I am not a paranormal romance fan. I just don't get the appeal of vampires and werewolves and demons (oh my!). Now, I don't mind a bit of magic here and there (I have these things compartmentalized; it's how I rationalize my reading quirks to myself. Don't look at me like that—you do the same, you know you do.) Jill Barnett's Bewitching is on my Keeper Shelf and features a klutzy witch named Joyous whose most charming paranormal trick is that rose petals drift down from the ceiling whenever she has an orgasm. How sweet is that? And that might be it. Magic can be charming. I see nothing charming about the undead.
It may be that when I hear the word “vampire,” I am more likely to think of Nosferatu than Alexander Skarsgard, but even a supremely yummy Norse god cannot get me past the fact that HE IS THE UNDEAD. There's no future here unless I want to be undead as well and, well, no thank you. And then there's the blood. *shudder* I once read Karen Harbaugh's The Vampire Viscount in an effort to see what the whole vampire mania was about, thinking that if ever there was a way to win me over, a traditional regency by a favorite author was the way to go. Nope. Didn't happen. He still secretly drank his wife's blood every night. No. No, no, no, no, no. Next!
OK, werewolves. Maybe it's because I'm a cat person, but what is sexy about making love with a canine? It comes too close to bestiality for me. I will confess to having a soft spot for Remus Lupin, the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor who moonlights as a werewolf in JK Rowling's Harry Potter series, but as a general rule? No. Too hairy, too many teeth, and what if there are fleas? And I find all the derivations—werecats, werecoyotes, wereweasels?—to be just plain silly. To say nothing of the fact that always doing it doggie style is hard on the knees.
And then there are demons, though they're usually designated as “demonlovers,” as if that will mitigate the fact that they're DEMONS. Hello! Soul-stealing, mind-altering minions of The Evil One. I don't care how good the sex is, you just keep your distance, buddy, thank you very much.
No, not interested. Call me boring, call me unadventurous, call me a stick-in-the-mud, just don't call me and tell me that I must read Sookie. Not gonna happen.
Cheryl Sneed reviews for Rakehell.com.
