holds women in contempt, not a man who likes and admires women. The user/rake doesn’t really appear very often. Maybe in some Anne Stuart books, or in Patricia Gaffney’s To Have and To Hold—the only one whose redemption I find believable.
A Bad Boy isn’t really the same thing as a rake. He’s a rule-breaker, and that’s much easier to turn into hero material.
I think it’s not really such a good idea to make this hero guy “disappear”.
Surely the really libertine perverts are not pleasant or desirable as a romantic partner for a woman of today today it is recognized that a good faithful, kind and loving man a “good boy” or at most “apparently bad boy who has a heart good girl hehe “is really the best.But the unpleasant, disrespectful and valueless characters at the beginning like Sebastian offer the possibility of seeing something that with a “good man” you do not have “his redemption a real change of attitudes and of heart”.
Personally I like to see a “bad man” change his way of thinking and see life under the influence of the heroine, also these stories teach that we all deserve a second chance and some forgiveness in our life. I think the problem is not that the hero is a depraved rake at the beginning, it is to put this type of man together with a heroine who is a doormat that, rather than helping him change, only suffers while he does what he wants.
As always sorry for bad English
My thoughts on rakes…
On the whole, I like to read (and write) about heroes who fall in the middle of the alpha-beta spectrum. I like my heroes decisive, confident, and willing to take calculated risks, but I also want them to respect the heroine’s choices, have a sense of humor, and have a moral compass, even if it is a bit rusty.
That said, occasionally I’ll feel like reading about heroes who are beyond the pale in one way or another. And when I’m in that sort of mood, I really don’t want to pick up a book because it has “rake” or “scoundrel” or “devil” in the title, only to find that the hero, far from being a reprobate or struggling with addiction like Reggie in Mary Jo Putney’s The Rake, is an all-around awesome person without a serious fault to speak of.
I want the hero’s rakish ways to be an issue. If he slept with every woman in England before he met the heroine, that’s fine, but I want the story to show why he did this, why he suddenly becomes Mr. Monogamous, and how the heroine can be certain she’s not risking syphilis each time they have sex. Or, for that matter, how she knows he won’t return to casual indiscriminate liaisons if she’s ever not well enough to give him all the sex he evidently needs. And the same applies to other vices. It’s obvious when an author has her hero gamble because this makes him look cool, or tup every woman with a pulse because this makes him look virile, and I’m not interested in this shallow level of characterization.
But there are also some faults I just don’t want to see in heroes, because to me they cross a line. Stalking, manipulation, and a refusal to accept rejection are top of the list here. I’m also not into misogyny. I want to read about a rake, not an incel.
So it’s a bit of a balancing act, and probably not as easy these days to write a rake hero as it was in the past.
I think that covers just about everything I’d have said, too. In the book under discussion in the review, the title has the word “Devil” in it, and much was made of the hero’s devilish reputation – but there was not one iota of evidence in the book to support it. Even though he was going to charm the heroine into marrying him becuase he needed her money, he had no plans at all to dump her in the country and go back to manwhoring it around town – he planned to be a decent, faithful husband. Now, that’s great – but there was just no way that I could believe he deserved his black reputation. I’m sure there were plenty of those sorts of heroes around back in the bodice rippers of the 70s and 80s, and as Dabney pointed out in a comment, Anne Stuart was still writing the morally ambiguous hero in the 2000s, but she was probably an anomaly by then when it was more “the thing” to have heroes behave as in the quote you posted.
I don’t want to go back to the old rapey heroes, but calling them devilsh, rogues, rakes etc. when they’re actually fairly squeaky clean makes them disappointing and, often, rather dull. As Lilly says, the best thing – for author and reader alike – about the babd-boy hero is the possibility of redemption, but I think it takes a very skilled author to be able to do that and make it believable (think of Kim Secretan in KJ Charles’ Will Darling Adventures – a morally ambiguous character if ever there was one – or Justin Lazarus in An Unnatural Vice – a grifter who enjoys his work!) without giving them a complete personality transplant which. much as I love Sebastian St. Vincent, is pretty much what LK did with him. Sadly, I think that sort of believable transformation is beyond many of the current crop of HR authors who are traditionally published.
The best recent representation of rakish behaviour is in Susanna Ives’ Rakes and Radishes, (Carina, 2010) in which the hero starts out as an all round good bloke and then decides he might as well be a bad boy as being good isn’t getting him anywhere!