Paperback Reader

Romance, for all the suppleness it possesses as a genre, rigidly adheres to certain axioms: the heroine must be likeable (the most limited definition possible for this), the story must center on the emerging romance, the ending must satisfy. These elements, while enjoyable time and again, do limit possibilities. They are the creative equivalent of a coloring book versus the wide open space of a blank canvas. This is never more apparent than when another genre of fiction plays around with the elements most traditionally associated with romance, but doesn’t then bother with those axioms. Such is the case with Kim Harrison’s three-books-and-counting Rachel Morgan series. Like any good romance, Harrison’s story is tightly focused on the heroine, but with the freedom found outside the genre—in this case fantasy—Harrison doesn’t waste a single word on making Rachel saccharin likeable, when gritty and downright dirty make for better conflict. There is a romance with a male character who is just that, a male character, not a hero. It’s long in coming and spicy while only accounting for a portion of the overall story, and it isn’t sugar-coated with hard to ground concepts like destiny. The romance never feels buried behind other plot points, but rather blends nicely with the underlying theme of Rachel learning not everything is black and white. Why then do so few offerings in genre romance accomplish all that?

HelenKay: With so many paranomal offerings following the lives (or undead lives, as the case may be) of vampires, witches, werewolves and other nightstalking creatures, a reader can find anything from funny to horror on the shelves. Paranormal reads of the vampire variety range from the more harsh, like Kassandra Sims' The Midnight Work, to light and charming, like Kerrelyn Sparks' How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire. Recent witch/Wicca stories tend to fall more on the humorous side, but the not-so-funny are available, too. If the quest then is to find something new, to set one paranomal apart from the one read before, what happens if an author combines funny with serious and vampires with witches? Tate Hallaway provides the answer in Tall, Dark & Dead. She even throws in the Goddess of Evil, and witch hunters who get their orders straight from the Vatican.

HelenKay: In this second book in the series that started with Kitty and the Midnight Hour and is already slated to run for two more adventures in 2007, Vaughn proves one thing: politics can suck the life out of anything and anyone.

For a romance novel to be rich and full, one of the usual requirements is that the heroine possess believable faults and, in some cases, many faults. Idiosyncrasies, difficult backstories, fears, dysfunctional families all help to fill-in the person the heroine is at the beginning of a story. Faults, yes, but rarely does a heroine seduce then suck the souls of the men she meets. That's just not something a "normal" heroine does. Then again, a succubus is not a "normal" heroine and Succubus Blues is not the usual romance.

For a Few Demons More, the fifth installment in the Hollows series, reunites readers with bounty-hunter witch and all around kick-butt heroine Rachel Morgan. Her alternate history world – wherein the human population was nearly wiped out by genetically mutated tomatoes, a turn of events that allowed vampires, witches, werewolves and elves to live out in the open – is as complicated and conflict-filled as ever. As in previous entries, Rachel presides over the always life-or-death nearly world-ending actions of her fellow Inderlanders (those would be the non-humans) with moxie and questionable fashion sense.

Anthologies always carry a risk. While there are positives, such as getting a taste of a new or new-to-you author without investing in a single title and a guaranteed quick read, there are potential negatives. Those center on the fears of shorter pages meaning less plot, less development or just plain less story. All valid. Those concerns are heightened when the book is the second round on a similar theme. Will the stories feel fresh? Will this be a re-tread of the last book? And, here, will the authors be able to make the daughters of Satan likeable heroines...?