• On Amazon• Author’s website• Excerpt (PDF)Erin Galloway of Dorchester Publishing was nice enough to send me an advance copy of Lord of the Fading Lands. I’m glad she did–Wilson has …

I won an ARC of this book via Dear Author, and it’s taken me a while to blog about it because I wanted to read it a few times to do the book justice. As someone who loves to read in both genres, I’m often frustrated by the short shrift romance gets i…

So I decided to write my own series. They’re definately not as epic as say, Melanie Rawn, but I like to think they’re a little more epic than your random “Legolas love story” that I like to call “Fantasy-lite”.

A lot of fantasy authors have missed the “point” of fantasy… They’ve ignored the Sauron plot for a splash of Rivendell if you get my drift. So its kind of hard nowadays to find a real, meaty fantasy romance that gives you the “saving the world while making love along the way” feel. LOL

As an aside, the first book of my fantasy romance is going to print from Samhain Publishing on August 21st!

Thanks for posting this topic. I’m very happy to see more and more authors going down this route.

~~Becka

Why is it that SF and futuristics, fantasy and urban fantasy, and paranormals — at least those that claim primary identification as romances – are still being lumped together (not necessarily here, but elsewhere) as a single trend in romance? As a corollary, while some people say they’re sick of the paranormal trend and that it must be peaking now or very soon, I won’t feel this trend has naturally peaked until I see these four very different subgenres separate out and give birth to distinct subgenres of romance. Grouping them all together as paranormals feels unnatural to me, because they’re all so very different.

The book Jane’s discussing in her original post seems to be bona fide fantasy romance, set in an alternate universe, and therefore a novel with little in common with the urban paranormal romance of, say, JR Ward, M Liu and M Brooks, which in turn have very little in common with this-universe fantasy romance (contemp or no) like Kresley Cole’s, much less with futuristics like Linnea Sinclair’s. This is why I feel impatient with people who are complaining that all “paranormal romances” are starting to feel the same. In fact, I think we’re seeing much greater diversity and more *types* of speculative romance than ever before. And as someone who when she was a child raced through all the available books by Lois Duncan and Christopher Pike and LJ Smith (ah, the Vampire Diaries! They made my seventh grade so much fun), but also by Katherine Kerr and Melanie Rawn (Dragon Prince: original fantasy romance?), it feels like something I’ve been waiting for for a very, very long time. The vampire and werewolf stuff feels like a very small subset to me of the possibilities available in speculative romance… so I was very excited to see Jane’s post, and hope more fantasy authors (and urban fantasy authors, and SF authors) will jump on board.

Okay, you know what? I have no idea if I should publish this post, because it’s not only OT, it’s probably just stating the obvious. But it felt nice to vent. :)

Sharon Shinn, Patricia Briggs (love her Hurog series as someone previously mentioned), Meljean are favorites of mine, but I wouldn’t compare Wilson to any of them. I can’t think of a good comparison for her work. The romance portions is like an early Feehan. I can see an influence there. Her fantasy world building, though, could be patterned more after a straight fantasy writer. I think its a book that you might have to try a few chapters of to get a feel of it.

I will say that the first few chapters were rough going for me but once I was caught, I kept reading till the wee hours of the morning.

The second book is actually a continuation of the first book and the third and fourth, I believe, will also feature Rain and Ellysetta. That said, the second story introduces some really interesting aspects of the truemate bond of a couple of other characters that will have to be worked out in future volumes.

To some extent, you do have to buy into the idea of the “truemate� theory. Wilson does add a twist though. Rain was in love before. In fact, so in love, that he scorched the land, killing millions. He turned with back on a “truemate� to have a “bond mate� instead. Much of the internal conflict is Rain coming to grips with the “truemate� v. “bondmate� meaning within himself. How much that works for you, will definitely depend on each reader.

See, that worries me. It always feels to me as if the first choice was the ‘real love’, since the man bonded because he loved and appreciated the person. And let’s not forget that the guy felt so much pain at the death of his mate that he devastated all the land. After being told of this great love that’s the stuff of legend and that even has its own ballads and songs, I think that will make it hard for me to buy into the hero/heroine’s Truemate relationship, especially since my personal belief is that you can’t love that deeply more than once in your life. And I’ve never really understood all this ’soul’ stuff or why it’s supposedly superior to loving someone with your whole heart.

It’s a shame that the books have this as a premise because I was dying to read a good sweeping epic with strong romantic elements. I might pick up the first book all the same but I’m really not looking forward to reading about Rain’s angsting over is love for the dead Sariel and his new relationship with the heroine. Not at all my cup of tea. But the world building might just keep me hooked. Does anyone know if the books coming after these first two will focus on the same lead characters or if a new couple will be introduced?

Back to the SF/fantasy discussion. One author who always delivers for me is Linnea Sinclair. She writes Romantic Science Fiction and, although her books are not sweeping epics i’ve always found them fun and statisfying.I was blown away by her lastest, Games of Command. Her world building is not usually as detailed and developped as some other pure SF/Fantasy writers but it’s no wallpaper either.

I’ve been reading SF/Fantasy more and more these past few months because I actually find that the romance part is better handled than in the straight, mostly uninspired romance books on the market. While most romance books these days could be compared to a cold fastfood value meal, many SF/Fantasy books stick to your ribs and leave an impression on you long after you’ve finished them.

My personal favorites are Linnea Sinclair, Sharon Shinn, CJ Barry, Meljean Brook, Robin McKinley, Sherwood Smith, Patricia Briggs.

Like many of the posters, I came to romance from fantasy (Sharon Shinn, Jacqueline Carey, Lois McMaster Bujold, Steve Miller and Sharon Lee). I love reviews by MrsGiggles but seldom like the same books (Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner is about the only intersection); however, I agree completely with her opening comment - I moved from fantasy to romance because I wanted more human aspects in those stories. Now, I read both fantasy and romance, and have different expectations of each genre.

In romance, I am looking for the development of a relationship - looking for the growth and compromises that allow a relationship to flourish. In romance, I’m now conditioned to expect an HEA although it wasn’t part of my original requirements.

In fantasy, I am looking for world building, growth of the protagonist, a moral framework, and plot twists that make me re-evalulate my own world-view. I expect the protagonist to grow, never expect an HEA, accept that some of my favourite characters may die, and hope for an optimistic ending.

So Fantasy-romance should be an autobuy. I love both genres. But the combination has mostly become “pass-on-by”.

Jane asked do “you feel there has been a shift, a growth in the fantasy/paranormal/futuristic novels since when you first started reading?” Yes, but not enough to recommend the novels to me.

Let me read:
a) romance (I’m reading “Black Silk” and “Charlie All Night” which are old but the ebooks were just released)
b) fantasy (I’m reading “Name of the Wind” and “The Harsh Cry of the Heron”, re-reading “Benighted” and waiting for “Mirador”).
But fantasy-romance - so far, disappointing.