I've a confession to make. I, Christopher Charles Morgan, love cartoons. There is nothing nearly as comforting as cartoons when you are feeling crappy. During a particularly rough week in grad school, I remember just sitting up all night and watching Looney Tunes. And nothing sets things right like Elmer Fudd singing Wagner.  That's the thing; there is a certain quality about well-made cartoons that manage to capture everything great and pure about childhood. And there are few people out there that make better cartoons than Studio Ghibli's Hayao Miyazaki.

Founded in 1985 by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, Studio Ghibli has since put out some of the greatest cartoons ever. Miyazaki himself has been responsible for the majority of Studio Ghibli's success in the field. He focuses on creating modern fairy tales and translating popular western fairy tales and stories for a Japanese audience. While almost all of his films capture the essential sweetness and simplicity of childhood, there are three that capture romance and love at its most pure.

[Here come the feels…]

What’s the first thing you think of when someone mentions the words “paranormal romance?” Vampires? Werewolves? Shifters of another sort? Angels, fallen or otherwise? Fan favorites and time tested, to be sure, but if anything is possible in paranormal romance, diversity amongst the otherworldy can only mean more to love. Let’s take a look at a few likely candidates, shall we?

Ghosts: How much more romantic can one get than a love that transcends death? All right, the lack of a corporeal body might pose a problem with the love scenes, but it also can focus on the bond between hearts and minds. In the internet age when couples can meet, fall in love and even commit themselves before exchanging a single touch, it’s not that far a stretch. Ghost stories come with a special poignancy, with lovers separated by more than time or distance, and finding a happily-ever-hereafter gives writers a chance to flex their creative muscles. Try The Ghost and Mrs. Muir by R. A. Dick for a real classic (or watch the movie) or Stardust of Yesterday by Lynn Kurland and get ready for Mia Marlowe’s upcoming Spirit of the Highlands series.

[So many great options!...]

The course of true love never did run smooth, but there are obstacles and there are obstacles. The person you love is a thousand-year-old vampire? That’s a problem. The person you love is married to another? That’s a BIG problem. The person you love is dead? Not dead sexy, not dying, not undead, not Dead To You, but pushing daisies from six feet under dead-dead?

Yeah, that’s a really big problem.

And yet, in a surprising number of romance novels, it’s not an insurmountable problem. In these books, the hero and heroine remain a viable couple, despite the fact that one of them has already shuffled off this mortal coil. Authors have come up with various interesting and creative ways to allow their protagonists to transcend the grave, frequently to surprising and entertaining effect—and here are only a few examples. O Death, where is thy sting? Not in these books.

In Sharon Lynn Fisher’s recent Ghost Planet, interstellar traveler Elizabeth dies in an accident before the book even begins, but the sentient planet on which she meets her untimely end harvests her consciousness at the moment of her demise and re-animates her…in a body that looks just like her old one. “Ghost” Elizabeth is telepathically linked with brilliant psychologist Grayson Murphy, who just happens to be the guy who developed the Ghost Protocol, which states that the living (like Murphy) are not permitted to communicate with or even acknowledge their Ghosts (like Elizabeth). But Elizabeth and Murphy share a mutual attraction and (eventually) a deep bond—a bond that may even be instrumental in saving the dying planet.

[Love conquers all...]

Have you had enough of alpha shapeshifters and their bad habit of marking their territory all over your house? Have you had enough of immortal vampires snacking on you? Have you had enough of fallen angels angsting over good versus evil, when they should be paying attention to the fact that it is your anniversary and they promised you cake?

Fear not, for these things too shall pass.

Well, probably not. But I can pretend. And in that frame of mind, fueled by quite a lot of coffee and a sense of humor that is both sick and naughty, I give you my thoughts on the Next Wave In Paranormal Romance, or, Supernatural Hotties That Have Been Overlooked Until Now, In No Particular Order. (Drumroll, please.)

Fantasy Dwarves.

I will be shocked if Richard Armitage’s turn as a dwarf in The Hobbit movie doesn’t influence someone. Tolkien’s dwarves, with their elaborate art and architecture, are likely very handy around the house, as well. And who says there’s no room for a paranormal hero who also knows how to fix the sink? And then stud it with carven emeralds?

[But is Richard Armitage the exception?...]

Sharon Lynn Fisher
Ghost Planet
Tor / October 30, 2012 / $7.99 print & digital

A world in peril. A bond deeper than love.

Psychologist Elizabeth Cole prepared for the worst when she accepted a job on a newly discovered world - a world where every colonist is tethered to an alien who manifests in the form of a dead loved one. But she never expected she'd struggle with the requirement to shun these “ghosts.” She never expected to be so attracted to the charming Irishman assigned as her supervisor. And she certainly never expected to discover she died in a transport crash en route to the planet.

As a ghost, Elizabeth is symbiotically linked to her supervisor, Murphy - creator of the Ghost Protocol, which forbids him to acknowledge or interact with her. Confused and alone - oppressed by her ghost status and tormented by forbidden love - Elizabeth works to unlock the secrets of her own existence.

But her quest for answers lands her in a tug-of-war between powerful interests, and she soon finds herself a pawn in the struggle for control of the planet…a struggle that could separate her forever from the man she loves.

Ghost Planet is a science fiction romance from debut author Sharon Lynn Fisher. (I know the spine says “science fiction” but bear with me.) This book is a big deal because mainstream science fiction romances are few and far between, and sometimes they’re released from SF publishers rather than romance ones. So I was eager to discover how Ms. Fisher tackled the blend of science fiction and romance in this story.

And whoa, she sure nailed it!

[Do tell!...]

Lexi George
Demon Hunting in the Deep South
Brava / July 31, 2012 / $14.00 print & $11.99 digital

Evie Douglass doesn’t know what’s worse—the demons secretly infesting her small Alabama hometown. . .or human belle-from-hell Meredith Starr Peterson, who’s made her life miserable since high school. But when the “Death Starr” is brutally murdered and Evie is the number-one suspect, she’s suddenly besieged by the evil-not-dead-enough and Meredith’s furious specter. The only way she can clear her name is to get out from under demon hunter Ansgar’s grim protection. He’s blond, breathtaking, and the most lethal of all his kin, but after years of teasing, Evie is wary of anyone who swears her plus-size self is beautiful. However, having Ansgar all over her is sparking outrageous powers Evie didn’t know she had. And she’ll face any ultimate evil to keep this sexy slayer in this dimension and in her bed for all eternity...

Demon Hunting in the Deep South is the second book in Lexi George’s Demon Hunting series. In book one, Demon Hunting in Dixie, we meet shy and shapely Evangeline Douglass and the Dalvahni warrior, Ansgar. We watched the attraction between these two characters developing in the background of the first story and we also watched the shy Evie blossom into a confident woman. But circumstances at the end of DHiD leave Evie with a case of memory loss. And since fraternizing with humans is unacceptable, our very by-the-book warrior, Ansgar, leaves Evie with her memory loss because he has to return to his own dimension and he doesn’t want her to miss him.

[But but but...]

The protagonist of Kalayna Price’s Alex Craft series, Alex Craft, has an interesting job: Craft has the ability to raise the shades of the dead so that they can communicate to the living how they died. It’s usually not in a pleasant way, perhaps even involving a murder. Following that revelation, Craft works within the legal system to find out the “whodunit.” There are two books already published in the series, and the next, Grave Memory, is set to release on July 3, 2012. Craft isn’t the only one out there working as a paranormal detective; other names in this illustrious field include Harry Dresden, Chess Putnam, and Charley Davidson, among many others. Seeing these familiar monikers and knowing what they do makes you wonder what it really takes to solve crimes in the paranormal world.

[You don’t want to mess with these paranormal PIs]

Amanda Stevens
The Kingdom
Mira/Mar. 27, 2012/$7.99 print, $6.39 digital

My name is Amelia Gray. They call me The Graveyard Queen. I’ve been commissioned to restore an old cemetery in Asher Falls, South Carolina, but I’m coming to think I have another purpose here.

Why is there a cemetery at the bottom of Bell Lake? Why am I drawn time and again to a hidden grave I’ve discovered in the woods? Something is eating away at the soul of this town—this withering kingdom—and it will only be restored if I can uncover the truth.

The Kingdom is the second book in Amanda Stevens’s The Graveyard Queen series, and we pick up with Amelia Grey, the titular Queen.

Amelia finds herself commissioned to restore the Thorngate graveyard in Asher Falls, South Carolina, a sparsely populated town only accessible by ferry or back roads. The history and events that have come to form Asher Falls are prime and center to the storyline, and for setting the overall feel of the book. The imagery Amanda Stevens creates right from the first scene sets the atmosphere and tone and it never lets up.

[Ooh, setting the scene! Is that like setting the fiction table?...]

I avoid horror tales and rarely read the paranormal stories that are popular with many readers, but I do have a fondness for romances with a ghost as protagonist. I plan to celebrate Halloween by rereading my favorite ghostly love stories. Some of my favorites:

[Scary and romantic!]

When you think Halloween, you automatically think ghosts. Or at least I do. Nothing gets me more in the Halloween mood than a few good scary books and movies featuring ghosts.

Ghosts are thought to be manifestations of deceased people. Apparitions range from mist and smoke to life-like formations. The most common way to contact a spirit is through a medium or a necromancer. Ghosts usually haunt certain locations, objects, or people. Humans aren’t the only ones known to manifest as ghosts, though; animals and objects have also been seen. One of the most famous of those types of spirits was the ghost ship The Flying Dutchman. Legends of ghost ships have existed since the 18th century, and this theme has been used in literature multiple occasions, for example in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

[Boo!...]

Back in August, a pretty amazing book came out. That book was Anna Dressed in Blood and you should be reading it right now.  

There have been few books that I have really obsessed over, don’t get me wrong, I have favorites, but I can count on one hand the amount of books that have completely blown me away. Anna Dressed in Blood is one of those books.

You see, this particular story is about a guy and a girl. An almost typical story, that I am sure we have all probably heard before. I may even go so far as to call these two star-crossed. And when I say star-crossed, I don’t mean lamely belonging to two feuding family’s like some fictional Hatfields and McCoys; they are as star-crossed as two folks can be.

[Things aren’t going to go easy for them, are they?...]

I was talking to an old friend about books, and she asked, do you think your favorites from childhood would still hold up if you reread them? I thought about one of my favorite books of all time, and suddenly I was dying to know.

 I don’t know how old I was when I picked up Elizabeth Marie Pope’s The Sherwood Ring.   Probably middle school (I found it in the library in the children’s section, though the heroine is 17.) I do remember the title, because I’ve always been a huge Robin Hood fan and I assumed it would be about Robin and his merry men—it isn’t.

[Its not? . . .]