David Thompson passes along a picture of a section header from a Barnes & Noble; I saw something similar (‘Supernatural Romance’) at a Books-a-Million yesterday when I picked up a copy of Gail Carriger’s Blameless (The Parasol Protectorate).
(pause)
Gimme a break, it’s steampunk. Alt-history steampunk horror. OK, OK, maybe there’s just a bit of romance novel ethos in it… but it also has clockwork assassin beetles in it, so I don’t want to hear any snickering, OK? Anyway, this entire werewolf/vampire Byronic hero thing seems to be quite the fad. Did the demographic that reads romance novels get bored with pirates?
And, more importantly, is there any way to suck them farther into the genre?
Anne Rice just about ruined vampires. And of course, both vampires & werewolves have suffered from the “Twilight effect”. Not to mention the impact of True Blood.
At least there has been no successful attempt to romanticize zombies.