RT Booklovers Convention start on April 6th and if you’re going to be in Los Angeles, you won’t want to miss it. We paranormal fans are getting some series RT love with several dedicated panels including URBAN FANTASY: Keeping Romance Hot in an Urban Fantasy Series which features Jeanne C. Stein, author of the Anna Strong Vampire Chronicles series. If you haven’t read her books, the snippet below more than qualifies Jeanne to speak about hot UF romance. Click HERE to see where else Jeanne will be at this years convention.
ATUF: How do you keep the romance hot in your Anna Strong Vampire Chronicles series?
JS: Anna has not had very good luck with boyfriends to this point—she either pisses them off, scares them away or kills them. But she does like sex, so there’s always an opportunity to write one or two good love scenes in each book.
ATUF: What scene in your series best epitomizes how you keep your series hot?
JS: My friend Mario Acevedo always picks this one: The Becoming, pages 115-116.
He steps out of slacks and boxers and stands naked, looking down on me.
I reach out, smiling, and caress a muscular thigh.
"Aren't you going to invite me in?" he says at last.
But I don't answer, my mouth is otherwise engaged.
ATUF: How important is romance in the Urban Fantasy genre?
JS: Frankly, not so at the moment. I know readers often ask when I’m going to give Anna a break and find a suitable partner for her. I’m working on it. And getting closer.
ATUF: Do you see romance growing in the genre overall or diminishing?
JS: Definitely growing. My editor just had me writer a novella for an anthology called Hexed and the main theme was romance. It’s an Anna story and while I was writing it, I actually thought the hero in this piece might be the love match I (and my editor) have been looking for. Time will tell.
ATUF: How do you distinguish between urban fantasy and paranormal romance? How important is that distinction?
JS: I think the distinction is very important. In paranormal romance the romance is the motivating force, the central story question. A happy ending (either for now or forever) is required. In Urban Fantasy, if you remove the romance elements, you still have a story. No happy ending implied or even necessary. I like the differentiation because it takes the guess work out of a book for a reader. There’s nothing worse than thinking you’ve picked up a romance and finding out it isn’t.
ATUF: What do you think about the love triangle? It seems to be more and more common in urban fantasy.
JS: Haven’t developed a story around that one yet, although the book I’m working on now, the eighth in the series, could turn out to be just that.
ATUF: In Urban Fantasy, readers often wait for several books before the couple finally gets together. How do you pull off this type of delayed gratification without frustrating your readers?
JS: I think the main answer to that question can be found in number five above. My readers know I write Urban Fantasy and the ones who follow the series know Anna’s track record with boyfriends. The other element is that all my books take place in a very short time span. From the first to the sixth book, for instance, just one year has elapsed. It’s a way to avoid having to rush things.
ATUF: Romantic tension is an art. How do you create that tension with your characters?
JS: I agree, romantic tension is an art. I’m not sure I’ve mastered it. Anna is a vampire who often gives in to her sexual urges. As a human, she was never a shrinking violet. She chose bounty hunting as a profession, after all. So sexual aggression was a part of her make-up then and it didn’t change when she became a vampire.
ATUF: Is it important to have HEAs in Urban Fantasy?
JS: No. In fact, I think it would detract from the development of a series to have a happily-ever-after occur too early.
ATUF: What are you most looking forward to at the RT Conference this year?
JS: Meeting with old friends, many of whom I see only at RT. Spending time with Jill Smith, who has been so supportive of my career. Meeting readers who already know Anna and hopefully, winning a few new ones.
ATUF: Which panel other than your own are you most excited about?
JS: I can’t name just one—all the vampire and paranormal panels, the mystery panels...the first thing I do is go through the program and make my wish list. The only problem is that there are too many things going on at the same time! Makes choosing very difficult!
ATUF: Thanks so much for stopping by Jeanne. Come back anytime!
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| About the Author |
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Jeanne Stein is the bestselling author of the Urban Fantasy series, The Anna Strong Chronicles. She lives in Denver where she is active in the writing community, belonging to Sisters in Crime, Romance Writers of America and Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. In 2008 she was named RMFW's Writer of the Year and last year, her character, Anna Strong, received a Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award for Best Urban Fantasy Protagonist. The sixth in the Anna Strong series, Chosen, released in August 2010, also received a RT nomination for best Urban Fantasy novel. She has numerous short story credits, as well. Most recently, The Ghost of Leadville, reprinted in the Vampires: The Recent Undead ( Prime Books) and an Anna Strong Novella, Blood Debt, in Hexed (Berkley) . She is also one of the editor’s of RMFW’s award-winning anthology, Broken Links, Mended Lives. Her next full length novel, Crossroads, debuts in August 2011. |
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I don't read paranormal romance, but I do like when some schteamy scenes show up in my UF or whichever paranormal book I'm reading. Jeanne writes with schteamy perfection.
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