So last night after I’d finished writing, I started Linda Winstead Jones’ Raintree: Haunted. I’m really liking it so far but this is one of those books where I find myself totally identifying with the hero instead of the heroine. It doesn’t always happen that way for me, usually only about 20% of the time.

And it’s not that the heroine is dislikeable or stupid, if that were the case, I’d stop reading. But in some books, I identify strongly with one character or the other, usually the heroine in a romance written after 1995 or so. In Welcome to Temptation, I fell in love with Sophie! I loved Phin but Sophie was the character I identified with and rooted for. In Inferno, the first Raintree book, it was definitely Lorna.

I’m not sure why it happens or what it is because it’s not always uniform for me. Sometimes it might be because one of them is more likeable, other times because one of them is more like me or I can connect with something about them, a quirk or a wound in their past or what have you. I think for me when I read, if I can end up really falling in love with one of the main characters, it’s like I’ve made a friend and it’s a mark of a great author to render their readers able to feel like that with a character.

Do other folks do this? Fall in love with one character and if so, what do you think makes it happen for you?