Jenny is also a thoughtful blogger with great ideas. You can read her take on the Gothic Romance Heroine updated at eHarlequin.com Community. It's well worth it!
Jenny's got some ideas about the next great thing. I'm pleased to have her as today's blog guest, so you can hear all about them!
Here's Jenny:
I predict disaster.
No, don’t head for the hills yet. You haven’t heard why I’m making this grand prediction.
As a long-time romance and fantasy reader, I’m very happy writing paranormal romance, but I can’t help wondering what the next-big-thing will be in the romance genre. Vampires might be immortal, but they can’t lead the hit parade forever. So what, or who, will take their place?
*crystal ball gazing*
It all begins with the alpha hero.
Alpha heroes have to be lassoed and tamed by love. Now, what situation would put an alpha hero on a pedestal of unattainability (which is great for story conflict!)?
Vampires have immortality, blood-sucking and that inconvenient habit of turning to dust in sunlight. Soldiers go to war. Surgeons are busy saving lives. With all these traditional romance alpha heroes, love has to battle for their attention.
So here’s my prediction of the new battle: DISASTERS
Ahem. I apologise for shouting.
Who else remembers the Mad Max movies of the 1980s. They were made at a time of economic gloominess. Sound familiar?
Currently we have the hangover of the great financial crisis. We have climate change and its associated increased-intensity weather events. We have wars and dictatorships. And lurking at the end of the calendar, we have 2012, the End of Time according to the Mayans.
We are in a situation where people/readers have expectations of disaster. The romance genre will pick up and reflect back those fears, and do what it does best: Provide a happy ending.
Because in a disaster situation, alpha heroes rock.
A disaster subgenre in romance will sell because it promises that when the worst happens, survival and happiness are possible. Love still triumphs. Values are starkly revealed: loyalty to friends, personal honour, self-sacrifice.
Samhain Publishing currently has a call out for Post-Apocalyptic novellas (http://www.samhainpublishing.com/submissions), but I imagine other publishing houses will pick up the disaster theme and run with it in different forms. It doesn’t have to be science fiction or tinged with the paranormal. I could see a medical slant with disaster response units or romantic suspense in the chaos of military disaster.
So there you go. Taryn nicely lets me come and visit, and I start screaming, “disaster”. Sorry, Taryn. But you heard it here first: I predict disaster.
I wonder what they’ll call the new subgenre?
***
She’s breaking the rules. Again.
An archivist in the heavenly library, Sara must follow protocol when it comes to curating the knowledge of the universe. But "liberating" an ancient text from the collection of a human—an Australian drug lord—could save a boy’s life. Sara has no way of knowing that one of the man’s other treasures is a sexy-as-sin djinni, bound by a wish to guard the estate.
He’s only following orders.
Filip is compelled to turn over intruders, even celestial ones, to his master. When he catches Sara in the library, he isn’t above indulging in some sensual kisses with her, or using her to trick the mobster into wasting a wish. It’s what he must do to preserve his facade of freedom and protect his heart.
But the kidnapping of the drug lord’s daughter forces Sara and Filip to work together—bringing out the hero that lurks within the soul of the djinni, and the passion within the angel.
***
You can find Jenny:
At her website http://www.blogger.com/goog_988730720
Blogging at http://www.acquiring-magic.blogspot.com/
Or on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jenny_schwartz
