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Romance Fans Embrace Their Dark Sides

Romance Fans Embrace Their Dark Sides

The hottest bad boys in contemporary fiction are cold-blooded vampires. Not since Anne Rice's best-selling series about Lestat have so many readers, particularly romance fans, thirsted for novels about blood drinkers who are sexy as well as scary.
Ref. https://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/20...e-romance_x.htm

Sides Dark Embrace Fans Romance

I don't understand this phenomena at all. I understand the entire romance genre and those who like vampires, but the mixture of the two doesn't even make a whole lot of the two to me. However, the vampire has always involved a bit of sex appeal, the bite on the neck especially being evidence of this. But a "romance" novel that involves your seduction by a vampire is silly to me. You ultimately get either enslaved or die, so whats romantic about that?

Romance Fans Embrace Their Dark Sides UFO & Writing Art Education Sciences

Everyone has some hidden dark side to them that they like to see played out by an author. For instance, there may be someone who is morally correct about obeying the law and not speeding, but in the book they want to floor the pedal and go through every red light that can be seen. Some authors play on this knowing that the reader is imagining what could be 'if only'.

Sides Dark Embrace Fans Romance

I agree with that. Its purely escapism and sometimes that also includes escaping to "the dark side. "

I can completely follow the theme of a vampire as the ultimate seducer too.They are always painted as extraordinarily sexy and charming creatures who use these talents to win over their victims before they strike at the last moment. Vampires are tied to our most basic instincts: the drive of hunger, the blood of survival, the thrill of anothers touch on bare flesh... the satisfaction they draw from feeding on a human is comparable to sexual pleasure and addiction - again right down at the alluringly dark areas of human experience. (note: Not that I'm saying all sex is dark, sometimes its very loving and romantic but y'know what I'm getting at!)

Plus, I think that TV shows such as Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel have taken the lead in this by taking the traditional vampire story and giving it a few new modern twists while keeping the sexiness factor high. For example, The Dark Hunter series of romantic novels follows the relationships between a human woman and a male vampires and Buffy and Angel with their examinations of the same I think paved the way for such fiction.

Edited: Dougiep on 20th Dec, 2007 - 3:30pm