Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy discussion
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Dec 13, 2007 06:52PM
On a lot of other sites I have noticed that most people either favor Laurell K Hamilton or Sherrilyn Kenyon. I was just wondering who is favored more, or if you don’t like either one. Me personally I prefer Kenyon. She was the first pnr author that really liked. I still like Hamilton’s books, but I prefer her Gentry books. The Blake books have lost there sizzle for me. I still read them I just don’t rush out to get them anymore. Kenyon on the other hand is a must have for me.
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I used to be a big LKH fan, but both of her series have deteriorated, IMO, into poorly written, cliche-ridden, hundred-and-fifty-page-long sex scenes. I like sex scenes, don't get me wrong, but I prefer to have at least some plot with my smut. And if I never see some form of "it felt like he was going to drive his body through hers" in a sex scene again, it'll be too soon. *laughs*
I've never really read any of Kenyon's work. I tried to start one of her vampire books but I couldn't get into it.
I've never really read any of Kenyon's work. I tried to start one of her vampire books but I couldn't get into it.



I picked up the first because of the title - The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove. How could anyone pass up a title like that.
Good reading!

I liked the first three LKH books, but they were a bit more thriller than romance. There was some nice sexual tension between Anita and Jean Claude though. (I really like Jean Claude!) From what I am hearing from others in this group, they transition to smut somewhere around book 5.
However, I am currently in the middle of book 4 (The Lunatic Cafe) and I'm starting to have a problem with one of the plot developments.
***Spoiler Alert***** Just in case you haven't read the series yet, and would like to, don't finish this post. *******
Okay, I have to get this off my chest. Does anyone else have a problem with Anita getting engaged to Richard?!?!?! Hello!!! They've been dating for what?? Two Months?!?! And they just up and get engaged?!?! They barely know each other!!!! Not to mention that the first time she met him, he was NAKED in a room full of vampires and lycanthropes, and possibly in bed with a female lycanthrope. This is not someone I would have chosen to get involved with. Who in their right mind would turn down Jean Claude for Richard?!?!?! (I obviously have a thing for Jean Claude.....) Okay, I have said my peace, and will now step down off the soap box.

Richard irritated me pretty much from the get-go. I never found him to be an interesting character (or maybe I'm just biased toward Jean-Claude, haha), and the engagement thing made me toss the book down in disgust. I always preferred Jean-Claude, and one of the reasons I started losing interest in the AB books was because poor JC was so underused.

I have a real love/hate relationship with LKH. I loved the first four or five Anita Blake books and the first two Meredith Gentry books. But I've completely lost my patience. The early books actually had a plot, a beginning, middle and end. But the later books are nothing but exhaustively cataloged pages of what black leather and fishnet ensemble Anita and the vamps will wear to go fight (and have amazing combat sex with) rival vamps.
She had me and she lost me.

Jean Claude on the other hand, is dangerous, compelling, complex, and sexy.
I have a feeling I am going to get frustrated with this series and end up quitting it. I've already bought the first six books, so I'm committed until then. Guess I'll just have to see where it all goes from there. I have kind of set book 4 aside because I have been cruising through the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. Which has its own set of allures and problems...

I haven't read any Anita Blake books, or any books by Hamilton. I actually avoid vampire-hunter stories, and I can't work out where they start! Does it matter? A lot of people seem to be either disappointed with these books or really getting into them. Does anyone want to recommend one?
The paranormal romance books that I read include Lynsay Sands' Argeneau vampire series, J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood, and Christine Feehan's Carpathian series. Feehan's aren't great, the books are very similar and the writing gets very corny and repetitive. But there's something about the premise that I like. I've read the first 5.
Course, the books that got me started on this whole paranormal romance wagon are Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series.
I'm always looking for more suggestions!

The "Twilight" series is incredible. I keep giving away my copy of the first book and buying it again. Barnes and Noble is loving me, I bet.
I enjoyed Ward's book, only because it wasn't formulaic for every book. Not every one has a happy ending, nor does it look as though they will in the future. I enjoy that. Some of the steamier reads are by Lora Leigh. I highly recommend "Elizabeth's Wolf" as the first to pick up. Unfortunately, they're easier to download or find on ebay than they are at Amazon.com. I believe the company that previously printed Leigh's books has gone mostly to digital books these days.

If you're interested, the first 4 in the Anita Blake series are:
1. Guilty Pleasures
2. The Laughing Corpse
3. Circus of the Damned
4. The Lunatic Cafe
Those are in order, and they are worth the read. I just have a feeling I'll end up dropping the series after a while....


As I started on Night Pleasures, it seemed to strike me that, even though the books share characters, they almost seemed like they belonged to different series.
Maybe I am mis-remembering but I don't think there was any mention of vampires or Dark Hunters in the first book. It almost seemed to me that SK was planning to write a series of her books using the Olympians as her paranormal backdrop, but was told she had to write about vampires. So she shifted her focus and started the whole Dark Hunter thing.
I think FL and so far what I am reading of NP are good reads. They aren't drawing me in like the Ward books did. But they are keeping me entertained so far.
edited: because Dark Lover is not Night Pleasures


I tried to read LKH, both the Anita and Merry series, and couldn't finish either book.
It's funny...Kenyon's writing style really clicks for me, whereas LKH aggravates me. Just one of my weird quirks, I guess (grin).




I like the story idea and thought I'd give her a first time try.


I have one Amanda Ashley book to read, but I've since come across a very negative review here and would probably not have bought it if I'd known.
I've only read one Kenyon and one Hamilton, but if I had to choose from that paltry selection, I would pick Kenyon. Mostly because I hated the Hamilton book I read so much :)


Actually, that one, "A Girl's Guide to Vampires," is one of the worst of that series IMO. The next one "Sex and the Single Vampire" is AWESOME, and one of my all-time fav PNR novels (Christian is soooo yummy *grin*). The next two are very good too. The last one in that series didn't do much for me, and I never finished it. So keep reading. It's a very good series!
xox
Laura
http://www.TheWitchesofDixie.blogspot...


You should try her Aisling Grey, Guardian novels. There are four so far: You Slay Me; Fire Me Up; Light My Fire; and Holy Smokes. They feature an inept guardian and her dragon lover.


Not that I have a problem with erotica, but I prefer it to be well written and to know what I've picked up.
I'm alone in this opinion, aren't I?

Oh, yeah, I love "Sex, Lies, and Vampires" too!! Nell was a hoot with Adrian. And Adrian was another totally yummy vamp (grin).
(Melani)
Some people love the first Feehan novel "Dark Prince." But IMO it is the worst in the series, just not very well written. She really didn't seem to have a grip on the series at that point. Not to mention Raven was incredibly irriating. But also her writing wasn't the greatest. You really have to get over all the dreamy language and padding she sticks in that one and in her others to some extent.
However, do go on and read the next two in the series. By the second one I was hooked, and the fourth one "Dark Magic" about Gregori is my fav so far. At the moment I am working my way through the entire series and have read 8. I am totally hooked and loving every one of those books so far. You may too once you get past "Dark Prince." The only good thing about that first novel is it introduces you to characters and backstory you will keep running into throughtout the series, so in that way it is a must read for the series.
xoxo
Laura
http://www.TheWitchesofDixie.blogspot...


I had actually tried to read the book a couple of years ago and didn't make it through. I decided to get the audio book because lots of times I can get through an audio book and enjoy it even if I didn't like the paperback.
guess I should find a copy of the next in the series now...lol



I have and I have enjoyed them. I do have a caveat, though. They are marketed as Paranormal Romance. i do not believe they should be. They aren't like a Kenyon, Ward or Feehan, for example, where you have a strong romantic story with the paranormal as a back drop. They are also not very self contained.
They should be, imo, categorized as Dark Fantasy, more along the lines of an Anne Bishop, LA Banks or even LKH. There is romance in the novels, but anyone picking them up hoping to read a romance vampire-meets-girl type story is doomed to disappointment. And while each story contains a central male/female pair, the storyline, her mythos, even the male/female relationships continue from one book to the next. They don't wrap up in one book, per se. Truthfully, the series reads more like one long story like you find in multi-volume fantasies than the one-off stories in paranormal romances.
Having said that I enjoyed the series. I think the writing is complex and the mythos is different enough. But I am reading them as fantasies not as paranormal romances.

I had the opposite reaction to Richard at first - I was screaming at Anita that she was an idiot for running from him! In the first book of their romance, he looked like a soul mate, if only she could get over her hang ups and accept him as a wolf. It wasn't until after Richard started his vindictive, morally superior, self-destructive decline that I faced the music and accepted that she and Richard are not a perfect pair. I'm only on Cerilean Sins, so for all I know, someday they will reach some sort of peace. I'm a sucker for a happy ending, so I'm hoping Richard gets his act together and finds some sort of happiness, though I don't imagine it will be with Anita.
I too found it weird that Anita dated Richard after meeting him naked as Circus of the Damned, but I chalked that up to LKH not realizing that she would want to recycle the character in her next novel. Especially in the early novels, LKH seems to introduce characters and then later find better plot lines for them that don't always jive with the introduction.
As for which books are good and bad from this series, I like to read them for the romance/smut/relationship aspects, so I thought they really improved around book 5. For me, the gore/violence/suspense are all just filler to get to the good stuff. So there's my contrarian opinion. Anyone in the happy ending camp with me?
As an aside, I read the Merry Gentry novels before I started the Anita Blake series, and I find it very interesting noticing where I think ideas for Merry originated in Anita Blake. I figure that LKH wanted to go hog-wild in a series without Anita's moral outrage, and that's why she created the Merry series. I think she also tried switching it up a bit by giving Jean Claude's political mind to Merry. Something that bothers me about the Merry series: each book is so thinly sliced in time - it's like she wrote two novels and is publishing them as 6 books. Not teribly satisfying.

Spoiler ahead
Is anyone else upset that Kenyon has set up Nick Gautier to be a traitor in one of the next few books? I loved his character, and I so want him to end up a good guy. I keep hoping that this is just the dark hunter suffering he has to endure to come out the other side happy. I know these books are very formulaic, but it's a formula I enjoy, so I'll keep reading.


I hear ya Anita, but I really do think that he will turn out good. In recent books (I can't think of which one at the moment) he was showing some serious issues with doing some of the bad things that he tied himself into doing. I think he will come out a good guy in the end. It is defnitely a less than safe road she is traveling taking such a likeable and recognizeable character from her series and making him 'bad', but that is what I like about Kenyon!
I expect that the showdown with Stryker and Nick will be the fodder for "Ash". I can't wait! I just hope that isn't the end, I think she said it wouldn't be.

I've only read one of the Aisling Gray, Guardian, series and totally enjoyed it. My lastest reads have been the first three books in Charlaine Harris' "Southern Vampire" series with the indomitable Sookie Stackhouse. I found myself completely wrapped up in Sookie's adventures, what with her "disability" of being a telepath and all.
BTW - has anyone read any Alesia Holliday/Alyssa Day? I have the Atlantean series on my list, but haven't gotten to them, yet, and comments would be appreciated greatly!

So, I just finished reading LKH's Lunatic Cafe a couple days ago. Richard still annoys me. He's such a frickin' boy scout. Ugh! Jean-Claude is way sexier and would be better suited to Anita's personality. I don't know why I can see this, but she can't.
On another note, I'm really starting to like Anita's bounty hunter buddy Edward. He's really grown on me, and kind of reminds me of Bones character from Jeanine Frost's Halfway to the Grave.

Just keep on reading! The books get annoying, but Harlequin has really reinstilled my faith in LKH.



erotica (I think this means novels that are focused on graphic, sometimes extreme sex, rather than on romance.)
Epic Fantasy - Is this the kind of fantasy that reminds me of Lord of the Rings? A totally made-up world, often with princesses and dragons and wood sprites and the like. Definately not contemporary, urban settings.
Speculative Fiction - Is this a generic term for everything sci-fi/paranormal/fantasy?
I'm guessing on the definitions based on context, but I'd rather be sure. Thanks!

My first book in the Kenyon's Dark Hunter series was Night Pleasures. I loved it and I was sad to be finished. Then I went backwards in the series and read Fantasy Lover - I didn't think it was that great. And I have to agree with some of the other comments - Fantasy Lover doesn't seem to belong in the Dark Hunter series. Maybe you should give Night Pleasures a try. It's really quite different. If you do, let me know what you think ;)
Books mentioned in this topic
The Fellowship of the Ring (other topics)You Slay Me (other topics)
Fantasy Lover (other topics)