Love is in the air, also tanks!—A.B. Bennett

Have you noticed that many novels are shifting away from a singular, static genre and morphing into hybrids?

It’s true! We now have the Cozy Horror — ten out of ten would recommend Bonnie Quinn’s How to Survive Camping. There’s Sci-Fi/Mystery with The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard. And who could forget that breakout series? You know the one. It basically kick-started a decade's worth of all things period romance in books and television—Outlander by Diana Gabaldon.

Ah, Outlander. A triple treat sundae of historical, Sci-Fi (what with the whole time-traveling bits), and bodice-ripping, kilt-twirling romance. 

In fact, love has become the “pepper” to a wide variety of other genres’ “salt”. Not surprisingly, it’s hot stuff! Why, paired with anything, and it gets on like a house on fire. Like chocolate and strawberries, or roasted peanuts bobbing in a cold Coca-Cola. Buuuut, sometimes, adding a love theme is like messing around with potassium chlorate and sugar—in that everything ends in an earth-shattering Ka-boom!

Because it’s kind of a messed-up emotion, isn't it?

Did you know that Aphrodite, that unashamed Goddess of Love, had multiple names under her bedazzled belt? Some ancient worshipers referred to her as “Aphrodite Areia” in their prayers. … Aphrodite the Warlike.

Yup. They got it!

Love makes you do stupid things, crazy things. It pushes ordinary people to do the extraordinary. And—for better or worse—it shapes any story it’s a part of. It adds spice to humdrum thrillers. Gives the reader fleeting moments of grounding during the penned apocalypse or alien invasion.

And it's such a useful, relatable trigger that many mystery writers regularly use it in their works. Someone stalked the victim for years. The toxic love-triangle (or, gasp, a love-dodecahedron) led to a vicious murder… or several. Ohhhh! I must not forget about the good old subset of conflict that "love" inspires: revenge. Nothing motivates a hero like the tragic death of their beloved! Run a finger along a library’s bookshop and I guarantee you will find a baker’s dozen worth of paperbacks describing some loving widow going all John Wick Hollywood on his wife's killer... Or killers, if the pages need padding.

But, my dear mystery writers, does “love” always need to be so formulaically tragic? Do characters have to fit stereotypes, running the gamut between Hallmark Lumberjack to Hannibal Hunk? I’d argue Heck No! Love can inspire, be comedic, or just be utterly batshit. Your characters can and should reflect that. It’s tough to move away from the cookie-cutter molds, I know. Sadly, we poor authors constantly encounter horrific true crime news. These real-life cases describe the worst forms that obsession can take. Small wonder that love’s darker misadventures bleed into our prose.

So, in honour of Valentine’s Day—and because I spent an awful lot on a history degree—allow me to introduce you to a couple of true stories of romantic badassery. I would challenge you to play a game and try to insert either of these extraordinary women into plot lines involving thrillers, suspense, Sci-Fi, fantasy, horror, or even comedy.

May such musings inspire your inner novelist!

 Let’s start with a spot of proper, historical revenge:

 When Mariya Vasilyevna Oktyabrskaya’s husband died fighting Nazis in 1941, she didn’t waste time picking out flowers for the funeral. (It had taken the Soviet administration two years to send her a “sorry for your loss” card, after all.) So Mariya sold all her possessions and wrote a quick note to Josef Stalin:

“My husband was killed in action defending the motherland. I want revenge on the fascist dogs for his death and for the death of Soviet people tortured by the fascist barbarians. For this purpose, I’ve deposited all my personal savings—50,000 rubles—to the National Bank in order to build a tank. I kindly ask to name the tank ‘Fighting Girlfriend’ and to send me to the frontline as a driver of said tank.”

That’s right. She bought the Red Army a T-34 tank and then asked to be trained on how to drive the dang thing. Surprisingly, the State Defense Committee agreed to this… No doubt because “propaganda” and a free tank. Five months worth of training later, she went hunting Nazis with all the pent-off road rage of a PMSing bull shark on PCP.

“I’ve had my baptism by fire.” Mariya reportedly wrote to her sister. “I beat the bastards. Sometimes I’m so angry I can’t even breathe.”

Sadly, shell fragments struck her during a night attack in the Belarus region, and she never regained consciousness. She received full military honours at her burial. The crew of the “Fighting Girlfriend” made it to Victory Day on May 9, 1945.

John Wick, eat your heart out.

 Shall we move on to a 17th-century bisexual, cross-dressing, opera-singing, corpse-stealing duelist?

 Because Julie d’Aubigny was all the above, and faaaaar more.

Contemporaries would blame her father for Julie’s wildness. After all, he was the one who fought to give his daughter an education equal to that of other pages in the court of Versailles. Slippery slope that. He even dressed Julie in men’s clothes for fencing lessons and cheered her on when she totally kicked butt.

By the age of fourteen Julie became a mistress to the count of Armagnac, who arranged her to marry Sieur de Maupin to give her a position of respectability. So, did the teenaged Julie settle down into domestic bliss in a f***ed up polyamorous triangle? … Naaaah.

She, in fact, ran off with the assistant fencing master who—ha!—needed to run off in a hurry as he had killed a man in an illegal duel. To make ends meet, the couple mock-fenced in exhibitions and sang in taverns, d’Aubign often dressing in men’s clothing. This would surreptitiously lead her into the operatic world, and she soon separated from her fugitive sparring partner.

Julie was a breakout hit, and she had no shortage of admirers, including a young woman who was star-struck. The two soon became enthralled with each other. However, the girls' parents were horrified! They sent their scandalous daughter straight to a convent, as was the custom of the time. (Can you sense my eye-rolling, dear reader?)

Julie d’Aubigny was not in the least discouraged by this turn of events.

She left the opera house and went to meet her lady love in the convent…by taking a nun’s oath. Soon after entering, an elder nun died. Which was great timing! Julie jumped on the opportunity to escape by, well, excavating said nun’s corpse. Body in hand, she set it up in her lover’s cell, and then the pair promptly lit the convent on fire and fled.

As one does when one is in love.

It was a lot of effort for what would amount to three months of rough, on the run living. The young girl eventually returned to her parents, and Julie was sentenced to death in absentia by the French Parliament.

Julie gave zero f’s about that and continued living her best life. Loving whomever she wanted to—and beating any man who dared to harass her (or her friends)—until the King of France pardoned her for her crimes. The King’s brother even invited her to a ball. …Julie arrived in cross-dress, flirted with female guests, kissed one, and soundly beat three different men who challenged her to a duel.

Helluva night, no?

Well, the king was not impressed. So once again she fled Paris until the heat died down.

There is more to her history. So, so much more. But she did eventually return to the French Opera. She met the love of her life, the Madame la Marquise de Florensac, and the two lived quietly together until Florensac’s death due to flu.

Julie ended up retiring to a nun’s convent—I know!—before dying at thirty-three.

What a whirlwind of a life she led in pursuit of romance and liberty! In Julie d’Aubigny’s own words, “I am made for perils, as well as for tenderness.”