My New Favorite FMCs

This year, as I've started to write my own romance, I've been playing particularly close attention to the female main characters in the books I'm reading. I am looking for strong women who need a champion, not a hero. I want to fall in love with them and cry with them and relate to their fears. I want to be touched by their sincerity and believe their transformation.

Of the books I've read this year there have been two stand out FMCs: Yvenne of Syssia and Dr. Elma York. I'll start with Yvenne...

Mila Vane's "A Heart of Blood and Ashes" Is a little hard to get into. I don't read a ton of fantasy and the world building was a little daunting but I stuck with it and I am so glad I did!

Yvenne is a bargaining chip. She has been her entire life and along with this she has been underestimated. Watching Yvenne navigate her circumstances and grief throughout this epic was so empowering. Early on in the book she positions herself to marry a man that will help her gain the power that is rightfully hers. The way she uses her wit and brilliance as a weapon had me turning the pages as fast as I possibly could.

The reader watches as Maddex, her soon to be husband, begins to realize what Yvenne is: an asset and a pragmatic leader. We see how the two work together, complementing one another's weaknesses and strengths. We see what damage underestimation of women can do.

While a completely different genre, Dr. Elma York of Mary Robinette Kowal's "The Calculating Stars" has the same undercurrent as Vane's fantasy. Women being underestimated and how they maneuver in a world they're told isn't meant for them, to get on top.

In Kowal's dystopian novel about a meteor hit that triggers an extinction event. The world only has a couple of years to get to space and set up a colony to save the human race. This takes place in the 50s and with that comes all the trappings of the patriarchal norms of that time.

Readers follow along as Elma, a brilliant mathmatician, is constantly underestimated or thwarted due to sexism.

Her need to constantly be the "good girl" her mother instilled in her has her so anxious that she finds a room full of people more daunting than getting in a rocket and being shot into space. It's incredibly relatable!

These women are stand out characters and what I love most about both of them is that they did not have to give up their femininity to accomplish their goals, in fact they used what others saw as their weakness to their advantage.

If you're looking for strong women and the men who love them pick up these books today! They will not disappoint!