Monday, May 5, 2014

Paranormal Romance? Say Whaaaat?

So today I was updating my book-bub account. (If you don't have Book-bub and you have an electronic reading device you should open a new tab right now and sign up for it! click here for Book Bub) Anyway I came across a genre called "Paranormal Romance."  My mind immediately went in a million directions, with a million jokes, (super funny jokes if I do say so myself!) trying to figure out what that meant.
Is it romance via ESP (or ESPN as a friend always calls it, which would be a weird, sports romance genre, also fun to contemplate!)

All I could picture was an alien mating ritual, which isn't easy since I don't really know what aliens look like, nor am I familiar with their mating rituals, nor do I care to visualize them mating! (Although Steve Guttenberg seemed to have a lovely experience in "Cocoon," but I digress)  So  as I sat at my computer with the world wide web at my finger tips contemplating what "Paranormal Romance" could mean, I finally had the bright idea of looking it up.

I would like to take a moment to explain that I usually consider myself a fairly quick study.  The first time my son said that someone "jacked" something from his locker...I was able to translate that to "stole" without too much trouble.  I know what "para" means, beyond-outside of-separate from- and I know what romance means.  But I just couldn't get past thinking of Ghostbuster lines. (Dogs and cats LIVING together...now that's para- normal)

So I "Googled" it, and everything became clear.  I asked my 21 year old daughter what she thought it meant and what she thought was the number one best seller in that category.  She said, Oh probably "Twilight." Which of course it was. Now in my defense I have 2 early 20-something daughters who read a lot, and then buy the movies, so I have come to think of high school aged girls hooking up with werewolves, vampires. wizards and the gang as normal romance, not anything outside of normal.  I blame it on Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers where everyone finds it perfectly normal for King Friday (THE PUPPET!) to have Lady Aberlin (THE HUMAN!) as a neice.  Meow, meow crazy! if you ask me.  But of course now that it has been pointed out to me it all makes sense.  As it turns out, Bill Murray and Sigourney Weaver made a love connection in Ghost Busters so technically that is a paranormal romance and I wasn't so far off now wasI?!

The definition from Wikipedia is as follows:
Paranormal romance is a sub-genre of both romantic fiction  and speculative fiction.  Paranormal romance focuses on romantic love and includes elements beyond the range of scientific explanation, blending together themes from the speculative fiction genres of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Paranormal romance may range from traditional category romances, such as those published by Harlequin, Mills & Boon, with a paranormal setting to stories where the main emphasis is on a science fiction or fantasy based plot with a romantic subplot included. Common hallmarks are romantic relationships between humans and vampires, shapeshifters, ghosts, and other entities of a fantastic or otherworldly nature.

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