Paranormal, It's Ba-ack!

Everyone likes to talk about trends. What's the hottest new thing? As soon as publishers hear about it, they glut the market. And then there's nothing but the hottest new thing on shelves. The problem is that leaves eager readers of the other genres without their favorites to read.

A few years ago, paranormal was it. If it wasn't furry, fanged, or ethereal, it was a tough sell. Of course, I'm generalizing, as contemporary romance still seems to hold the biggest piece of the marketplace pie in romance genres, but it felt true at the time.

Then contemporary romance climbed back, and everyone wanted hunky brothers and families, angst, humor, you name it so long as the characters were realistic and living in "today's" world.

Fast forward to 2017, and the glut of romance books in general--thanks to so many avenues of publishing (traditional, small press, indie)--has made just about all romance genres saturated. Yet when I want a traditionally published paranormal romance, I have my tried and true authors (Feehan, Singh, Ashley), yet not many newbies publishing in the genre. Sure, in indie publishing, where authors can write anything they like, authors still produces all manner of books. But by and large, most authors are writing contemporary romances.

Except they aren't. (Thank you, Here Be Magic authors!) I watch the trends. I run a romance review site,and I can tell you what our readers want. Right now? They want romantic suspense...and good paranormal. What happened before has happened again. I think that so many contemporary romances left the paranormal readers needy for some sexy werewolves and hunky aliens. So I see paranormal romance on the rise.

Let's see how long it is until the big 6-4-3 (?) traditional publishers think the same.

Marie
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You can find my own contributions to the paranormal/scifi genres this spring!

The Instinct book 1 (scifi)

The Instinct book 2 (scifi)

Circe's Recruits 2.0: Gideon (shifters)