Super Six Sunday: Bad Bookish Boyfriends

Inspired by Top Ten Tuesday from The Broke and The Bookish, Super Six Sunday, a new feature from the fabulous ladies at Bewitched Bookworms, has different book-related topics each week and asks participants to address each one in the form of a list of six. Obviously.

This week's topic is bad bookish boyfriends, something those of you who read this blog with any frequency know is all-too perfect a topic for me. The hard part of course comes in narrowing this list down to only six–rather than say, one hundred–bad bookish boyfriends. *shakes fist at the Bookworms for limiting me so!* MY LOVE FOR FICTIONAL MEN CANNOT BE CONTAINED IN SUCH A MANNER! I have so very much to give you see, but I endeavored to adhere to the rules of this feature and picked only a handful. *exasperated sigh*

In order to help me compile this list, I narrowed the topic further and chose men who walk a fine line between hero and anti-hero, often saying or doing things that make me want to revoke their candidacy for Fictional Love of Jenny's Life, but yet I find them all the more interesting for their deep, and sometimes very dark, flaws.

1. RYODAN

The Fever Series (adult urban fantasy)

I know. I talk about him a lot. There's just so much to say! He has layers, my friends, LAYERS UPON LAYERS and I adore him. I'll spare you my fawning all over him because I already did that in a previous post, but suffice to say he pretty much owns the term badass and skates the line between someone I love and someone I could easily hate so very, very expertly. I need Burned in my hands as soon as physically possible.

First book in the entire series: Darkfever

First book in Dani's series in which Ryodan is a major player: Iced

2. KAIDAN ROWE

The Sweet Trilogy (paranormal YA)

Okay, like Ryodan, I may have mentioned Kaidan a time or two on this blog. Or possibly 23849203394 times, but that's completely beside the point. The point is Kaidan is the son of the Duke (think demon) of Lust, and he won me over the minute he came on page in Sweet Evil. He's more than just a bad boy who happens to ooze sex appeal; underneath the sharp wit, the British accent, and the devil-may-care attitude lies a young man stuck in a situation he's powerless to change, and he has perhaps more fear in him than he does cocky swagger if you take the time to really look, something very few actually do. If you couldn't tell already, I'll let you in on a little secret: I love him.

First book in the series: Sweet Evil

3. COLE

The Everneath Series (paranormal YA)

Oh, Cole. What a tangled web you weave my friend. Though Cole plays second fiddle to primary love interest Jack in this series, he remains the far more intriguing of the two (but my love for Jack is still epic!), his motivations for every action always shrouded in an untold number of mysteries, and just when I think I have a handle on the man he is, he cracks a sinister smile and laughs right in my face for being so dense. He is both kind and cruel, genuine and devious, and I simply cannot wait to see where things go with him in the third installment of this series.

First book in the series: Everneath

4. GREYFRIAR

Vampire Empire Series (adult urban fantasy/steampunk)

This trilogy completely and unexpectedly blew me away when I first picked it up a couple years ago, the world a welcome yet devastating return to a time when vampires were not the stuff of romance novels, but rather the monstrous killing machines of legend. The Greyfriar is one who hunts them, but as things unfolded in the first book I quickly realized the mask he wears hides far more than just his features from the world, and once I got a peek at what was underneath, I had to know everything there was to know. Like the others on this list he sometimes straddles the line between black and white, though he proves again and again that gray is a far more attractive and addictive color.

First book in the series: The Greyfriar (Vampire Empire)

5. PHOENIX

The Violet Eden Chapters (paranormal YA)

Phoenix has led me on a merry dance through this series (though like Cole, he is not the primary love interest, that honor falls to Lincoln). In one book I despise him and everything he is, but then in the next book he shows a completely new side to himself that has my fingers turning from claws that would slice him open to clutching digits that would pull him closer and never let him go. He can be brutal and plays a mean emotional game with Violet and Lincoln, but in the rare moments when his guard drops he shines brighter than any other character, and the glutton for punishment in me never fails to rejoice when he makes an appearance on page.

First book in the series: Embrace

6. RAPHAEL

The Guild Hunter Series (adult paranormal Romance)

Ooooo Raphael, you are a sexy bastard. I am an enormous fan of all things Nalini Singh, and though you've probably seen me gush most often about my love of alpha wolf Hawke from her Psy-Changeling series (YOU'RE STILL MY FIRST LOVE HAWKE!), I absolutely adore her Guild Hunter series as well. In these books we get to spend time with Raphael, the archangel of New York, a man who is all power and steel and immortality, and who time has hardened and shaped into someone unyielding and unrelenting. He is perhaps the most alpha of all Nalini's many alpha men, but when Elena enters his life we have the pleasure of watching the rigidity of him start to ever-so-slightly relax (though not much mind you), giving but the barest of inches before his archangel superiority snaps back into place. He's infuriating and intoxicating and if you've yet to meet him, you're missing out.

First book in the series: Angels' Blood