Recently I was given an interesting interview question: You are a heroine in one of your novels. Would you rather play the young and innocent virgin, the worldly widow or the seductive, yet secretive courtesan?
Boy, those are some limited choices. Which is one of the reasons I chose to write in a period of more recent history—the turn-of-the-century—so that I could have a wider selection of heroines.

Gigi, the heroine of my debut book, Private Arrangements, is a businesswoman, a mogul, even. Her control over her own fortune is made possible by the Married Women’s Property Act of 1882. For my sophomore book, I turn around 180 degrees, and star a heroine who is a cook—a marvelous cook, but still a servant (it’s a Cinderella story, if you haven’t guessed). My third book, which so far exists only as a conversation between me and my editor, will feature a heroine who is a practicing physician, a character that is not historically possible in the United Kingdom until after 1865.

Other more vague ideas for possible future historical romance heroines include a mathematician, a WWI ambulance driver, and maybe a hack writer of penny dreadfuls (really lurid pulp fiction published in nineteenth century Britain which appeared in installments, each costing a penny).

I like my heroines to be independent. And by that, I mean having an independent source of income. For which they either need to have skills that get paid decent wages or an inheritance. And even when they do have an inheritance and don’t need to work, I still prefer them to have a vocation—must be the influence of all the industrious women in my family, impressing upon me from an early age that idleness is not a good thing.

So back to the question asked of me, whom would I choose to play?

The courtesan is definitely out. I’d make a reluctant and resentful courtesan—the thought of sleeping with men I find unattractive gives me the creeps. And it would be a rare courtesan who didn’t have to take a protector for reasons other than his personal hotness.

The young and innocent virgin is the next to go. All my best friends are non-virgins. I find them more interesting this way.

That leaves the worldly widow by default. Private Arrangements actually has a worldly widow—the heroine’s mother—as a secondary protagonist. She is virtuous, but she is also ambitious and wily. And I can live with that.

So, Dear Readers, if you were to answer the question, which character would you play? Or if you, like me, find the choices too restricting, what character would you invent to play?

--Sherry Thomas, www.SherryThomas.com