The Kick-Ass Heroine--Not by Rebecca York

When I think of a kick-ass heroine, I think of Angelina Jolie in the spy movie, Salt. She’s the equal of any man. A deep undercover spy. Able to take down half a dozen men at once and shoot her way into a secure underground room at the White House.

It's fun watching a woman like that operate—either on-screen or in a romantic suspense novel. But I’ve never felt compelled to make her the star of one of my own books.

I’m much more likely to write a "softer" woman—who ends up forced to defend herself from bad guys intent on wiping her out, along with the hero of the book. Usually she starts off vulnerable and uncertain, and by the end of the story, she’s acting in ways she never would have dreamed possible. And of course her reward is walking off into the sunset with a great guy who would do anything to defend her.

Elena Reyes in my latest Sourcebooks Casablanca romantic suspense is a good example of the kind of heroine I love to write. And she's even more vulnerable than most because she came to the U.S. from a Central American country where her family was in constant jeopardy.

Elena's struggled hard to get a good education, turn herself into an American woman, get a great job and at the same time please her parents, who have never valued her as much as her low-life brother. It’s the brother who gets her into terrible trouble at the software company where she works, when he tells her that if she doesn’t steal an important product in development, the mob will wipe him out. He puts her in the position of choosing between her integrity and family loyalty, and at first she chooses her family. Which is how she gets into trouble with Rockfort Security Agent, Shane Gallagher, who has been hired by the company to find out who might be getting ready to steal the software.

Shane knows Elena's in the right job to pull off the theft, which she finally does, then has an immediate crisis of conscience. When she goes to Shane for help, the bad guys follow her, and my hero and heroine are instantly on the run for their lives.

At first Elena relies on Shane to save her, but by the end of the story, she's saved his life and then proposed to meet with the mob boss—to trade the software for her brother, who’s been captured and tortured. She and Shane both know it could be a suicide mission, but she has to try and save her brother—and redeem herself in her own estimation. The story focuses on the way she changes during the course of the action—while working out her complicated relationship with Shane

It was fun to write Elena and fun to give her the happy ending she deserved—with a sexy guy who will do anything to protect the woman he's come to love.