Preferences and A New Release!

Book Three in my Cascadia Wolves series is now available from Samhain Publishing!

Somewhat on topic, I thought I'd bring up a few things -

Preferences, ah, the meat and potatoes (or the tempeh and potatoes) of the book universe. We all have them and they drive our choices. Sometimes we take a chance and discover something we hadn’t expected (always a wonderful thing).

For instance - true mate storylines. Some people hate them and complain endlessly about them while others love them. I’m always of the “why are you reading these books if you don’t like them?” school. I don’t read capture bondage, I hate it. I don’t read “forced seduction” either and I stay away from other storylines unless an author I really trust is writing them.

But back to true mates and why I like them and why I think other people do as well - there’s a lot of emotional power in the idea of seeing someone an *knowing* they’re meant for you, forever. In the right hands, it’s a storyline I adore. Not because it’s realistic, but because the idea is incredibly appealing to me. And based on the popularity of those titles and the sales of the books I write with mate storylines, they’re appealing to a lot of other people too.

An alpha male, probably a man who loves women and loves to play the field, comes into the story. He meets the heroine and that’s it. There will usually be tension, and why not, who likes to be wrenched out of their habits and into an unfamilar place? It’s scary and no one likes to be scared. At the same time, there’s now a solid bond between the hero and heroine and how they end up together is the device. A smart author can work that dozens of innovative ways and even though you know it’ll end up HEA, the journey is wild.

I love the appeal of the big, bad man brought to his knees by something as powerful as connection to another person. It’s why I love werewolf books so much - the males have a reason to be alpha and dominant and wolves mate for life. The appeal of paranormal and fantasy then, is the ability to take real things and twist them. I love that!

I write contemporaries and paranormal/fantasy. I love both for different reasons and a different skill set is needed to approach each sub-genre. I find that each has cliches that appeal for different reasons. Cliches are part of our subconscious and some of them can be drawn upon for the best kind of wish fulfillment.

I think next time I’ll talk about contemporary cliches and which ones I like the most. In the meantime - what are your absolute loves and dislikes about paranormal storylines and why?