Top Five Beta Heroes (in Movies) - #Countdown to Odd Wolf #UnderAWolfMoon

Odd Wolf, my story in the Under A Wolf Moon box set (RELEASING TOMORROW!! *throws confetti*) has a beta hero. When I asked folks on facebook during a recent party if they liked beta heroes, the answer was almost a unanimous NO. Folks wanted the Alpha guys. Me? I've always had a soft spot for the Dan Connors of this world. I like beta heroes...but then again, I like the alpha women.

Beta Heroes are defined as, "...romances (with) kinder, gentler heroes, the kind of men who will change your flat tire, open doors for you, help your kid with his homework, and bring you soup when you are sick. They are the antithesis of the testosterone-filled chest beaters found in the earlier bodice-ripper romances. These are the guys we all want to find in real life." - All About Romance Novels

Beta Heroes are in a TON of movies, but here are some of my top five all-all time favorite movie star beta men. (I have a longer list than this...apparently I really have a thing for these guys.)

Top Five Movie Beta Heroes

5. Hugh Grant as William Thacker in Notting Hill (1999)

In this movie, Julia Roberts plays a character very close to her reality--a super star, famous in tabloids and for her work as an actress, but lonely because who dares catch the tail of a star? She bumps repeatedly into the quiet Brit, William Thacker played by Hugh Grant, who is a bit nerdy, awkward, bookish and otherwise completely wrong for her world. Through a series of misadventures, they share a moment in a garden on a bench dedicated to a long dead woman who loved the garden...and the man who liked to sit with her. Grant plays a wonderful beta, never trying to dominate Roberts, but somehow becoming the one man who really gets her. Although an older movie, this one has a classic theme which will likely prove timeless and the cast of secondary characters ALMOST distracts from the clever love story...almost.


4. Scott Cohan as Wolf in The 10th Kingdom (2000)

Maybe I love this movie because the heroine is named Virginia, maybe I love it because I've always love a fairytale that twists in the real world...maybe I love it because Wolf is irresistible. Cohan plays a wolf far more canine than most modern writers depict wolves, but it works. It so works. He falls in love with his Virginia and literally travels through worlds to stay with her. Mirror magic, a starstudded cast including Camryn Manheim as Snow White, and a love story to top it all off--The Tenth Kingdom is one of my all-time favorites across the board. But Wolf? You don't get a lot more beta than Wolf.


3. James Frain as Forney Hill in Where the Heart Is (2000)

Forney jumps through a plate glass window to deliver the baby in this over-the-top romance. This story twists tragic and then spirals back to funny, but through it all...Forney remains bookish, awkward, quiet and yet I fell in love with him. I could ramble all day about how fantastic Frain was in this role, but if you haven't seen it, you aren't going to get it...and if you have seen it, you already know. Highly recommend Forney as he's the guy we'd all like to stumble across in a library.


2. Matthew Goode as Declan in Leap Year (2010)

I've rewatched this movie so many times that my children have lines from it memorized. Goode plays Declan, as Irish as the name sounds, and he's brilliant. When she first meets him, he's snarly, cranky and not interested in the snooty and arrogant Adams character. As they end up on a road trip from hell together, each finds the other has charms not immediately recognized--this is far from a love or lust at first sight romance. But Declan is beta...which is just what the strong woman played by Adams finds she wants in her life. And I do, too. *sigh*

1. Ryan Reynolds as Andrew Paxton in The Proposal (2009)

Sandra Bullock is a powerful woman--editor, boss, shark. She's also a Canadian about to get the boot out of NY if her assistant, played by the snarky and sexy Reynolds, doesn't agree to pretend to be her fiance. They end up flying away to Alaska to meet his family (with Bette White as the Grandma...and she is a HOOT.) to further their illusion and she learns there is a lot about him that she never knew...although he seems to know her almost eerily well. The two bumble and fumble through their faked engagement, but Reynolds remains beautifully beta right until the end. Even his counter-proposal is brilliantly beta. Not to mention he's naked in one scene...just saying.

Do you have any favorite beta heroes? Lemme know in the comment section below!

Top Five Powerful Women in HIstory - #Countdown to Odd Wolf

Dara in Odd Wolf is an Alpha of a pack of wolves. She's a bitch in more way than one and is rather proud of that. Her strength, however, doesn't always come from just her muscles or the powers granted to her via the pack bonds--she's smart, brave and has a big heart, too. A big enough heart to keep interacting with a rogue wolf with a lost look in his mysterious eyes...

But that is a story for three days from now. For now, let's talk about powerful women in movies, shall we? These are not, by a long shot, THE most powerful women in history, just some of my personal favorites. (Note: These are my recollections of these women, so google them if you want more accuracy or are writing a book report as this is in no way a relevant document.)

Top Five Powerful Women in History

According to Virg

It isn't about luck.

5. Anne Sullivan (April 14, 1866 – October 20, 1936)

To escape the potato famine, Anne's parents came to America. She got an infection in her eyes, her mom died, and her dad abandoned her. All of this happened before she was ten years old. Then her brother dies and she is pretty much as down on your luck and alone as anyone can get. What does she do with her time? Oh, she goes to this place where they have this kid who can't see, hear or talk. With the deck stacked against her, she manages to give the child a voice, one that resounded throughout history and changed, if not the whole world, certainly her own. Pretty badass for a woman who was born to nothing and given no advantages whatsoever from the fates...

Ain't I a Woman?

4. Sojourner Truth (1797 – November 26, 1883)

Every single one of my kids listened to the Ain't I a Woman speech and it still brings me to tears to this day.  Sojourner was born into slavery but took her baby and escaped to freedom--walking because she didn't think it was right to run away from problems. She then took a white man to court to get custody of her son back and became the first black woman to win that kind of battle. She fought, throughout her life, using her voice to rise up against everything from gender inequality to capital punishment and only death managed to stop her. Even silenced by the great equalizer, her words have rung out across the ages to decry unfairness and insist on equality for all.

3. Christa McAuliffe (September 2, 1948 – January 28, 1986) 

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut. I remember my Weekly Reader's all telling me how a teacher was going to give lessons from outer space and how we could listen to Christa right in our classrooms--a big deal in the eighties. When the Challenger launched, we didn't have school. I remember that because I was home, sitting at the table and coloring when the news came that it exploded. I had nightmares for weeks if not longer about exploding in a shuttle, something that put a bit of a damper on my dreams of becoming an astronaut...but I still wanted it bad enough to chase that particular star for a while. She might not have changed the world, but she changed mine, so she makes my list.

Sorry for stepping on your foot, dude.

2. Marie Antoinette (2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793)

Back in school, I got to choose which French figure I wanted to be for some thing or another and I picked Madame Du Barry.  Only much later in life did I realize there was more to Marie than what I learned in school. She was born to a mostly disinterested mother, given away in marriage to a place far from home as little more than a child herself and married to a boy. Their rule was fast, tumultuous, and eventually disastrous. However, she faced all of it with grace and dignity, even charges against her which insulted her, and didn't cry or beg at her own beheading. Her last words were a brief apology to her executioner for stepping on his foot.

You can be anything. Look at what Theo managed.

1. Theodora (500 – 28 June 548)

Okay, this one is straight from memory, so excuse any bending of history for this, as it is how I remember it. Theodora was born to an actress (read:prostitute) and a bear trainer for the Coliseum. Her fate, it would seem, wasn't to be illustrious. As a single mother, however, she did the dance of the veils for Justinian and won his heart. He went to his uncle, passed a law to say he could marry former actresses, and married her before becoming emperor of Rome. Together, they rebuilt roads, aquaducts and more, but that cost a lot of dough. So, the people rose up and rioted, circling their house and demanding Justinian back down. Justinian's advisers advised he back down. Theodora? She was like, "Nah. Dude, you're the damned emperor of Rome. Put on your man-panties and deal with this shit." (Obviously paraphrased.) So he did--he called in the leaders of the two teams against him, told one he was always a fan and here, "Have these casks of gold." They were cool with that and bounced. The other folks, though, they were still pissed and they told him so. Justinian shrugged, admitted he foresaw that response and had his guards kill them. End of Rise of the Nika, BAM. In her time in 'office' so to speak, Theodora worked hard for women's rights and changed a lot of really lame laws, not to mention contributing to lots of really cool projects. When she died, her husband, the emperor of Rome, openly wept at the funeral. She was born a daughter of no one from the absolute wrong side of the tracks and yet when she died, the most powerful man in the world mourned her publicly. That's pretty damn badass, if you ask me.

Who are your favorite historical Alpha women?