The paranormal romance genre
And why I need to be careful of blithely assigning such a label to ANY of my stories. Seriously.
I decided that if I’m going to write a paranormal romance, I ought to read a few paranormal romances, so that 1. I can see what’s out there and 2. I learn how it’s done (and how it’s done badly). Since I’m completely unfamiliar with the romance genre as a whole, what I’ve been doing is going to the local library and scanning the romance shelves for anything labeled “paranormal”. (Thank goodness most of the lines label the type of romance it is; otherwise, I’d be really lost.) When I spot one, I pull it out and glance over the back cover. If it looks moderately interesting, I grab it. Otherwise, I put it back. Now, I admit this is not the best nor the most efficient method of choosing reading material, but it does give me a broad spectrum of choice. So far, I’ve checked out about ten books, started five, and finished…two. Although I think I may actually finish the one I’m currently on, so that will make three.
Let me be clear. I’ve never liked the romance genre as a whole. If the book is not so erotic that I’d be embarrassed to be in the same room with it, it’s so sweet and romantic that my teeth start aching. Flawless heroines and perfect heartthrobs turn me off a story…well, anything that throbs turns me off, really. *clears throat* Also, over the years I’ve realized that I’m not a huge fan of happy endings. Total happy endings, that is, where everything is tied up so nice and neat that the story might as well have not happened at all. Or where the main character completely reverses all the adjectives trailing after them: poor, ugly, inhibited, etc. and lives happily ever after. Ouch. Pass the Orijel, please, the sweetness is killing me.
I recognize that not all romance is that bad. (As I intend to write a couple of novels that fall under that label, it is probably best that I develop at least a passing tolerance for the genre). Undoubtably, there are gems scattered amidst the crap. Unfortunately for me, I’m still in the process of picking through the crap. Here’s what I’ve found so far:
The Gardella Vampire Chronicles: by Colleen Gleason
There are four of these (at least…if she’s released another one, I don’t know about it yet). The library didn’t have the first one, so I began at the second. Strike One: the books in the series are not numbered, so if you don’t know anything about the story, you don’t have a clue which book falls where in the series. I checked out the three that the library had, and was able to piece together the order in which they should be read by making inferences from the back cover blurbs. (In one book, the heroine goes to Rome and one of the heroes is missing. In another book, she is in Rome, and the missing hero has turned up. In another, she is back from Rome, and both heroes are now present and accounted for. Inference.) Turns out, the library didn’t have Book 1, so I started at (what I assumed to be) 2. On a positive note, there is so much backtracking and referencing in each book that it’s not necessary to have read the previous books to understand what is going on in the current story.
General thoughts: On the whole, these really weren’t all that badly done. I got most of the way through books 2 and 3, and finished 4. The fourth was the most interesting, IMO…the other two didn’t hold my interest quite as well. The vampires were traditionally depicted (undead, stake through the heart kills, sunlight kills, holy water burns, damned souls, fangs, etc.). The series was a lot like Buffy the Vampire Slayer set in Victorian London, which means the heroine does a lot of carrying stakes in her garters and bodice, hiding them in her hair, and dealing with the hassle of skirts. There are a lot of vampire slaying scenes, and the action was done well.
Relationships in the book: The heroine actually has two love interests, at least from the outset of book 2. (Apparently in book 1, she had an admirer and eventually a husband that knew nothing of her vampire slaying activities, but then he got turned into a vampire and she had to slay him. I haven’t actually read the first book…that’s all backstory gathered from the books I did read.) One of Victoria’s admirers makes no secret of his affection, and keeps trying to coax her into his bed. (Happily, she usually refuses, but then we inevitably have to hear about how tempted she is, and how sexy he is, for the next few paragraphs). The other guy refuses to admit to himself that he’s in love with her, and is a much darker character in general. I actually like him better, and I think Victoria ends up choosing him in the end.
Gleason’s sex scenes are a lot more erotic than I’d be comfortable writing, but of all the paranormal romance titles I’ve read so far, they are the most well written. (That may not be saying much). They advance the plot. Body part descriptions are kept to a minimum. They actually have somewhat of a dramatic arc. My chief complaint is that the author is overfond of the word “slick”. Tongues are slick. Sweat is slick. Other things are slick, most of which I don’t care to describe here. “Slick”, to me, is not a romantic or even a sensual term. It’s just…gross. It throws me out of the scene, usually with an “eww”.
Changling: by Yasmine Galenorn
Yet another one where the library only had the second book in a series. Although from the back cover, it’s not entirely clear that it’s a series…and again, it’s not necessary to have read the first book to understand this one.
General thoughts: I liked this one for what it was. The worldbuilding aspect was interesting, thankfully, because a lot of the story was devoted to explaining how the world worked. Sometimes this got annoyingly obvious; characters did a lot of sitting around explaining to each other things that you KNOW they already know. The three sisters were well characterized, if a little too much at times. I could tell that the author was fond of them. There were some great one-liners.
Relationships in the book: Eh. The author functions on the “fact” that faeries are not monogamous beings, and therefore the sisters, being half-fae, are going to have lots of love interests. Well, okay, but when characters act a certain way just because “it’s in their genes/blood”, it comes across as unconvincing. The middle sister, who is the point-of-view character in this one, has a human boyfriend: Chase, but she becomes very attracted to the hot Were-puma, Zach, during the course of the book. This causes her no end of guilt, but apparently not enough to prevent her from having sex with the guy at the end. And then, to top off the unconvincingness, she tells Zach that he’s great and all, but she’s really in love with her human boyfriend. While she and Zach are having sex, mind. Oh, but Were-puma is okay with that, he understands, he can deal with a one-time romp. I was doing a whole lot of WTF’s at this point.
The Warlord’s Daughter: by Susan Grant
I’m not going to be nice here. I only got a few chapters into this one before putting it down in disgust. The heroine is the classic sheltered innocent, her perfect beauty marred only by her glasses and her tendency to be clumsy. It’s like the author knew she had to give this girl some imperfection, and chose the most superficial things she could think of. The hero is the classic hot, muscly bad boy who got kicked around by his sadistic father growing up. Now he’s all grown up, and people think he’s bad, but he’s really the good guy. (Seriously, the guy even goes on for several paragraphs about why he works out all the time. Sure, dude. Why don’t you save the psychological melodrama and just flex those muscles for the camera?).
The hero and heroine encounter each other and there’s that instant connection. “Oh, look, there’s someone who understands my pain! *swoon*” I got as far as the guy deciding that he’s going to find and marry this girl. It was like, there was never any doubt that the two of them were going to get together in the end, so why did it take them an entire book to do it? Ugh. I just don’t like stories like this. They are far too predictable. Any tension or delay in the relationship generated by the story is annoying, not intriguing, because you know they’re gonna end up romping in the sheets in the last chapter. I even checked to make sure.
Into the Shadow: by Christina Dodd
I’m only about four chapters into this one, and I’m seriously considering not going any further. There’s a long prologue where you are introduced to a slightly disturbed and disturbing hero character who tends to scare the crap out of everyone he meets. Then, in chapter 1, you have a long, explicit, and completely unnecessary sex scene between a heroine you met two paragraphs ago, and a guy you assume is the scary hero guy you met in the last chapter. Also, there are lots of body parts, including one penis (which I hear is a no-no), and some of those parts are doing things that I really don’t think real parts do. Seriously. The sex serves no purpose. The heroine doesn’t even know this guy…he’s just some random person that comes into her tent at night to have sex. I mean really, do you really expect me to have any respect for this woman? And then you find out that the guy really wants the girl to leave the area, which immediately makes me wonder why he’s fucking her every night.
Not a good start. I’m not even sure if I care about the story at this point.
Industrial Magic: by Kelley Armstrong
I’m about half way through this one, and so far, I think it’s the best one I’ve read. I’d honestly label this as more of an urban fantasy than a paranormal romance. The characters are believable, the world is interesting but not over-explained as it is in Changling, and the story itself is interesting. Sex is minimal and completely off-screen, and the two main characters are already in a committed relationship. Again, this is the second book in a series, and I may actually go back and read the first one.
When I’ve read more, I’ll do more reviews.