How far is too far?

I have a monthly book club with a great group of girlfriends. Hostess chooses the book and hosts the meeting, the rest of us bring the food. For once, I finished a book early (instead of cramming the night before) and something's been nagging me the past day or so.

The book could be classified as urban fantasy, I'm guessing. A vampire hunter. A sexy vampire with a foreign accent. They fall in love, but they are only given enough of a taste of their happily ever after that the poor reader cannot HELP but run out and by the next in the series. (I'll admit it, I was hooked!)

But the heroine...ugh. I find myself less forgiving of the frailer sex for some reason. Cat had a quality common in way too many romance stories that I've been reading lately. She's got independence, sass, and more gucci-brand suitcases (emotional baggage) than any human being could possibly shuttle through life.

A reader will follow your heroine's reluctance to love the hero only so far. In the early pages, we'll nod our heads sympathetically when her walls refuse to budge. We'll listen in as she tells the story about her horrible "first time" and how she's "never had a boyfriend since" and all that it entails. We'll allow her to be skittish when they kiss the first time. We'll blush when she blushes when they finally get between the sheets.

But in the last third of the book, when the hero has saved her, her family, her dog, bought her a house, cured world hunger, clothed and shoed orphans, and announced his undying devotion to her...and she still has pages upon pages of internal uncertainty about whether she can overcome her issues? Well, frankly. you don't deserve him anymore.

To me, going way past your mark in that sense weakens the story. If that's the biggest conflict available at the moment and the author clings to it with all their might, they need to do some revising and build more plot into their story. Initial hesitation? Good. Stubborn heroine action packed with issues that could probably stand some counseling? Not so good.

Let the external forces drive the ending of your story, and in my humble opinion, let your protagonists work together for once. I can't stand an entire book of Mars v. Venus...just sayin'!

Happy writing!