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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Paranormal Romance

casemaker

16:12 / 12.02.07

I am currently taking a cultural studies graduate course. One of our assignments is to read a romance novel while we are studying Janice Radway's Reading The Romance (an ethnographic investigation into the various readings women get out of romance novels, and what ideology or forms of resistance come out of those readings). More here.

In examining different romance novels for my assignment, I came across the genre of "Paranormal Romance". I've found amazon.com reader lists of these types of books, but I'm curious if anyone here has familiarity with them. What are examples of "well written" Paranormal Romance? If I choose one for my class reading, what is a good start?

Dusto

17:11 / 12.02.07

I read that book. Sort of interesting, good idea, but lots of flaws. I think her methodology was bad, using questionairres rather than interviews, and her attempt at a motif index didn't really work. On that note, I'd read Summer of the Dragon, by Elizabeth Peters. It's not really a romance--it doesn't fit Radway's motif index at all--but it is on the list of books that she supposedly read to make the index. And it's a fun little book. I don't know much about paranormal romance, though I think Barbara Michaels (Elizabeth Peters name when she writes romance novels) has a few. The only one I read had the word "rose" in the title... It wasn't as good as anything I've read by Elizabeth Peters. Oh, that reminds me, you might check out "Naked Once More," by Elizabeth Peters, which is maybe more mystery than romance, but it's abouta romance novelist. And it's funny. Better than "Summer of the Dragon," too.

sorenson

22:04 / 12.02.07

At the risk of being repetitive (I seem to find an excuse to post about this book in multiple threads), The Changeover by Margaret Mahy is a young adult book that I think would fit into the category paranormal romance. Indeed, it's tagline is 'a supernatural romance'. It's beautifully written - I highly recommend it. There's even a lovely ironic reference to one of the characters reading mills and boon romance novels in it.

I'm not sure that it fits into the established genre of romance novels in the sense that you are talking about (and that Janice Radway studied), but it would be a great book to write an assignment on.

penitentvandal

09:49 / 26.02.07

God knows if there are any good examples of the genre, but I work in a Borders and there are bloody loads of 'paranormal romance' books on the genre shelves at the moment - blame it on the Buffy, I guess. There's a woman called Christine Feehan who writes a lot of them; she's the only name springing to mind at the moment for me. Basically it seems to be a subgenre of the Romance genre in which the male fantasy figure is a vampire, rather than, as in other subsets, a Pirate, Viking or Scotsman.*

Some of Laurel K Hamilton's stuff might also fit the bill.

*I've never seen any Ninja romance fiction, btw. Doesn't mean it's not there, mind you...

Crestmere

10:19 / 05.03.07

Tough bloody question.

Honestly, I find it a bit tricky to define any genre. A lot of genres have evolved greatly over time and would not include "classic" works in said genre. In addition, there are always works that are right on the edge.

I'll be cynical and say that nothing good came out of romance when it moved from the medieval definition to the heaving bosoms and Fabio cover paradigm.

Paranormal romance...this seems like one of those things where fans will draw paralells to a hundred differnet classic literary texts and then everyone else calls them out for using that to defend Hermione and the Pizza Boy (btw, if anyone has a copy of this, please PM me, I can't find the terrible thing anywhere and it must be preserved for posterity).

I'd say that its the category of the heaving bosom romance novel with vampires or werewolves thrown in, i.e. something readers of neither really want to see.

HeartShadow

20:29 / 08.03.07

I think Nora Roberts might be a good author to go with for this one.

Not that her books are CALLED paranormal romance, but her latest trilogy (Morrigan's Cross, I think) involved vampires. and her Garden trilogy involved a ghost. Her Key trilogy involved magic and Irish Gods/fairies (it was pretty blurry).

I'm not sure they fit the definition exactly, but it's probably close if not correct. And if you like romance, her books tend to be entertaining (in my ever so humble opinion, of course).

Alex's Grandma

22:25 / 08.03.07

'Affinity' by Sarah Waters may or may not be exactly what you're looking for. Basically, it's a romance to do with the paranormal, sort of, ie, Victorian spiritualism, table-turning, Madame Blavatsky and so on. It's a difficult book to say too much else about, but it's undeniably (I think) extremely well-written (the pages fly by, in the best way) so even if turns out to be a bit off the point, it's still worth a shot, I'd say.

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