How Paranormal Is It?

posted by gullar sahir

Last month, I got to participate in not one, but TWO fun group booksignings with other local authors. I'm still celebrating the release of my second book, The Treasures of Venice, and the fact that I'm now a MULTI-PUBLISHED AUTHOR! This mind-blowing fact finally hit home for me at those recent booksignings. Having copies of both my books there in front of me, it felt real for the first time!

The Treasures of Venice is a very special book for me because it was actually the first one I wrote after quitting my Dreaded Day Job. It was also a Golden Heart finalist in 2006 in the Romantic Suspense category. Like my first book, The Wild Sight, the story has an Irish hunk hero and an exotic setting.

As anyone who hangs around in the Lair knows, yer olde Aunty likes to write stories that include things that go boom. If I can mix a little murder and mayhem in with the romance, I'm a happy camper. Throw in a dash of 'woo woo' and I'm in hog-heaven, so I try to add that little extra 'woo woo' in all my stories.

But is it really paranormal? My first reaction is to say no. However, The Treasures of Venice does have a theme of past lives and reincarnation that runs through it. Surely that's paranormal, isn't it? I've been assured by other paranormal writers that anything 'not normal' is paranormal. Hmmm, that sounds logical. Or am I just kidding myself?

I do think my first book, The Wild Sight falls a little more heavily on the paranormal side than The Treasures of Venice because the hero Donovan has "the second sight" and has visions of the past. In fact, he can actually go to a place he calls "between" where the events in the visions are real. But in a recent note, a reader told me her favorite thing about The Wild Sight is how "realistic" it all felt, even with the paranormal events. And several reviewers also praised the gritty realism in the story. So I'm left wondering if either book really qualifies as paranormal romance.

Now my third book, The Wild Irish Sea (scheduled to be released next July) is probably more paranormal than either of the first two because the heroine has mental telepathy, as does her brother. But my editor recently told me telepathy is "soft" paranormal, so I'm confused! The paranormal sub-genre is so popular that I certainly don't want to miss out on reaching that group of readers. But when I look at the other books designated as paranormal romance, mine do not seem to fit in.

Who better to turn to for advice than the Banditas and Bandita Buddies? So tell me please, in a subgenre filled with vampires, shape-shifters, and all manner of fantastic and magical beings and situations, do I really write paranormal? If booksellers and reviewers categorize my books as paranormal romance, will readers be disappointed that they do not contain the aforementioned things? I'd love to know your opinion! What do you think makes a story a paranormal romance?