A witch appears in my newest trilogy, The Safekeepers, for Silhouette Romantic Suspense. In fact, she’s a black witch who curses the Ryan family. Several white witches who do good deeds are in all three books too, but the witches don’t take up the entire plot. I’ve also written about psychics, mediums, and Native American supernatural beliefs. My editor and I call that light paranormal elements.
Not long ago I was wondering if light paranormal was as popular with readers as dark. Oh, I already knew about the popularity of those sensual dark vampire and werewolf stories. Or at least I thought I did. I happened to ask a readers group and my own newsletter subscribers what they thought. Boy, did I get an earful!
“…straight paranormal is currently being overdone.” “Vamps are sooo over.” “I don’t care for vampire and the like in books.” “I’m a big paranormal fan who is tired of the vampires.” And these are the nice replies!
But at the same time as people complain about vampire books, one of the best-selling series currently is the Twilight series by Stephanie Myer. And please don’t tell Sherilyn Kenyon that vampires are out. She’ll laugh all the way to the bank. So is this a case of people secretly loving what they claim to hate?
3 Comments
Hi Linda,
Romantic suspense is my favorite genre. Hence military and law enforcement type heroes are my favorite.
Personally, I can’t think of anything I love to hate. If I like it, you know; if I don’t, you know. Pretty simple.
And I’ll bet Sherilyn is laughing all the way to the bank. I think that more attention is paid to the naysayers, as is in most things, and that the majority of people who are spending money, for instance to buy vampire books, are part of a silent majority. But the negative is what gets coverage because it plays on people’s fears—i.e. the author’s fear of people not buying her book because of what it’s about.
Now my favorite type of paranormal deals with psychic phenomenon—intuition, e.s.p., etc.
I also like stories with witches in them. Vamps and Weres would be next on the list. But, overall, no matter who or what is in the story, it really depends on the way the story is written.
Julie
Julie
Hi Julie,
Very thoughtful comment. I also saw your comment at the other spot.
My current series features witches, but like you, I tend to like esp or precognition the best.
And I’ve decided I love to hate grocery shopping!
All right, I guess that would be one then. I’ll stay hours in the grocery, loving the time away by myself, but telling my DH I’m doing this for the family 🙂
Thanks for letting me know.
Julie