Wicked Wednesday - my favorites

I've read so many paranormal romances over the years, sometimes they blur together. All those sexy werewolves and vampires, irresistible Fae and hot demons. It takes something special to stand out above the others. I cherish these books not only for the incredible reads they are, but for what they have to teach me about the genre. If I want to write paranormal romance and stand out in the crowd, I have to learn how to craft a story that will make my readers feel the same way as I do about these books.

My #1 Favorite: The Fever series by Karen Marie Moning

This is a MUST READ if you love paranormal romances. There's no one thing that makes this series stand out for me. It's the hidden urban fantasy world, the mythology, the characters, the twists and turns, and the romance. The protagonist, MacKayla Lane (Mac) didn't appeal to me at first. She was a bit shallow and peppy, but Mac grows into an impressive heroine. It's not something that happens overnight or even in the first book. Her growth is real compared to what she's dealing with. I don't feel rushed or cheated with how her character changes throughout the series. I can feel every moment and, oh, what moments they were! Jericho Barrons is the hero and one of the sexiest in all the genre. How I love my heroes to be tall, dark and mysterious. My stomach still flutters thinking about him. I can't say anything else about him without giving the juicy bits away.

The story has so many layers. You keep peeling and peeling, more entranced by it as you go along. The series starts with Mac going to modern day Ireland to look into the murder of her sister. She's thrust into the secret supernatural world and discovers she has a strange power she must learn to control. A handsome Fae Prince and the dangerous Barrons offer her guidance, but she doesn't know who she can trust. She must hunt an ancient evil: a sentient book that can create and destroy worlds. Just when you think you've figured something out, the plot twists. There are several OMG moments. I'm rarely surprised by the standard plot twists in most books, but I was shocked again and again.

The romance. Don't expect the heat to come on full throttle right away. This is an exquisitely written slow burning one. There's plenty of sizzling tension, but it's a relationship built up over time. Mac and Barrons don't seem to fit together, but they grow together. I like a lot of the hot stuff sometimes, but I appreciate the gradual romantic build-up most of all.

Other favorites:
Stacia Kane's Chess Putnam books - Dark and macabre. Even romance can be gritty. It's the world after a Ghost Apocalypse event. (Instead of zombies rising up, it was ghosts.) The Church of Truth is the big power and Chess works for them. She's also a drug addict and her love interest, Terrible, is a thug. Not your typical romance, but it's fierce and original.

Ilona Andrews' Kate Daniels series - Amazing and wondrous dark world after a magical apocalypse. So many unique places in these books. Kate is a kick-ass heroine and Curran is a sexy Lord of the Beasts. He's up there in the top five of my most memorable heroes. This series has everything. Plus, it's another gradual romance.

Christine Feehan's Ghost Walker series - This series surprised me with how much I liked it. I like Feehan's Dark series (vampires), but the Ghost Walkers is far more original. Lots of psychic abilities and intrigue. A complex overall story with several characters. Feehan proves that if you can find a romance formula that works for you, you can use it over and over again successfully. All the books have the same layout for how the romance progresses, but you won't find yourself bored.

Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson series - The world and creatures in these books aren't terribly original, but Mercy is a character that stands out in a crowd. She's a mechanic with a Native American heritage and she can turn into a coyote at will. She falls for the Alpha of a local werewolf pack. Another gradual romance!

Jill Myles' The Succubus Diaries - Something steamy and fun. These books make me laugh.

Yasmine Galenorn's Otherworld series - They're wicked, over the top and break several rules of writing. That's why these books are so much fun! The books are told from the POV of three half-fae sisters each with their own unique powers and lovers. Several lovers. The white dragon, Smoky, is one of my favorites.

I need to stop myself here or I'll keep rattling on. What are your favorite paranormal romances?

Teaser Tuesday with Blood Promise

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I'm still reading the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead. I love it! Blood Promise is the fourth book. I'm almost done it. Does anyone have any other recommendations for a good YA paranormal romance?

My teaser:
Nope. Red eyes and a hard expression looked back at me. My hopes shattered. (page 310)

Cloning device, please

I haven't written anything new this month. Usually I try to get at least something done. A short story or a few thousand words of a novel. It's not from lack of inspiration, but lack of time. And it's frustrating. I had two rejections last week and that only raised my level of frustration. I need to write more. I need to get more stories out there.

I only have a limited amount of time each day to do what I want to do for myself. I'm home alone with a toddler for the majority of the day. I can't do anything on the computer while he's awake unless he's doing something with me. I have emails and blogs to write, and blogs to read. I've been working on revising my latest WIP, getting it ready to submit.

I realize I need to balance my time. I've been trying to shorten emails and not spend so much time commenting on blogs. I'd like to comment on everyone's blog, but please understand, I need to write more. I need to take advantage of the blog post schedule option too.

Or maybe I just need an assistant. Oh, no, a clone of myself. Yes, that would be perfect.

Favorite Summer Reads Blogfest - part 2

 

This is my second installment for Cherie Reich's Favorite Summer Reads Blogfest. I couldn't help but pick more than one book. There's so many great books out there right now.

Fantasy:

George R.R. Martin is one of the greatest fantasy authors out there today. He's brilliant. Bloody brilliant! He breaks all the rules and makes it work. A Dance With Dragons is the latest installment in the Song of Ice and Fire series. I've waited a long time for the book to come out. It didn't disappoint. He's a genius world creator and can twist a plot like you wouldn't believe. Then his characters, oh, his characters. I've met him and attended a few seminars at a convention where he was on the panel. I like that he says "there are no good guys or bad guys in my books. There are only characters with flaws." Some characters that you hate at the beginning of the series, you start to like as it goes on. Ones you thought were good turn out to be not so good. You don't expect it. Martin does what you least expect and it makes his series epic.

Urban Fantasy:

You can never go wrong with the Dresden Files. Ghost Story is the latest book in Jim Butcher's spectacular urban fantasy series. It's funny, dark, magical, amazing, and something I can't talk about it. Yes, it seems weird, but if I even describe the premise of this book, it would give spoilers as to what happened previously in the series. Let's just say that Harry Dresden is In Between and a lot of weird, scary stuff happens.

The summer isn't over yet! I have two books I'm waiting for from the library:
1) Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. I've heard fantastic things about the book. The cover is creepy and the book trailer, well, you have to watch it for yourself!
2) The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I realize I'm a little late getting on board with her trilogy, but a baby keeps you busy!

Favorite Summer Reads Blogfest

Cherie Reich's Favorite Summer Reads Blogfest has already begun and will go through Saturday. Join up! It's a lot of fun! Here's the description: All you have to do is pick a favorite read (this year, this summer, years past) and write why it is your favorite read. It'd be nice to have the cover art of the book, but that's it. Pretty simple. Oh, there is also a little form you should fill out, so we know where your blog is to discover new reads. There are also prizes. I will announce the winners on Monday.

Yes, you read right. Prizes!

I can't pick just one book that's been my favorite this summer. I'm going to do one for each genre I've read.

Paranormal romance:

Karen Marie Moning's Shadowfever. The final book in the Fever series. Right now, it's my favorite paranormal romance series. I read this at the beginning of the summer. I'm at a loss for words with this one. In the first book, the heroine, MacKayla Lane (Mac) annoyed me. Yet the story drew me in. I can get past certain protagonists if the story is intriguing. Mac grew on me, though. Grew on me until I wanted to be her. Then there's Barrons. Mm, delicious. Tall, dark and mysterious. One of my favorite paranormal heroes ever. Humans vs. Immortals. The Fae. An evil book with the power to create and destroy worlds. Monsters. Barrons. Did I mention him?! He's so gorgeous. Even more so that he owns his own book store!

YA paranormal romance:

I just finished reading the first book in Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy series. I was a little hesitant about trying a new YA series. I've been disappointed by other ones in the past. I also expected this might be like a vampire Hogwarts. It's nothing of the sort. It's original and well written. Rose is a wonderful, strong protagonist. So far, I think she's a good role model for girls. (I think that's important in YA novels.) The romance isn't overdone. I like it when a relationship builds over the course of a series. Here's Richelle Mead's brief synopsis of the series: Two races of vampires walk our world. One, the Moroi, are alive and wield elemental magical. The other, the Strigoi, are undead and evil--feeding on the innocent to survive. Rose Hathaway--a half-vampire with poor impulse control--is training to be a bodyguard for a Moroi princess. Learning to decapitate and stake is hard enough, but Rose's real danger may lie in an illicit romance with one of her instructors.

Steampunk Romance:

Yes, there is such a thing as Steampunk romance! Though, this is the only one I've ever read. It took me a little bit to get into the story, but once I got a handle on the world and the romance started firing up, I was hooked. Katie MacAlister's Steamed is unique and fun. Katie is better known for her Dark Ones and Aisling Grey paranormal romance series, but she's found something new and intriguing with this one. The hero, Jack gets thrown into this strange world through one of his nanoelectromechanical system experiments. Say that five times fast! Here's what Katie says what happens next: He wakes up to see a woman with the reddest hair Jack has ever seen—and a gun. Octavia Pye is an Aerocorps captain with a whole lot of secrets, and she’s not about to see her maiden voyage ruined by stowaways. But the sparks flying between her and Jack just may cause her airship to combust and ignite a passion that will forever change the world as she knows it.

Favorite Summer Reads Blogfest to be continued tomorrow.

Wicked Wednesday - My first time

The first time I heard about paranormal romance* was in a writing seminar at Gen Con in 2003. It was the genre to make your break in at that time. Sales had doubled between 2002 and 2004. (Sales are still good these days. Romance outsells all other genres. If you write YA paranormal romance, it's the one taking off at the moment.) I listened to the panelists talk about it and realized that was what I was writing.** I had refused to call what I wrote romance. I had labeled myself as an urban fantasy writer. Contemporary, magical and dark with a focus on the protagonist's love life. Sometimes a very detailed focus! I picked up a few paranormal romances from the library after the convention and I was hooked. I haven't been able to stop reading them since. This was my genre. Holy sweet chocolate, I was a romance writer.

I resisted at first. I didn't want to be one of those women that wrote romance even if it is paranormal. There's a certain stigma attached to romance writers. Not only from men, but from other women as well. The stereotype is a woman who is a flaky hopeless romantic. I learned that is far from the truth. Intelligent, funny and amazing women do write romance. Women of all races, classes and beliefs love romance. Don't ever be ashamed that you write and/or read it. This goes for the men too. More and more men are writing romance these days.

Now I fully embrace the fact that I am a paranormal romance writer. This is the genre that I love. It can be dark and gritty like Stacia Kane's Chess Putnam books or fun and hot like Jill Myles' Succubus Diaries. I like the darker ones, but I also appreciate a book that can make me laugh. Oh, I do enjoy the sex scenes, but for romance books, I want to read about the protagonist's relationship(s). I want to feel the ups and downs, the frustration, the fiery lust, the first kiss, the doubts, heart pounding love, and maybe heartbreak. There are so many emotions to explore and, in a world of the paranormal, so many things can happen. It's the supernatural and the romantic journey that suck me in.

What do you love about paranormal romance? What drew you to the genre be it as a reader or a writer?

*You didn't think I was actually going to write about my first time for anything else, did you?!

**Paranormal romance is a sub-genre of romance originating from gothic fiction. It includes elements of the paranormal, horror and urban fantasy. It mostly includes contemporary novels, but some time travel stories do get put into this genre. Do not confuse it with fantasy or science-fiction romance.

Writers' Platform Building Campaign and asking for beta readers

I'm happy to join Rachael Harrie's Third Writers' Platform Building Campaign. It's a fantastic way to link those in the writing community together with the aim of building our online platforms. Her previous two were great successes and this one is going to be phenomenal. If you're a writer and haven't heard of the campaign yet, please check out Rachael's site. You only have until the end of the month to sign up.

I am also searching for a couple of beta readers who love paranormal romance. Mine is on the erotic side, so please, only those over 18 years of age. I don't expect anyone to edit or critique my manuscript. I want to know what well read paranormal romance fans think of my story. If you'd like to help me out, please email me at christinerains.writer@gmail.com.