Want to know the greatest thing about comic conventions, and why you should go even if you’re not a comic-readin’ fool? The vast amounts of swag showered upon you by the hundreds of vendors in a space the size of three football fields. I began ComiCon snatching up every free book someone offered to me, and as the weekend went on, my backpack filled too much. I started to be more selective: no Weddings from Hell for me, thanks, I’m all full up with Devil May Cry (Dark Hunter 11) by Kenyon and The Outlaw Demon Wails (The Hollows, Book 6) by Harrison. (Incidentally, why are all fantasy novels part of long involved series? I always get the feeling I’m missing out on half the book’s details.)
I’d thought there was an unwritten rule that guys were forbidden from specific activities: walking into Victoria’s Secret unaccompanied; driving Miatas; and reading, or at least getting caught reading, romance novels. Werewolf romance novels included.
To my surprise, the less-fair sex was well-represented in the autograph lines for Sherrilyn Kenyon, Carrie Vaughn, Jeaniene Frost, and the other venerable authors of the vampires-and-love-triangles genre. So, having received these free books anyway, I swallowed my prejudices and gave the books a try.
Maybe it’s because the last novel I read was Love in the Time of Cholera, which combined the worst elements of the inane ridiculousness of romance novels with the torturously long descriptions and verbiage of classic literature. Maybe it’s because fantasy and horror were my genres of choice when I broke into adult novels at the tender age of 12 and I left them in pursuit of more highbrow pastures.
…but Devil May Cry and Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty and the Midnight Hour went down like candy. Quick, light, sweet, requiring little brain power and some serene suspension of disbelief, these books were the literary equivalent of popcorn. While occasionally contradictory (one moment, Protag and Manly Love Interest will be kissing; then they’ll be standing apart and Manly Love Interest says “Don’t touch me! I don’t need your pity!”; and then they’ll start kissing again, with Manly Love Interest cautioning Protag that “This doesn’t give you any power over me”), who doesn’t want to read about Sumerian gods running Las Vegas casinos? Or werewolves hosting talk radio shows?
I must conclude that paranormal romance, while unlikely to earn a Nobel Prize in literature any time soon, deserves its current surge of interest for the enjoyable escape it offers. Don’t worry, though– I have no plans to buy a Miata.
