Evolution and the Sheikh
Ever since Rudolph Valentino smouldered down from the silver screen in the 1921 silent movie 'The Sheikh', tall, dark and handsome desert heroes have been the epitome of romance fantasy and a mainstay of romantic fiction - and quite right too! But has the most Alpha of Alpha males changed very much over the decades? In 1919, Edith Hull's novel was an overnight sensation and her virile desert warrior made women everywhere go weak at the knees. Shrewdly, she penned a number of successful sequels featuring brooding Arab heroes, and her books paved the way for later romance writers. The Sheikh is still a firm and popular hero of romantic fiction, and one of my own particular favourites, but the world has moved on in the last hundred years. Readers, and film-goers too, expect a different sort of hero these days and, consequently, for an author, he's not always the most straightforward of characters to write - as I've discovered in my latest work in progress.