Saturday, June 15, 2013

Guest Post w/ Tory Richards: Curvy is the New Skinny?


Marissa Lambert is furious with her agent for hiring a security agency to protect her. The last thing she needs is some Texas cowboy following her around, and telling her what to do. Just because two plus-sized models have turned up dead in a month doesn't mean she's at risk. And besides, she can take care of herself.

Beau Evans owns and operates Evans Security, and he's the unlucky one who gets to babysit the beautiful Marissa. The moment he watches her strut her stuff down the runway, in a revealing corset that hugs her generous assets, he gets an itch that doesn't go away. Their first encounter ends with an angry exchange and a battle of strong wills, but once they succumb to the lust in their blood there's no turning back.



 Curvy is the New Skinny?

If forty is the new twenty, does that mean two-hundred is the new one-hundred? Well, why not? We no longer live in a world where all men, even the evil ones, wear suites and hats, and all women have perfectly coiffed hair, and a string of pearls around their necks. Oh, and they all wear dresses. June Cleaver types we aren’t.

I remember when I first began reading romance novels, and heroines seemed to come from the same mold. Unlike real women, they were perfect, dainty little creatures who always appeared helpless, and needed to be taken care of. The kind of heroine who stood by ready to swoon while the hero is fighting the villain to the death. Think of Barbara Cartland books. I loved reading her books, and almost cut my teeth on them. However, they all had the same ring of similarity about them with regard to the type of heroines. I’m in no means belittling her books, I read so many of them in my early twenties that I probably paid a mortgage or two for her.

If you are like me, most likely you put yourself in the heroines place while you’re reading a romance. What women doesn’t want to be fought over or rescued, and then taken into the hero’s arms and kissed senseless? Course back then, and I’m talking thirty years easy, it was hard to picture myself as the heroine. I’ve always been curvy, voluptuous, or fat as it was most commonly called. You know, before the world became politically correct, and we started using phrases that didn’t, hopefully offend anyone. Think of the debate over something the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch said that he recently took heat over.  Yeah, I was right there!

I’m here to say that heroines have gradually changed into the real women of today. It began with our heroes. They now come in all shapes and sizes. Some are bald, have long hair, tattoos, piercings. Some drive trucks, ride motorcycles, or fly. They are tall, not so tall, and come in all shades of color. They have fangs, claws, scars, and most of them all have one thing in common. They are sexy as hell to the heroine in some way.
Heroines have evolved, too. Yeah, baby! Today our heroines are tough, sassy, can take care of themselves and their men, and are comfortable in their own skin. They’re not perfect. Who is? Writers quickly figured out that readers want to read about real heroines . And those are short, tall, curvy, sassy women who aren’t dainty and weak as they’ve been made out to appear in yonder years. Real women! We can so relate to the curvy, girl next door who covets the sexy fire-fighter across the street. Right now they’re friends, but can they be more? Hell, yes!

As a woman with curves, I wrote A Perfect Fit deciding my heroine would be a plus-sized model. So, what is plus-sized? I had one reader comment about the book cover because she said the heroine was definitely not plus-sized. Well, I did my research and found that the modeling industry perceives a woman the size of twelve and over as plus-sized. My heroine is a size sixteen. So I guess it all depends on your perception.
People carry their weight differently. Duh! I used to carry my extra pounds really good, I actually had a figure. But as the years added up my curves began to re-shape themselves until I began to look like a lumpy potato with arms and legs. We all know if you’re six-feet tall and weigh two hundred pounds or five-feet tall and weigh two hundred pounds your body shape will be a lot different.

Plus-sized doesn’t always mean fat, or voluptuous as I like to say.  But a size sixteen, one hundred and sixty pound something model is considered plus-sized. Does my six-feet tall, big as Texas hero care? Hell no! As soon as he saw her walk the runway, wearing a sexy corset, he got a serious itch that didn’t go away, until he did something about it.   ~Tory Richards


I'm a fifty-something author who discovered my passion for writing and story telling at the ripe old age of thirteen. Before I received my first manual typewriter, with pencil in hand, I would jot my stories down on notebook paper. Later, after receiving that desired typewriter I spent hours in my bedroom, where my parents thought I was doing homework. Writing turned out to be a kind of therapy for me, something I didn't realize until years later.

Writing is a hobby for me, something I do during the quiet of the evenings and on my weekends. My goals are simple and realistic. I'll be happy if I'm just making enough "mad money" from it to be able to keep my cats fed, travel a little, and spoil my grandchildren.

I'll travel any place a cruise ship will take me. I've been to: Greece, Italy, Croatia, Spain, and Alaska just to name a few places. I don't like to fly, even before I found myself on a plane on 9/11, but I will if I'm given enough legal drugs.

I collect antiques and art, and I love chocolate, who doesn't? And I'm addicted to good coffee and sweet ice tea. McDonald's hazelnut iced coffee has been on my favorite list for quite some time. So has Dunkin Donuts mocha iced coffee.

For a while life got in the way of my dreams. A few years ago I decided to get serious and I haven't looked back!



What do you think? Have you read Richards?
Feel free to leave her some love!

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