One lonely heart meets her true love when she throws a knife into his chest. Another finds hers while she's trying to raise the dead. Still another happens upon Mr. Right while performing emergency surgery on one of his fangs. If you think meeting guys is tough, you should try meeting vampires.
Yet, increasingly, that's what women want to do--especially women who read romance novels. More than 170 sagas of paranormal amour hit the shelves in 2004, twice as many as two years before, and publishers say readers' appetite for the genre is not nearly sated. Author Christine Feehan sells around half a million copies of each book she publishes and finds more readers with every title...
This is from a tongue-in-cheek article titled Well, Hello, Suckers in Time Magazine. It's well worth reading if you're either a reader or a writer of paranormal romance.
If you do read (or write) paranormals, what's the attraction in it for you? A lot of the time, I think it has to do with crossing boundaries and breaking rules, doing things you couldn't get away with in a 'normal' universe. All sorts of actions and events become acceptable because you've taken a step outside the known world (blood-drinking anyone?).
I could write a lot more on the topic and I'm absolutely itching to, but I'm about to head out of town (back online tomorrow), so why don't you all give me your take on the question?
5 comments:
Nalini, I'll confess that the only paranormal I read was the one by the author I really like. So I'm not the best choice to answer the question, sorry! If you ask about romantic suspense, I'm all yours!
Lol Olga - I'll have to do a RS post just for you! :)
Hi Milady - I agree with you about the twist. That's why I became such a big fan of Christine Feehan, because her Carpathians were so different from the 'normal' vampires.
Lol, my lips are sealed. Hmm, I don't think she's figured that out yet but they're working on it scientifically (with the doctor heroine - Jacque's [sp?] mate).
As a reader, I think I like the extra layer of fantasy, the fairy-tale magical aspect of it.
As a writer, I like to play with belief and realism -- how to take something really extraordinary and unreal, and still apply true human emotions to it. (I guess as a reader I like that aspect, too.)
I love the fairy-tale aspect too Meljean. Funnily enough, I kind of did the same thing with my very first Desire - it's a contemporary but set in a fictional land that's a little bit removed from the normal. That hint of difference made so many more possibilities open up.
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