2009 PEARL Award Finalists!

From PNR:

"Here they are at long last, the finalists for 2009 Paranormal Excellence Awards for Romantic Literature (PEARL). Congratulations to all the writers who were nominated and those who made the roster of finalists. We also want to thank each reader participating for nominating their best reads of 2009."

2009 Finalists are:

FANTASY
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THE SHADOW QUEEN by Anne Bishop
NIGHTWALKER by Heather Graham
UNHALLOWED GROUND by Heather Graham
THE SWORD AND THE PEN by Elysa Hendricks
THORN QUEEN by Richelle Mead
QUEEN OF SONG AND SOULS by C. L. Wilson

FUTURISTIC ROMANCE
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OBSIDIAN PREY by Jayne Castle
HEART CHANGE by Robin D. Owens
GUARDIAN by Angela Knight
SCARLET by Jordan Summers
BLAZE OF MEMORY by Nalini Singh

MAGICAL / FANTASY ROMANCE
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THE PERFECT POISON by Amanda Quick
ANGELS' BLOOD by Nalini Singh
WHITE STAR by Elizabeth Vaughn
POSSESS ME AT MIDNIGHT by Shayla Black
BURNING ALIVE by Shannon Butcher

SCIENCE FICTION
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THE WARLORD'S DAUGHTER by Susan Grant
DIAMOND STAR by Catherine Asaro
HOPE'S FOLLY by Linnea Sinclair
BEYOND THE RAIN by Jess Granger

SHAPE SHIFTERS
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ETERNAL CRAVING by Nina Bangs
BURNING WILD by Christine Feehan
DRAGON MOON by Rebecca York
MORTAL SINS by Eileen Wilks
BRANDED BY FIRE by Nalini Singh
LEADER OF THE PACK by Karen MacInerney
WILD HIGHLAND MAGIC by Kendra Leigh Castle
DESTINY OF THE WOLF by Terry Spear

TIME TRAVEL
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TIME FOR ETERNITY by Susan Squires
GUARDIAN by Angela Knight
CREIGHTON MANOR by Karen Michelle Nutt
WHAT WOULD JANE AUSTEN DO? by Laurie Brown
TIME PLAINS DRIFTER by Cheryl Pierson

URBAN FANTASY
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TURN COAT by Jim Butcher
FROSTBITTEN by Kelley Armstrong
BONE CROSSED by Patricia Briggs
DEMON MISTRESS by Yasmine Galenorn
WHITE WITCH, BLACK CURSE by Kim Harrison
DESTINED FOR AN EARLY GRAVE by Jeaniene Frost
PREY by Rachel Vincent
RED-HEADED STEPCHILD by Jaye Welles

VAMPIRE
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OVER MY DEAD BODY by Michele Bardsley
DARK SLAYER by Christine Feehan
THE RENEGADE HUNTER by Lynsay Sands
LOVER AVENGED by J.R. Ward
STAY THE NIGHT by Lynn Viehl
BAD TO THE BONE by Jeri Smith-Ready
RAPHAEL by D.B. Reynolds

ANTHOLOGY
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THE LOST by JD Robb, Ruth Ryan Langan, Mary Blayney, Patricia Gaffney
MEAN STREETS by Jim Butcher, Thomas E. Sniegoski, Kat Richardson, Simon R. Green
STRANGE BREW by Charlaine Harris, Jim Butcher, Patricia Briggs, Karen Chance, P.N. Elrod, Rachel Caine
MEN OF THE OTHERWORLD by Kelley Armstrong
BELONG TO THE NIGHT by Cynthia Eden, Sherrill Quinn, Shelly Laurenston
MUST LOVE HELLHOUNDS by Iona Andrews, Charlaine Harris, Meljean Brook, Nalini Singh

NEW AUTHOR
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Chloe Neill
Kimberly Frost
Tammy Kane
Gail Carriger
Cheryl Pierson

OVERALL BEST PARANORMAL ROMANCE
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DARK SLAYER by Chrstine Feehan
THE GIFT by Deb Stover
DEAD AND GONE by Charlaine Harris
MORTAL SINS by Eileen Wilks
BLAZE OF MEMORY by Nalini Singh
LOVER AVENGED by J.R. Ward
DARKNESS CALLs by Marjorie M. Liu
PREY by Rachel Vincent

For more information on PNR and the PEARL: http://paranormalromance.org/

Are We Boldly Going...?

I'm absolutely pleased ::Linnea points to previous BSP post on the upcoming workshop:: that the genre(s) of SFRomance and Futuristics are getting some coverage as of late. There was also a lengthy article on paranormals--including SFR--at All About Romance last month. Now, one could chalk this up to the fact that this is the Halloween season, so things that go bump or boo or boom in the night get attention.

I'm hoping it's something more than that. I'm hoping that Science Fiction Romance (and Futuristics and RSF, for those of you who break things down thusly) is finally being recognized as a valid (sub)genre. Worthy of coverage. Worthy of attention. Worthy of question.

This is something the lovely and delightful Susan Grant and I bemoan...oops! I mean discuss from time to time. Okay, we've been bitching a lot about it lately. Sue's one of the Grande Dames of the romance end of the genre (and that does not mean she's older--she's quite the young thing) and as she knows, I respect her journey tremendously and, as well, the avenues she's opened for the rest of us. On the SF end, we have Catherine Asaro and our own wonderful Jacqueline Lichtenberg who developed the romance, the "intimate adventure" side of the story over in the SF aisles.

Many authors have followed. But many have moved on to other genres (Carole Nelson-Douglas and CJ Barry come immediately to mind) and in speaking with them they've admitted that SFR/Futuristics genre just doesn't have the numbers. That is, the readership, the following, the sales. Both CJ (now writing as Samantha Graves) and Carole jumped over to mystery/romantic suspense.

Part of the problem--and this is something Sue's keyed on rightly in her emails with me--is that SFR has an identity crisis. Neither fish nor fowl, not quite comfortable in the romance aisles and not quite sure if it belongs in the SF aisles, SFR sometimes plays the part of the rabble-rouser (it is known for its kick-butt heroines) and sometimes the unwanted guest (read the reviews where the romance reviewer says there's too much tech stuff and the SF reviewer says there's too much mush). We're lumped in with paranormals (vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, dark angels and sorceressess) but I'm not sure we belong there. That's like lumping space-opera science fiction books in with police procedurals because, well, they both involve weapons and people die.

We also tend to throw the cover art departments of publishing houses into apoplexy. Too many spaceships on the cover and the romance contingent won't read us. But a muscles chest or a couple kissing scares off the SFers. I recently went through severe cover art issues with my books at Bantam when a series of covers was presented that were totally gorgeous and totally, absolutely, undeniably wrong for my books. They'd have been perfect for Laurell K Hamilton or some edgy, erotic, urban fantasy novel. They were frighteningly wrong for mine--frightening in that they delivered a message; no. They promised a kind of read I don't deliver. I feared a huge "reader disconnect" if they had been used.

Sue Grant ran into a similar problem but from a different end. Her covers have tended to the lighter romancey end, totally ignoring the deeper and yes, SF elements in her stories. While not fully chick-lit in design they did substantially play down the SF parts. Granted, Sue writes terrific humor, especially in her most recent SFR series, "Otherworldly Men". But there's a lot of humorous SF out there with

covers that don't ignore the SF factor.

So it's not just readers and reviewers who are confused. Publishers and their marketing departments are, too.

Which brings me to my title for this blog: are we boldly going where SFR needs to go? Or are we riding the coattails of paranormals and finding ourselves tossed about in the wake, so to speak (yeah, no one mixes metaphors like I do)? Does SFR need to push harder for its own unique identity? If so, what would that be?

With each passing year I watch our society become more and more technologically oriented. From iPods to iPhones to Tivos to Roombas to a car that freakin' parks itself... the lives we live have much more in common with the characters in an SFR novel than ones in a 14th century historical. Yet there is still a palpable resistance to SFR. Booksellers don't know where to shelve us. Art departments are confused over cover art. And fans of vampire, dark angel and high-tech hard SF novels wonder what in hell we're doing in their TBR piles.

I don't know if there've been any case studies done on the emergence of vampire romance novels, like those of Christine Feehan and Sherrilyn Kenyon. But there must have been a point, early on, where publishers and readers tried to stick the books with the "horror" label, and wrongly so. Feehan and others like her essentially created the paranormal romance genre.

I think it's time SFR created an equally bold and powerful name for itself in its own right.

I just haven't a clue how to do that.

~Linnea

http://www.linneasinclair.com/