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Women want to read about men who are true, and upright, and do the right thing, even when it's difficult. And they should be competent, perhaps with an edge (or more) of danger.

I have another book for you, Fedora --- Dangerous Men & Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance, edited by Jayne Ann Krentz.

Wow, thanks! That information is very useful to me. That book sounds good, too--will add that to the list of historical romances from the other night.

While we're on this topic, let me toss this out to see what insights you or others may have into this. How would you define your ideal of a female protagonist? To explain why I ask, let me describe how I'm looking at it:

I see two extremes in many female characters that I'm trying to find the happy medium between. On one extreme is the damsel in distress who serves no other role in the story than to provide a pretext for the hero to rescue her (an example would be the way Lois Lane was often handled in early Superman stories). On the other extreme is what I'll describe as female characters who are so in rebellion against traditional concepts of femininity that they often take on the same negative traits as antihero type of male characters (here I'm thinking of any of a number of recent female characters who are basically female action heroes that are good at martial arts and shooting things but have little character depth apart from a bad attitude). In my novel I'm trying to develop a heroine who is both feminine in a traditional sense yet also an independently-developed character that is interesting in her own right apart from her relationships to the male characters. What do I have to do to achieve this?--and what should I avoid? I'd especially appreciate any female insight into this. I'd also be interested in what male readers would like to see in female characters, if any guys care to comment on this.

"Women want to read about men who are true, and upright, and do the right thing, even when it's difficult. And they should be competent, perhaps with an edge (or more) of danger."

Ladies like guys to be very good at whatever they do, of that I am sure.

As for what constitutes and ideal lady, either to read about, or to love, I haven't given it that much thought, but speculation on such ought to be interesting.

Sex appeal probably tops the list, but even defining that alone is challenging.