A Goodreads user asked Jennifer Blake:

Are all the heroines in your novels virgins? And if so, why? I really like some of your novels. I love the relationship between your heroes and heroines in those novels. I also don't mind the virgin heroines. But when I started reading your contemporary novels and found that it's a characteristic that repeats itself across all your books I have read so far, it reeks of double standards to me.

Jennifer Blake The virgin heroine is the standard in my Victorian era historical novels because strict chaperonage of young women (not to mention serious consequences), made sexual experience unlikely. Today's books written in that era which show previous sexual activity or even aggressive solicitation for it by the heroine strike me as being PC at the expense of history. That said, you might enjoy FIERCE EDEN, about a young widow (circa 1730s colonial Louisiana) who has escaped an abusive marriage and wants no part of sex, but must exchange her favors for the lives of her friends. Or maybe LOUISIANA DAWN with a heroine who propositions a rake in order to lose her virginity that she thinks is making her a prisoner. My contemporary books are a mixed bag, actually, some heroines with a relationship history and some not, depending on the needs of the story. In LOVE AND SMOKE, for instance, the heroine is 15-year-old virgin when basically date-raped by the scum bag villain, then marries an older man for security, making her far from virginal by the time she falls for the hero. So it goes. With many thanks for the kind words about the male-female relationships in the books, Jennifer

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