Werewolves and Vampires and Romance, Oh My!
Confession time.
I find werewolves a teensy bit, well — hot. Something about a man in love becoming feral and passionate at the same time is kind of, I don’t know, exotic. Sexy. Provoking.
Not that I’d want my husband to go all hairy on me. Or grow long canines. His teeth are quite nice the way they are. So is his back.
I attended a writers’ conference once where a well known author read an excerpt from her book. In the excerpt, an extremely handsome, well-endowed man, trapped in the female protagonist’s attic at night with a full moon overhead, becomes a wolf — a very sexy wolf. And as the writer described the interaction between the two characters, the audience hung on her every word. No one so much as coughed. That’s how spell-binding it was. I think every woman in the conference hall ran out and bought her book the next day. So, clearly, I’m not alone in my thinking.
Vampires, on the other hand – nuh-uh. Doesn’t do it for me. Somehow being punctured in the throat and drained of blood by a pale dead guy who sleeps in a box with a lid on it holds no thrill. Actually, it turns me off. Why are vampire novels so popular?
At least I have some good news to report for all of us mystery lovers. According to an article in USA Today, entitled “Librarians ‘hold’ mystery suspect,” by Jacqueline Blais, librarians have verified, via their own list of the Books Most Borrowed in U.S. Libraries, that the fiction most sought-after by patrons is mysteries. Cool, huh? (The list is posted at 20 times a year.)
Hmm. I wonder if I can work a werewolf into one my Flower Shop Mysteries. What would Abby Knight do if she were confronted by a werewolf? Or…. what if Marco WAS a werewolf! It’s something to think about.
Okay, I told you my secret. Want to share yours? What do you find exotic, arousing, or provoking in a novel?
Have a great week.