My tastes in paranormal romance can be summed up as follows: Stake the vamps, burn the zombies, shag the werewolves. Shorter version: Don’t fuck dead things. (I thought about making one of those the tagline for my website but I’m just not sure.)
Even if you read an assortment of subgenres of paranormal romance, you probably favor one more than the others: vampires, shapeshifters, demons and angels, whatever. Heck, a new subgenre currently gaining popularity is zombie romance. Dead vampires are one thing, but I can honestly say I never envisioned zombie romance protagonists. I don’t want to judge before I’ve read one, but I just picture body parts falling off at inconvenient moments…
Some people like any shapeshifter romance, and the shapeshifters of today’s paranormal romance run the gamut – you got your cats (both big and house) and mice, birds and dogs, octopi (tentacle sex!) – you name it, some hero or heroine shifts into it. I only read werewolves; other shifters don’t interest me.
I’m not into vampires in general, because I don’t like dead things and I don’t think you should have sex with them. I read the Southern Vampire series, but honestly I’m hoping Sookie winds up with Sam (on paper – on TV, I have absolutely no problem with Sookie and Eric getting down and dirty. With lots of close-ups of Alexander Skarsgaard, please and thank you.)
The only vamp series I read in which I like the vampire heroes are Lynn Viehl’s Darkyn books and JR Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood (Vishous = YUM). The difference, of course, is that the Darkyn and the Brothers are alive – they have beating hearts and detectable pulses. The Brothers don’t even drink blood from humans. Viehl and Ward have removed a lot of the darkness from their vamps and turned them into rather traditional romance hero types – which doesn’t bother me at all, but that’s because I don’t like the whole dark, dead, blood sucking creature of the night thing. (One other thing I like about the Brothers: they eat food and drink alcohol. An eternity of no vodka and no solid food? No thanks.)
I’m not as picky when it comes to urban fantasy, which I read a lot – I love the magicians and the fairies and the witches and the demons and the whole throw-every-supernatural-being-into-the-mix plots (and dragons – I love the dragons). It’s just in my paranormal romances that I take it werewolf, straight up, no bloodsucking, no rotting corpses.
What about you?
LOL Kinsey, I LOVE that tag line "Don't fuck dead things"!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on the zombies thing and I'm not much into shapeshifters either though I've read and enjoyed some (my crit partner Nara Malone's A Tiger's Tale, and I'm reading Sydney's cats right now). As for vampires, Erin McCarthy wrote some entertaining vamps in her Vegas vamps stories and I totally love PG's vamps in In the Dark.
I loved Susan Sizemore's Hunters series (probably out of print now) b/c they were the kind of vampire you're talking about--live and lively. Also very, very funny.
ReplyDeleteI definitely prefer my vampires alive. J.R. Ward, Susan Sizemore, Lynsay Sands, Patrice Michelle, Angela Knight and Christine Feehan have all given us a good race of live bloodsuckers.
ReplyDeleteBut I have to say my fave paranormal is the shapeshifter. Preferably bears, dragons or big cats.
And I love it when an author uses several different types in a story. Different shifters, Fae, witches and even vamps(as long as they aren't the bad guy.
Not into zombies so much. Only author I read that I'll put up with zombies is Michelle Bardsley.