Guest Post: The Ten Best Jobs For Men in Romance Novels.

Saying "Erin O'Riordan writes erotic romance" is like saying "the sun emits some energy." Rare indeed is the author who has both a fantastic output and fantastic skill -- and Erin O'Riordan, erotic romance writer extraordinaire is that. Because Sweetie loves her romance novels, and because I like blogging, I combined the two and asked Erin to write a guest post. Here's what she gave me (I did the pictures... don't blame her.)

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Apparently, the subject of attractive men comes up quite frequently on this blog. [Note: That's Sweetie's Input. I'm responsible for aliens and leftover pizza.] Naturally, it comes up in my line of work, writing erotic romance novels, too. With that in mind, I bring you

The Ten Best Jobs For Men in Romance Novels.

Here they are, in no particular order:



10. Cowboy. I think Emilio Estevez in Young Guns ruined me for life. For me (a woman), very little could be more sensual than the thought of a roll in the tumbleweeds with a dusty cowhand. But it’s not just that: for my sensibilities, anyway, there’s a certain drama, a romance even, to imagining the cowboys together. Brokeback Mountain was just the beginning. The eleven tales in How the West Was Done (edited by Adam Carpenter, Ravenous Romance, 2009) portray a range of cowboy fantasies, from rough-and-tumble stories from the dusty trails of the 19th century to contemporary romance at the rodeo. What they all have in common is hot, steamy sex between two buff, beautiful men, at least one of whom is always of the bronc-riding variety.


9. Stay-at-home dad. A young dad who’s lost his baby-mama through no fault of his own is sexy precisely because he’s responsible, gentle, and loving. If a romantic heroine is lucky, that DILF is ready to love again, and has room in his heart for a new baby-mama. As a bonus, she gets to experience the joys of parenthood without the morning sickness and hospital bills.


8. Fire fighter. What’s not to love? He’s smoking hot, brave, strong, and he can throw you over his shoulder and carry you.







7. Nurse/Doctor. We romantic types love a man in uniform, and it’s sexy when the uniform happens to be scrubs or a white lab coat. Witness only the wavy-haired, Victorian hero of “Hysteria” by Rushmore Judd.


6. Soldier. Case in point #1: On Leave by Lois Bonde. As we meet Lea Martin, she's in the most heart-grabbing situation: saying goodbye to her older brother Ward as he goes off to war in the Middle East. She expects she'll miss Ward and worry about him every day. She doesn't expect the goodbye kiss she gets from Ward's best friend and fellow soldier, Mike Holt. Lea had never thought of Mike in that light before. His kiss is so unbelievably sensual, Lea makes Mike promise to come back to her. Ten months of pent-up fantasies later, Mike comes home on leave, and paying Lea a visit is high on his to-do list. Will he be the man she's been imagining while he's been gone? Could things between them ever be as good as that first kiss? In On Leave (Erotique Press, 2006, $3), Lois Bonde answers these questions with a moving (and totally hot) portrait of a friendship becoming much more.

Case in point #2: Marcus in “Homecoming.”


5. Vampire. Okay, vampire isn’t a job, per se. The Count Dracula type is usually mysteriously, independently wealthy, probably from all the hundreds of years he’s had to accumulate wealth…and take it from the people he’d eaten for breakfast. Edward Cullen doesn’t need a part-time job after school to afford to buy Bella Swan a new ride. Sometimes vamps have jobs: Charlaine Harris’s Eric Northman runs the Fangtasia night club, for example. But even if he isn‘t fabulously wealthy and/or his job isn‘t super-glamorous, vamps still make my blood run hot. Oliver of Love Bites, for example, may only be the head chef at a small seaside inn, but Oliver, sexy in a 1950s, James Dean kind of way, has all the right moves.

4. Contractor. Whether he’s a carpenter, a home remodeler, or the guy you hired to clean the pool, there’s something astoundingly sexy about the working-class hunks who work with their hands. As Jess says in “Bringing Eddie’s Lunch:”

“When Eddie is working, he’s a walking sexual fantasy. He wears tight carpenter jeans, with a hammer hanging from the hammer loop. He wears white T-shirts that are always, no matter what time of year, soaked with sweat. I love it when he’s swamped with work, when he’s too busy to get his hair cut. When he slicks his too-long hair back out of his eyes, he looks maddeningly sexy.” --The Mammoth Book of Erotic Confessions

3. Police officer. Fire fighters get all the glory, and cops get all the blame, right? Well, that psychology is part of what makes them such intense romantic heroes. Like their brethren in the big red trucks, the guys in blue run toward danger when everyone else is running away. They put their lives on the line to be real-life heroes. Case in point: Butch in J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series. Though not traditionally handsome, the gray-eyed police officer is some complex, so charming, he wins the heart of the most beautiful, utterly devoted woman in his world.

2. Kindergarten teacher. What’s not to love about a guy who gets along great with the little tykes? It speaks to his potentially for excellent parenting skills, which of course go body part-in-body part with excellent baby-making skills. (See #9.) Observe kindergarten teacher Thom Reno in “Bomb Pop:”

“I thought of moving my pile of papers closer to where Thom sat, but that would have been inviting trouble. He must have noticed my red cheeks. To make matters worse, he looked especially good that day. He hadn’t shaved, and his black beard was at that perfect stage before it starts to get too messy. He wore the black corduroys, the ones that really flattered his butt when he stuck a hard pack of cigarettes in the back pocket. His rumpled, gray-striped sweater clung to his shoulders the way I, in off moments, wished I could.”

1. Bartender. I may be a little biased on this one, having been a bartender myself at one point (heck, I’ve been a contractor, too, for that matter…but I digress), but even if you’re not a big fan of Tom Cruise in Cocktail (which I’m not), there’s something mysterious and sexy about the guys who sling those colorful bottles of liquor behind swank bars. In her “God of Wine,” Dianne Fox modeled sexy-as-hell bartender Dean after the Greek wine god Dionysus. I had no such lofty references when I wrote Jace in “Iced” (The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Vol. 9), but the erotic effect is the same.



According to her author bio:

Erin O'Riordan was raised by an illiterate French hitman after corrupt DEA agents murdered her family. Either that, or she watches too many Luc Besson films. She studied psychology and women's studies at a prominent Catholic women's college. Her erotic stories, essays, and film reviews have been published in numerous magazines and websites including The Erotic Woman, Oysters & Chocolate, and Clean Sheets. Though she has written about everything from professional basketball to her favorite literary sex scenes, the intersection of spirituality and sexuality remains one of her favorite themes. *Beltane,* her first novel, will be the first in the twelve-part "Pagan Spirits" series. Visit her at aeess.com.

Home: www.aeess.com
Blog: www.erinoriordan.blogspot.com