Asian Leading Men by Grace Teague
My contribution to One Lucky Night, is a story called “Lucky Star,” which features a leading man of Chinese and Scottish descent. My inspiration for the character came from a couple sources, including a forward a friend sent me of beautiful, up-and-coming, Asian actors.
I know it sounds oxymoronic, but looking at gorgeous men makes me happy. Shortly thereafter, the character of Tommy Leung was born.
There are a lot of guys on Romance covers who all look the same. The majority of covers on popular sites that sell romance and erotica feature white protagonists, with a smaller dose of African-American leads. I looked and couldn’t find any statistics on the rate of Asian men as leads in romance novels. A quick search of Goodreads showed about two-hundred titles, but among those were books like The Lover and Memoirs of a Geisha that wouldn’t fall neatly under the romance banner.
Asian is a blanket term that covers a ridiculous amount of ground, continent-wise. It’s the most generic of generic, including people from China, Japan, Pacific Island regions and India. Basically, in this country the most populous places in the world get one word to label their wildly diverse societies.
Not only are these men and women vastly under-represented, when they are shown there tends to be a reliance on stereotyping. Original Sulu and national treasure George Takei has talked about the tendency for Asian men to be presented as asexual.
This is as unscientific as it gets, but a quick survey of People’s sexiest men alive turned up zero men of Chinese, Japanese or Indian descent. In fact, the only non-white guy to ever grace the sexiest man cover was Denzel Washington. They also featured George Clooney and Mel Gibson more than once. Ninety-percent of women agree, Channing Tatum is great, but there are so many actors who look just like him. Do we as a culture really need Sam Worthington AND Kellan Lutz? Aside from their immediate families, can anyone genuinely distinguish either of them from Jeremy Renner? Maybe give Rick Yune or John Cho a try.
(Go ahead and Google. I will wait.)
(So, you’re back. Let’s continue!)
No offense to most recent cover honoree Adam Levine, but I don’t think seeing someone like this would have hurt anybody: http://danieldaekim.com/
Even when the team and I were searching for artwork to accompany the story, it was nearly impossible to find a sexy Chinese man who looked like my conception of Tommy Leung. There was literally one model with his shirt off, but he didn’t resemble my lead at all. The majority of the guys in the clip art wore suits, pictured in a business setting.
Even though I do put Tommy in a suit for part of the story, he gets out of it pretty quickly. Hopefully, amid all the sexy Irish-American guys in One Lucky Night, he’s an unexpected character for readers to fall in love with.
All About One Lucky Night:
One night can change everything…
The crew at Boston’s Brazen Head Pub hasn’t been very lucky in love. Can a mysterious visitor inspire them to look past old hurts and misconceptions and give romance a chance? One Lucky Night is a collection of five sexy interwoven novelettes by Aria Kane, Grace Teague, Ana Blaze, Constance Phillips, and Melinda Dozier.
Lucky Break by Aria Kane
Four years ago, chef Derek Chase walked out of Andrea Rivera’s life after a tragedy neither of them were prepared to deal with. When she’s called to the Brazen Head to repair a dishwasher, old sparks ignite buried feelings.
Lucky Star by Grace Teague
When her life is threatened by a mugger, Charlotte Price realizes she's in love with her best friend, Tommy Leung. The Brazen Head seems like the perfect neutral place to confess her feelings, but nothing goes according to plan.
A New Tune by Ana Blaze
When it comes to dating, Holly Hall has one unbreakable rule: no musicians. Not even gorgeous ones. Especially not gorgeous ones. Dating them only leads to heartbreak. So why did she let singer-songwriter Cian O’Neill kiss her? And why is she thinking about doing it again?
Lexi’s Chance by Constance Phillips
As a bartender, Sean Whelan meets all kinds of women every night, but none turn his head the way that Lexi has. She’s been playing cat and mouse with him for weeks. Tonight, Sean’s determined to get Lexi to quit teasing and take a real chance on him.
Drink or Dare by Melinda Dozier
A bachelorette party Drink or Dare game pairs paramedic students, Rachel Robertson and Killian Whelan, in a flirting match. Soon, the dares threaten to turn their academic rivalry into something much more.
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21457339-one-lucky-night
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1iPnwKJ
iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/isbn9781311147424
B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/one-lucky-night-ana-blaze/1119268966
Other retailers: http://www.ariakane.com/p/one-lucky-night.html
Giveaway
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Hi, Grace! Thank you for being our guest today!
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the Wranglers. I agree with you about Asian heroes. About Asians in romance at all, for that matter. A good thought-provoker. I enjoyed your post!
ReplyDeleteWelcome to our pen! I love Asian men! SO hot!
ReplyDeleteThanks for having our book here at Word Wranglers! I loved Grace's hero, Tommy and that he's not the "typical" hero we read about. He's swoon-worthy too! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you, for having Grace on your site to talk about our release and for sharing our book with your readers!
ReplyDelete