I’m a huge fan of morally grey badass women who are slightly insane. So I’m obsessed with Birds of Prey, a DC superhero movie featuring Harley Quinn, played by Margot Robbie as she teams up with Black Canary and Huntress. I’ve probably watched the trailer half a dozen times already and am already trying to figure out how to replicate Harley’s outfits.
Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t come out until February 2020, so until then, here are some badass romance novels to read featuring slightly insane but awesome women.
Between the Sheets by Molly O’Keefe
There were very few good things about Suicide Squad. It was a thin plot being propelled forward by half-baked characters and no one likes Jared Leto’s Joker. No one.
But Margot Robbie rocked as Harley Quinn anyway. And it makes complete sense a romantic like her would be reading a romance novel in her free time. She’s seen reading Between the Sheets by Molly O’Keefe while sipping expresso in her cell.
Here’s what Harley is reading about:
After years of running, Wyatt Svenson has now parked himself in Bishop, Arkansas, trying to do the right thing and parent a son he didn’t even know he had until recently. Over six feet tall and packed with muscles and power, Ty likes to get his hands dirty, fixing his motorcycle at night and keeping his mind away from the mistakes he’s made. Then his pretty neighbor shows up on his driveway, doesn’t bother to introduce herself, and complains about the noise. First impression? She should loosen up. Funny that she turns out to be his son’s elementary school art teacher—and the only one willing to help his troubled boy. Ty needs her. In more ways than one.
Though Shelby Monroe is safe in her structured life, she is drawn to Ty’s bad-boy edge and rugged sexuality. What if she just lets it all go: her worries about her mother, her fear of heartbreak, and her tight self-control? What if she grabs Ty and takes a ride on the wild side? “What if” becomes reality—intense, exhilarating . . . and addictive. But Ty wants more than a secret affair. He wants it all with Shelby. But will she take a chance and open her heart? Ty is determined to convince Shelby to take the biggest risk of her life: on him.
Get Between the Sheets at your local bookstore.
The Power of Mercy by Fiona Zedde
After Harley Quinn leaves the Joker, she gets into a much healthier relationship with Poison Ivy, which I love, mostly because she needs someone who doesn’t think abuse is a fun pastime.
I found an entire indie publishing company that has an entire series of lesbian superhero romance novels.
The Power of Mercy fits Birds of Prey the best because like Harley, Mai Redstone is very emotionally conflicted and is often perceived as weak despite being a force to be reckoned with.
To her family, Mai Redstone is weak. Her shape-shifting power is nowhere near as impressive as their abilities to literally alter the world around them. But when she puts on the costume to become Mercy, a rooftop-climbing chameleon with a thousand disguises and at least nine lives, she feels almost invincible. When a local politician is murdered and the police call Mercy in to help, the stability Mai has built out of past pain threatens to crumble. The dead politician turns out to be her uncle, a man who made her childhood a living hell. Caught between giving a medal to the killer and being forced to find the murderer for her family, Mai must make the difficult choice between family loyalty and self-preservation. Mercy is a blade that can cut both ways.
Get The Power of Mercy on Smashwords.
Superheroes Don’t Wear Tights by Marvelle Petit
While this one doesn’t have too much in common with Harley Quinn or the other Birds of Prey heroes, staging a conflict where battles a lover is totally something she would consider foreplay. And of course she would encourage any steamy moments.
Celes is a superhero sick of being a superhero. Sure, she’s low enough on the totem pole that she escapes the intense public scrutiny other superheroes face, but she has a set of issues that are about to blow up in her face. Mainly, her boyfriend is her arch-nemesis. The games they play are as steamy as they are dangerous. Dates? Need to stage an incident for that. They can’t be seen together at the local coffee joint, after all. And these supes have a super-sized appetite, in and out of costume. But karma has quite a bite, and they’re about to find out the consequences of their secret relationship.
Enjoy a riveting read full of action and steamy moments guaranteed to make you blush. There’s no fade to black in this story!
Get Superheroes Don’t Wear Tights on Smashwords.
A Bad Girl’s Guide to Superheroes by Vivi Andrews
Harley’s mind was played with just like Mirabelle’s mind was. These horrible, twisted events became their origin stories. Unlike Harley, however, Mirabelle might have a chance of redemption.
Her mind is a prison. Can love set her free?
Ever since her supervillain father experimented on her as a child, Mirabelle “Mirage” Wroth has been able to project unbreakable illusions into the minds of those around her. But after a run-in with a Mind Bender, she loses control of her gift and can no longer tell where reality ends and illusion begins. Only sanctimonious superhero Captain Justice is immune to her powers and can help her find the truth again—if Mirage can trust another man to define her reality.
Justice is sick of saving damsels in distress—he just wants someone to look beyond the cape and see him—but he can’t turn away from the hauntingly vulnerable Mirage. Suddenly Justice is helping her hide from the police, willing to be downright villainous to be her hero.
But as they work to save Mirage from herself, other forces are circling to endanger them both. Tangled in illusions and mind games, can love be real?
Get A Bad Girl’s Guide to Super Heroes on Smashwords.
Mad Love by Paul Dini and Pat Cadigan
What better way to kill time waiting for Birds of Prey than reading Harley Quinn’s origin story?
When she was only seven years old, Harleen Quinzel witnessed her father being beaten up by thugs, and then arrested by the police. That night she ran away to the safest place she could think of: Coney Island amusement park. But there, pursued into the Funhouse by the men who brutalised her father, she beheld unimaginable horrors.
Years later, Harleen has put her past behind her, and used her intelligence and ambition to escape her childhood of poverty with a career in psychiatry. Assigned to her first position at Arkham Hospital, she will discover, deep in the asylum, something dangerous and alluring, something quite unlike anything else she has ever known before: The Joker. Because why would you settle for love, when you could have MAD LOVE?
From the moment that Harleen finds a rose on her desk, to the moment she dons her harlequin hat, this is the definitive story that chronicles the obsession, the burning desire, the manic laughter, and the birth of one of the most controversial and popular comic book supervillains ever created: Harley Quinn.
Get Mad Love at your local bookstore.
Bonus Book: Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey
While not a romance or even a novel, I had include this anthology because the stories are based on the upcoming movie. What a great way to get to know the characters before seeing them on the big screen.
This anthology features stories based on the movie Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Halrey Quinn): Harley Quinn, Black Canary, the Huntress Renee Montoya and Cassandra Cain.
Set after the events of Suicide Squad, the film follows Harley Quinn as she joins forces with Black Canary, the Huntress, and Renee Montoya to save Cassandra Cain from Gotham City crime lord Black Mask. This book will spotlight stories featuring each of these badass Ladies of DC.
Pre-order Birds of Prey from your local bookstore.
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