Beta Hero’s They Do exist: Review 1 Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
So last we left off, we were discussing Beta hero’s in romance, and I was on the hunt for books that featured them. So this week I’m going to review 3.
The first is Outlander by Diana Grabaldon. If you’re not familiar with Outlander, Jaime is a soldier in a laird’s clan. He would have been laird in his own clan but he attacked a British soldier in order to save his sister from being raped. When the woman he considers his own is in danger, he is willing to give up his own safety, security, and his life for her. He ends up submitting to the most excruciating torture a man can face, in order to ensure her well being. He voluntarily supports his leaders, and has no problem doing so, he is not interested in being the leader or the Laird, he is happy to be a soldier protecting the ones he loves.
Outlander‘s Jaime is a great beta hero specifically because he is not interested in leading, but he’s not passive or submissive at all. He’s a fighter, he loves deeply and fiercely, but he is not aggressive, he’s not assertive, but he is protective. He’s sensitive, he’s in touch with his emotions, he loves Claire with a passion, with abandon, yet he’s unafraid to let her go, he knows that by letting her make her own choices she will be happier. The alpha hero would never let that happen, he’d demand, and fight and hold, but the beta hero allows his love to make her own decisions.
Jaime’s not above some alpha male moments. One of the best is when Claire awakens from their first night together,
I was lame and sore in every muscle when I woke next morning. I shuffled to the privy closet, then to the wash basin. My innards felt like churned butter. It felt as though I had been beaten with a blunt object, I reflected, then thought that that was very near the truth. The blunt object in question was visible as I came back to bed, looking now relatively harmless. Its possessor [Jamie] woke as I sat next to him, and examined me with something that looked very much like male smugness.”
Outlander is a fantastic example of a beta hero who is not afraid to be vulnerable to his woman, who is comfortable and harbors no desire to be the aggressive warring leader, and who is as protective of his woman as he is in love with her, and who is willing not just to fight for her but is willing to sacrifice himself for her and for her comfort.
I’ve heard a lot of praise for this book, but never could get myself to read it. Not because I thought the hero was weak (as some think beta heroes are) but the writer’s writing style and the heroine herself – who I believe is married when the story begins.
She is married at the beginning but she travels back in time, and meets Jaime, it takes a LONG time for her to actually give into him, but after awhile she does. And when she does, he knows about her time travel and her other husband. Her other husband, they were separated due to war for 7 years, so their marriage is way on the rocks. It makes sense given her background and what happens. Its a hellish book at the end of it, its just gruesome but its well worth the reading investment.