Tuesday 20 August 2013

Research Time: Paranormal Romances, or Giving Myself an Academic Excuse to Read Mills & Boon


As well as being a chick-lit junkie I’ve also pretensions to academia.  Most recently I’ve been consuming a number of issues that have been published by the Journal of Popular Romance Studies.  They’ve a number of specialist editions being released soon and I’m particularly interested in their Paranormal Romance edition.

In this post-Twilight world the number of paranormal heroes have increased by approximately 10000%, with particularly high number of vampires, werewolves and shapeshifters.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favour of well-written fantasy (it’s the only folder on my kindle that comes anywhere near challenging my romance folder) but I’ve always liked my men…well…human.  It doesn’t take much imagination to consider why vampires et al would make good alpha males and, though I appreciate the odd neck-nibbling every once in a while, they don’t particularly do it for me.

I do, on the other hand, love supernatural women paired with human men, possibly for the same reason why I love #ModernTempted.  These are strong women with their own businesses / careers / dreams; to all normal intents and purposes they don’t need a man, they just want one.  The inversion of the atypical power balance within a relationship means that the man has to be more than alpha to match her.  And I love a man who makes you feel feminine, no matter your intelligence or career.

So I have entered research mode – focusing on Mills & Boon Nocturne novels and Nocturne Cravings short stories that feature female paranormal/male human relationships.  I haven’t felt this buzzy about a research project in a very long time.  Currently looking at Elle James, Lori Devoti and Vivi Anna.  If anyone’s got any recs I’d be more than happy to hear them – preferably published post-Breaking Dawn.

Oh yes, and there’ll be a Mills & Boon boy posted tomorrow.  ;)

3 comments:

  1. Yay! A new Mills & Boon boy tomorrow. Hump day has never looked so promising.

    Can't help you with a rec. I like my H/H human. Though I love paranormal and sci-fi on film, I just can't get into reading them. I've tried a zillion times, but . . . it's a no go for me. Too much of a contemporary romance girl, I guess.

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  2. I'm tempted to do a double-whammy and do two M&B boy posts in one day...but it depends on what time I leave the gig I'm going to tonight.

    Yeah, generally I do too, but for some reason I love female witch characters within romance - I suppose it seems like they're just a little different as opposed to a whole different species... Or I could just put it down to watching too much of Sabrina the Teenage Witch as a kid.

    Btw, there's a conference on Popular Romance Studies in Greece next year which I'm planning on submitting a proposal for... D'you think the Kiss&Tempt girls'd mind me focusing on the revamp of Riva and the launch of Harlequin KISS/Modern Tempted?

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  3. Can't wait for the next Mills & Boon boy!!!

    And Keri Arthur (while writing vampires long before they were it and a bit) rocks!

    Ally

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