Assassin's HeartAssassin’s Heart is a romance in a medieval fantasy setting. The protagonist, Lillie, is a woman raised from a young age to be a ruthless assassin by an organization known as the Va’Shile. When we meet her, she is undercover as a palace servant, and all the court is awaiting the naming of King’s heir—whom the Va’Shile have assigned Lillie to kill once his identity is known.

While gaining the trust of servants in order to move freely about the castle, Lillie meets a handsome young stablehand named Nef, and the two soon fall in love. Despite her brutal upbringing, Lillie finds herself increasingly distracted by her new beau, as well as questions surrounding her past that nag at her mind—questions relating to her mysterious ability to communicate telepathically with animals, which troubles even the brave and handsome Nef.

The wheels of political machinations continue to turn. Complications ensue. Soon enough, Lillie and Nef find themselves fleeing the Va’Shile and hiding out at a brothel managed by a woman named Brava. But even as their relationship deepens, Lillie and Nef are increasingly drawn into a conflict with the Va’Shile which can only be ended with a lot of death.

Assassin’s Heart is first and foremost a romance. Once we get about a quarter of the way in, it seems Lillie and Nef are sneaking off every chance they get to fulfill their, ah, romantic desires. (Sometimes their romantic desires need fulfillment 3 or 4 times a day!) And they aren’t the only ones constantly running off to the bedroom, either; there are several other romantic sub-plots as well.

But Norse does a good job of balancing the sexy interludes with character development and plot twists. The story never grinds to a halt. Other things may grind to something, but never mind that now! 

There isn’t a lot of description of the world in which the story takes place. Most of the descriptive passages are, as you might expect, about the physical attributes of the cast. Lillie and her red hair, Nef and his blue eyes, Master Jaidon and his… well, I don’t want to spoil everything!

All right, I’ll stop with the Nudge Nudge Wink Wink routine. There’s a lot of sex in this book, that’s my point. But there’s still a good story and a few other things that even those, like me, who don’t regularly read romance can find interesting.

For example, there’s a scene where Lillie is relishing finally being free from the confines of the Assassin’s Guild where she spent most of her childhood, and gets up in the middle of the night to dance in the moonlit corridors of the castle, with only statues and suits of armor for an audience. It’s very Gothic. Beautiful, but also slightly eerie, and Romantic in the artistic sense of the word, with a focus on creating a feeling rather than plot advancement. I liked it a lot.

Some of the reviews on Amazon—which are otherwise positive—bring up the issue that the characters often speak in very modern language. I admit, at first I noticed this and found it jarring. But as I kept reading, my attitude about it changed a little—because the story isn’t set in a specific time period, but just an unknown medieval-ish place, the modern phrases actually gave it a more distinct “flavor.” So, I guess it was jarring, but kind of in a good way, maybe? All told, I couldn’t make up my mind whether I liked this or not, but it certainly didn’t ruin the book for me.

Also, I really liked the character of Brava. I usually find prostitutes and brothels in fiction to be pretty tiresome—largely because there are so many works of fiction where I swear it feels like the entire economy is prostitution-based. But Brava worked as a character for me—her no-nonsense attitude, coupled with her dirty sense of humor, was very amusing.

This is an enjoyable romantic fantasy tale with enough non-romance plot that it will appeal to non-romance readers as well.

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Photo by Ylanite Koppens on Pexels.com

[Thanks to Lydia Schoch for inspiring me to write this. Be sure to check out her post on fictional romances.]

You’ll notice I don’t often write romantic sub-plots in my stories. I was feeling pretty bold with 1NG4 and included one, but it’s largely implied and in the background of the larger story. 

Romance is hard to write. You need characters who work on their own, and also complement one another. It’s about balance. If you get unbalanced characters, it doesn’t work—or at best, it only works as wish-fulfillment for people who want to imagine their perfectly ordinary self being married to a demigod or goddess. 

And if you’re writing a story where the romance is the plot, then you also have to come up with some reason why two characters who clearly belong together aren’t. Usually social expectations are the best mechanism for doing this, to the point that it’s a cliché—A can’t marry B because it would violate all of their society’s most sacred traditions!

The problem with these sorts of stories is that too often, it becomes more about the pursuit, and in the process, one character gets reduced to nothing more than a McGuffin that the other character is trying to get. I hate that.

Here are some fictional romances I consider effective. You’ll notice that they are generally sub-plots, or at least not the sole focus of the story.

Evie Carnahan and Rick O’Connell (The Mummy) 

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Evie Carnahan (Rachel Weisz) and Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) The Mummy. Universal Pictures. Re-used under Fair Use

This works because it’s pretty well-balanced—Evie’s brains and Rick’s adventuring skills make them a natural team. This is what I mean—if Evie were always a helpless damsel in distress, or Rick were always a big stupid lug, it would be dopey. But as it is, you can see why they would gravitate to one another, apart from “It’s a movie and we need a romance.”

Thomasin Yeobright and Diggory Venn (The Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy)

When you read about Return of the Native, 90% of what you hear about is Eustacia Vye this, Damon Wildeve that. I love the book, but as far as I’m concerned, both of them can go soak their heads. Oh, wait—I guess they do. Sorry if I spoiled this 141-year-old book. Anyway, what I like about the book is Venn’s loyalty to Thomasin, and his (admittedly credulity-straining) adventures as the almost super-human “Reddleman” looking out for her.) 

Miranda Lawson and Commander Shepard (Mass Effect 2-3)

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Commander Shepard (voiced by Mark Meer) and Miranda Lawson (voiced and modeled on Yvonne Strahovski) Mass Effect 3. Electronic Arts. Re-used under Fair Use.

Am I the only person who doesn’t hate Miranda? I might well be. Most players find her stuck-up, but I like her. Maybe part of it is that because ME 2/3 built up Commander Shepard as this awesome hero, and Miranda seems like the nearest thing to his equal in a universe that otherwise regards him as something close to a God. She saved his life, and she’s genetically engineered to be perfect, so she  can meet him on even ground. I like that. I don’t see an equivalent romantic interest for female Shepard.

But maybe it’s just my fondness for Australian accents that’s making me biased here.

Honorable Mentions: Unrequited Romances

I started out to make a list of good requited romances, because those are harder for me to write than unrequited ones. But that’s not to say that an unrequited romance can’t make for a good story, because it absolutely can. In fact, the advantage of these stories is that they have conflict inherent in them, as opposed to having to be introduced externally. So, here are some good ones:

-The Carlo/Corelli sub-plot in Corelli’s Mandolin. One of the most interesting things about the disastrous movie adaptation was that this was the only romantic sub-plot that even remotely made sense. 

– The Atris/Jedi Exile relationship in Knights of the Old Republic II. I talk a little about that here. Actually, KotOR II is brimming with tons of unfulfilled or outright doomed romances. Chris Avellone is great at writing those.

-Elsie Maynard and Jack Point in The Yeomen of the Guard. Just listen to this.

And now, for my favorite fictional romance…

Jane Ballard and Dan Frost (Jane Got a Gun)

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Jane Ballard (Natalie Portman) and Dan Frost (Joel Edgerton) Jane Got a Gun. The Weinstein Co. Re-used under Fair Use.

Come on, you all knew this would be here. I love this movie, and a big reason why is the relationship between the two leads. The way they gradually rekindle their relationship under brutal circumstances makes for a great story, and the carefree romance of their past contrasted with the grim present is very powerful. True, a lot of what makes it work is the acting as much as anything—the same lines with lesser actors wouldn’t work as well.

I suppose that writing romance for the screen or the stage is easier than writing it in a novel. In a visual medium, putting two attractive people with great chemistry together gets you at least halfway to making the audience to buy in. On the page, though, you have to do a lot more work.