Reading outside of my usual genres and getting over myself.

I decided to read a genre I’ve never read before: Romance.  I cheated a bit, and went for Paranormal Romance, which, I think is another way to say Fantasy.  I guess paranormal is used to avoid confusion.  Fantasy means swords and sorcery, but Fantasy Romance is redundant.  I guess.  What the fuck do I know?  Then there is Contemporary Fantasy, and Urban Fantasy, which might mean the same thing.  I don’t know.  I’m not claiming to be an expert. 

Fortunately, I follow a lot of authors on Twitter, independent and otherwise, so there was no shortage to choose from.  A lot of the paranormal romance authors seem to specialize in either vampires or dragon shifters.  Lots and lots of dragon shifters.  I mean, you can’t even swing a dead werewolf and not hit a dragon shifter.  And if there are vampires, werewolves aren’t far away.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  I can see the romantic potential of all three species, but, if I was going outside of my Sci-Fi/Fantasy comfort zone, I wanted to go all the way. Continue reading →