Just a matter of personal taste. I find "The obscenely chaste blonde, blue-eyed princess in a tower waiting for prince charming to rescue her" thing to be frightfully dull.
Me too. I've only read a wee bit of Mercedes Lackey, but I didn't see any of that there.
Like my tale of the royal race with a seductive society who make harems of their would be assassins. Much more interesting to win over the enemy by making them burn with desire than, say, preaching them in to complacancy or impressing them with your purity.
So... Goodkind, then?
It's part of what worries me about the psychic animals of the world. It looks too cuddly. Now, if some of them are reptiles, or something like boars and wolverines...
Yeah, it sounds like you're looking for a slightly different flavor. One which can actually be done with ordinary D&D, I would think. Although if you could stretch the political intrigue/romance definition to include Robin Hobb, you've got people using Wit to bond with all kinds of animals. Kristen Britain's more-intelligent-than-normal horse-companions that stay with her Green Riders might fit into this field as well, and they kick bad guys to death on a fairly regular basis. I don't know that I'd consider that "cuddly", per se.
And Pern would fit, possibly, with people bonding with dragons and whatever-the-little-mini-dragons-were-called. The women are by no means chaste and docile in that world, either.
Basically, while I'm not neccissarily in to -dark- romance (though that can be quite fun, too), the pastel romance (like all things pastel in hue) makes me mildly queazy. I'm hoping Blue Rose promotes romantic fantasy in general, and not just the sort that inspires rosy cheeks, high foreheads, gray eyes, blonde curls, etc.
I believe that's the worst misspelling of "scarlet-tressed" I've seen all day.
Seriously, I don't believe that anyone said that it was going to be the way you're worried about it being. I mean, I hope that it ain't that way, too, but I've read enough of the authors they're describing that I don't see that as a real problem. I'm sure that anyone who wants to run a "chaste, pretty girl is called ugly and stupid by evil female peers until handsome male authority figure recognizes her secret magical gift for using crystals to create rainbows that make the unicorns sing"-style campaign will be able to do so, but I'm much more interested in the political intrigue and the possibility of having a book that addresses the game mechanics-versus-roleplaying question for social encounters.
I'm interested in something more complex than "Okay, Sense Motive... yeah, this guy is evil -- roll initiative" or "Diplomacy of 22 -- yeah, she's totally into you". I've been able to get that with D&D sometimes (and I'm obviously exaggerating the degree of simplicity, just as you've slightly exaggerated the possible simplicity of Blue Rose), but it hasn't always been easy or supported happily by the rules.
Give me gypsy or pirate style romance, now that's where the fun is.
Those both sound good to me.
I'd happily play in both of those.
