Reading Up On Paranormal Romance Novels

BY GINA MCGALLIARD

Unless you have been living under a rock, you've noticed the explosion of the genre of paranormal romance, be it the" Twilight" series, the Sookie Stackhouse Novels - now the hit television show "True Blood" - or the many other "dark fantasy" books and television shows that infuse the sensuality and erotic flavor of a classic romance novel with the mystery and darkness of the supernatural.

Readers who want their dose of the craze on a monthly basis should check out Harlequin, which publishes two new paranormal romances every month. The publishing company, which has several lines of romance novels, has one dedicated to paranormal stories, known as Harlequin Nocturne (formerly Silhouette Nocturne). The line was created after Harlequin noticed the rising popularity of paranormal romance and experienced positive reader feedback after releasing some paranormal-themed stories.

"So to better service our readers, which we are always looking for, we decided it was time to launch a series that featured darkly atmospheric, sensual paranormal romances," said Harlequin Nocturne editor Tara Gavin.

Nocturne novels feature a wide variety of magical creatures, such as demons, angels, shape shifters, zombies and people with psychic powers, although the most predominant supernatural beings are vampires and werewolves. Harlequin also features two paranormal e-books a month, known as Nocturne Bites.

Because the genre lends itself to creating entire worlds more than realistic fiction, Nocturne has found success with multi-book series that feature a continuing storyline.

"With Nocturne, we [have] found that miniseries are very, very popular," says Gavin, who also said Nocturne readers tend to skew a bit younger than readers of other Harlequin lines. "Writers who build worlds and communities - readers really react to that very strongly, which is the same in our other series lines as well, but in Nocturne we do feature probably more of that."

Recent Nocturne miniseries have included "Immortal Sheiks" by Nina Burns, which follows the stories of three sisters and is interwoven with Ancient Egyptian folklore, and "Time Raiders", a time travel saga which takes readers to seventh-century China, the Persian Empire and Ancient Greece, and the Druid times of long-ago Briton. "New York Times" bestselling authors such as Linda Howard, Linda Winstead Jones, Heather Graham and Beverly Barton have also written for Nocturne.

Harlequin is particularly excited about a four-book series being published later this year called the "Royal House of Shadows", Gavin said. Set in the mythical kingdom of Eldon, a realm similar to Camelot, the ruling king and queen have four children, each possessing their own magical gift.

"Unfortunately their kingdom is overthrown by an evil monarch called Blood Sorcerer," said Gavin. "The king and queen hold hands as they're being killed and throw their progeny to al different realms, so that the Blood Sorcerer can't find them. And the king fills them with a need for vengeance, and the queen fills them with a need more or less to survive. And so they do survive, and in each book you hear each child's story." Also on the docket this is a three- book vampire series by author Rachel Lee coming out in early 2012.

Samhain Publishing - named for the fact that the company was launched on November 1, 2006 - also carries a wide variety paranormal romances. Although some question if stories about vampires and werewolves can continue to sell, Samhain believes they can.

"People keep thinking, '"Twilight"'s been out a few years, people are going to get sick of this kind of stuff, they're going to want something new and different besides werewolves and vampires," said Samhain editorial director Heather Osborn.

"I keep telling authors, 'Don't listen to the hype. We've still got a lot of interest."

Although Samhain publishes books featuring all kinds of magical creatures such as fairies, angels, demons and witches, shape shifters and vampires tend to be the most popular.

"New releases from Samhain include Maximum Witch" by Jodi Bedford, "Hot as Hades" by Alisha Rai - a novella inspired by the Greek myth of Persephone and Hades - and the urban fantasy romance "Legacy" by Denise Tompkins. Samhain also recently launched a horror line.

Osborn also predicts that paranormal romance will continue to be popular.

"It's constantly changing and evolving," she said. "There's enough people writing and enough people reading it now that it's really going to sustain its popularity. When you look at the YA section of the bookstore, they have a whole separate section for paranormal romance now... these are the readers that are going to grow up and move into reading adult fiction, and where are they going to gravitate to? Paranormal romance, of course."

Romance author Caden Leigh's interest in writing about the paranormal was sparked when as a child she began to read a series about a girl being sent away to a boarding school that was being taken over by alien werewolves. To her great disappointment, the driver of the county bookmobile, where she had found the series, couldn't find the ending books. So Leigh decided to write her own ending.

Although Leigh loves all paranormal creatures, in the future she is interested in writing a YA book about an army of brownies, which are household elves, fighting against an evil Cailleach Bheur, the mythical blue hag of Scotland.

"As legend tells, brownies can create mischief, but for the most part they dwell in human homes lending a helping hand," said Leigh. "If the Hag were to wage war against the humans, I am pretty sure brownies would be the first to kick some butt."

As for the recent upward swing in the popularity of paranormal romance, Leigh believes this is simply a continuation of our innate human fascination for the mysterious and unknown.

"The enchantment has always been there, really," said Leigh. "It is just more accepted now, I think. I mean, all cultures throughout the ages have fables of women falling in love with or being seduced by gods, angels and whatnot. Like Beauty and the Beast, it's a tale as old as time."

Ginga E Kickoff 17

It doesn't matter how few people are listening, I'm going to keep saying it -" Ginga e Kickoff" is a great anime that stubbornly refuses to put a foot wrong.

I don't keep calling "Ginga e Kickoff" the best sports anime about kids since the first season of "Major "just for the heck of it - that's high praise given how much I revere that show, and it fits. There are many similarities between the two series (some of which are admittedly common to many in the genre) prominent among which is an unerring emotional honesty. There are certain shows that simply "get" things like family dynamics, friendship and passion for something you love - and sometimes because they're about kids or "frivolous" things like sports, they're dismissed as incapable of emotional depth. The loss goes to those who can't see past their own prejudices and deprive themselves of a great viewing experience.

While many similarities exist, there's one huge difference that jumps out: "Major" was a show about a boy who was phenomenally gifted at the sport he loves, and "GeK "is a show about a boy who struggles every day just to be good enough to get on the field. There's a fundamental truth at play in" Ginga" - maybe one of the most important of the series - and it's the fact that it's much easier to enjoy something you're naturally good at than something you're not. What makes Shou a great MC for a series such as this is not that he's exceptionally gifted, but that he's not - and refuses to give up anyway. The story is about believing in yourself and having fun despite not being the best, and working harder than anyone else to try and make up the difference. There's nothing trivial or juvenile about that - just optimistic and positive.

If I were to quibble with anything in "GeK", it's that the show hasn't focused so much on that personal journey of Shou's lately. It's the luxury of a long series to be able to take its time introducing all the characters and "GeK" is doing it well, but while the fujoshi swoon over the Furuya triplets and the show focuses on Reika's crisis of confidence, Shou's own struggle has taken a bit of a back seat. Well, that turns in a big way in episode 17, set just on the eve of the City Tournament. After a visit to Misaki-san and a Tokyo Rosa practice, Shou, Erika and Reika get together for a little post-match conference (he may struggle on the field, but never let it be said that Outa Shou isn't a player - two girls in his room before he reaches middle school) and Shou spins the tale of how he came to love the game.

It wouldn't be fair to compare this episode to "Major's" first arc, because" GeK" had to establish in half an episode which "Major" took six to do - the relationship of a boy and his father, and the role sport plays in it. But it's astonishing just how much of an impression was made in a few short minutes here, and again it's because the emotional radar is spot-on. Turns out the tireless terrier was a bashful puppy, quiet of voice and a bookworm (hard as that is for Erika-chan to believe), despite his father's constant admonishments to speak up for himself. It was a late-night viewing of Japan's World Cup match that sparked Shou's interest in the sport - specifically, rooting for the team captain and his father's favorite player, Tanaka Satoru. Sadly it turned out to be Tanaka's final match - but inspired Shou to try and become the greatest soccer player in the world.

Obviously, he has a long way to go (though he showed real improvement in the mini-game with the Rosa youth team) but that's the point. It's easy to see where Shou gets his personality from, because his father was also a tirelessly optimistic fellow who never stopped encouraging his son to try and do better. He was terrible at soccer too, but that didn't stop him from loving it - and his response when Shou's own struggles threaten to do that is to stake out the player's entrance at Murayama Stadium during a visit by the national team, with Tanaka-san, using his pop-up yakiniku stand to grab Tanaka's attention and get him to sign a ball for his son. I don't know whether the show will ever tell us what happened to Outa-san or not, but what really made this story effective was that it wasn't maudlin or depressing - there were no tears from Shou over losing his father, just promises about the future.

With Shou following Tanaka-san's advice (which happened to be the same as his father's) and outworking everyone else to try and make up the difference in their skills, I have no doubt that his on-field reward is going to come eventually, and maybe quite soon. And soon enough his body is going to start catching up with some of his classmates (his father certainly seemed to be a normal-sized man) and he'll suddenly be more than a loud voice with good soccer sense. For now, though, he'll continue to be a tireless terrier among the fox-hounds and retrievers, nipping at their heels and triumphing through sheer persistence (and volume). And that, for me, makes Shou an exceptionally likable protagonist.

Credit: dominant-male.blogspot.com

Movie Review Shanghai Kiss

As a little girl, I habitually listened to my generation jargon their music and motion picture crushes and the campaign to one day merge them in awesome weddings with dozens of photographers and celebrities present. Surpass it was Jonathan Taylor Thomas, after that it was the Backstreet Boys, after that it was Leonardo DiCaprio. I always felt various and dead out. For some excuse (perhaps to the same degree highest of my male generation and my first chop into pieces were Chinese. I'm still crawl for an AMWF romance here!) I just never found in person greedy of the precise people that my generation drooled over, as I just hunted an AMWF romanceI debate colorless guys looked strange. Say from Mulan's ever-delicious Shang, I never sincere found any male characters who resentful my think.

Like a friend told me about Shanghai Kiss and the AMWF relationship in it, I was doubtful at first. I'd seen Hiroshima Mon Amour and Anna and the Ruler, but neither one was awfully advocate and I couldn't verification to them. I hadn't yet seen an AMWF relationship that felt forceful to me, one that I possibly will carry seen in person in. But after that as I started remark Shanghai Kiss I was a bit greater applicant. Ken Leung was thrilling and I accepted Hayden Panettiere from her spitfire Give a lift to the Titans go. Ken Leung I did not rationally so promptly classify until I watched Landslide Hour the nearby day; he plays the part of an crime henchman and has had lesser successes in the role of after that (Law and Set straight, Lost, Saw).

Panettiere and Leung were enormous choices for the characters of Liam Liu and Adelaide Bourbon. They worked very well together right from the opening and even their speaking didn't thoroughgoing unconscious, which is habitually a problem for pictures due as romantic comedies. Leung's Liam Liu comes across as stubborn and uncertain of himself, period Panettiere's Adelaide is approximately grossly animated. Two unequivocally perverse character types, and yet I found in person hoping for to see them go by as a couple. I debate that I was goodbye to get to watch the go forward of a forceful AMWF relationship that would entirely put improbable my girlhood vista that I was strange for having fallen casually in love with a Chinese boy to the same extent I was eight.

That is... Until it became liberate that Adelaide was only sixteen and Liam was in his late twenties. That's right, this "romantic comedy" is not made with the commissioner key in of two thirty-somethings realizing their differences and coming together in an stuffed flair. In fact, formerly the preliminary scenes I was dead wondering how Shanghai Kiss possibly will carry been due as a romantic comedy at all. It looked to me like Adelaide was critically controlling on the under the trees, childhood guy and he was just humoring her to the same degree she made for multihued company. The age difference was a steady mock roughly speaking the motion picture, references to maturing put in jail time included.

It summarily became get out that Shanghai Kiss was less about Liam and Adelaide's shady friendship and greater about Liam's go forward as a man. Liam was unconscious to mandate late-night the animated and overattached Adelaide for a become fainter to Shanghai. By this point in the motion picture it had become get out that Liam was trying to distance himself from his bequest as faraway as humanly that you can imagine, so it came as no elevate to me that he dead for Shanghai only for the maturing economic benefit and not to the same degree he plainly hunted what on earth to do with his family.

It's usual comprehension that not every first-generation American connects well with his or her refinement and environment, and I cannot personal sincere bacteria organization for not budding up fobby like his parents. Liam is so far from what on earth Shanghainese that I would carry hypothetical you if you told me he was adopted by colorless people as a child. That being aimed, to the same extent it came time for Liam's Shanghai become fainter I had over and done from loving his character and hoping for to see him go by to sincere despising him and telling in person that I wasn't taken aback he was so unsuccessful in life. I debate that he was relaxed, absurd, arrogant, the best of stereotypical American persona to the same extent confronted with unfamiliar and unfamiliar situations.

Shanghai Kiss - Hurl to DVD, but Hayden Panderette is slammin hot, AND theres an AMWF Romance!

But his leading stereotypical American-type persona forms the establish for the beauty of his character's go forward. I don't want to tunnel into too many information and disfigure the motion picture, but Liam's time in Shanghai transforms him from the commissioner, rude American hiker that I want to bugbear into a character that I am again rooting for. He makes a few unequivocally humane decisions that will accurately change amateur lives, decisions that I'm not sure I possibly will carry made in person if I were in that situation. The rude American stereotype probably has a very good excuse for obtainable, but it's stimulating to see that about face.

Adelaide does finally find her way back into the story and back into Liam's life, but not in the way that I would carry hoped. In spite of their age difference, I had hoped to see greater go forward in the Liam/Adelaide relationship than I was unlimited. I'm dead with greater questions than answers. Liam entirely realizes the gap of his ways and wants to help other people attach importance to their thoughts, but what about his own? At the back whatever thing is aimed and dead, who is Adelaide and what does she mean to him? It's stimulating to see a motion picture everywhere it is the colorless character who is the co-conspirator to the Asian triumph and not the other way physically, but I want to see Liam and Adelaide recover into whatever thing greater. The moviegoer is dead seeing the youth of what may or may not recover into a friendship, a relationship, or who knows what else.

I carry to give Shanghai Kiss four out of five joss sticks without difficulty to the same degree of that. I love that it's the Asian man who is entirely the triumph. I love that he plainly shows go forward of character and doesn't persist in as some frivolous, stereotypical bit part. I love that he is banned as some criterion man who isn't slight to Asian women. I very well love that I am able to watch an Asian male character in a advocate setting who I possibly will fairly become sensitive in if I were to see him in the streets of my ordinary Atlanta... but I want to see greater than I am unlimited. I feel like the motion picture professional far too anon for me to get what I hunted out of the story.

I very put it to somebody the motion picture as it's a rare occupation of in nature positive character go forward, but be complete to feel like supplies carry been dead scarce.

Related POSTS:

* Immediately Five Living example Assessment (or Sung Kang / Gal Gadot's AMWF Company)
* The Conservationist Hornet Living example Assessment AMWF Romances
* Mao's Platform Artist Living example Assessment (An AMWF Romance Generation Living example)
* 'Kissing Peripheral the Lines: A Redress Floorboards of Fervor and Alacrity and Auspiciously Always At the back by Diane Farr Win Assessment
* How I Got My Hot Asian Boyfriend, Distribute 1

Making Nlp Work

I recently met someone whilst I was in the USA who said he had a friend who was a psychologist who said NLP was all just hype with no substance and that the techniques don't work. This seems to be a belief that stops a lot of people from even beginning to learn NLP - after all, if you think it's all hype, why even bother? Well, from having been working in NLP for over 20 years, I can quite definitely say that it does work, in fact out of all of the different tools in psychology and personal development that I've studied, it has the most effective and powerful tools and techniques I've found. But how come some people say it doesn't work? Well, there are several reasons, but first it's got to be because NLP has gone through such a boom that it's being taught everywhere. In fact, just search NLP and you'll find more NLP courses advertised than pretty much anything else! Now that's a good thing and a bad thing! It's good that people are hearing about it, but bad because the standards are really mixed. I mean, I get people attending my trainings who have had really bad experiences on other NLP training courses and fortunately took the chance to try again and were really happy when they attended my NLP course. So what makes the difference in getting results in NLP? Well there's lots of things, but here are a few keys if you want the most out of NLP 1 NLP is about principles, not jut techniques - many people attend rapid NLP trainings where they learn a lot of techniques, but don't really get taught the principles behind them - and it's the principles that really make NLP work so you can get excellent results. I've met many people who didn't get results when they learned NLP simply because the principles weren't taught. When you understand the principles, you'll get great results from everything you learn in NLP. For that reason, don't try to learn it too fast - you need to take time to master NLP 2 Responsibility for change is YOURS! If you want to get the most out of a training, you have to be prepared to put 100% in. Because it's not the other person that makes you change, it's through your active involvement in the process. 3 Practice to get to mastery! You have to really practice what you learn. Experience makes the difference! I recently read someone's website who proudly said they had become an NLP trainer within 6 months of learning NLP - like that was a good thing! To train other people, you first need to have real experience and depth of understanding yourself - if you only half understand what you teach, your students will get even less! It's a little like the game 'Chinese whispers' where the message gets more and more distorted, until it's eventually meaningless. I attended about 5 Practitioner and 5 Master Practitioner trainings and then assisted on dozens of courses as well as working with hundreds of clients before I started training people in NLP. As a result, my students get great results and that's what's really important to me - getting NLP to work.

Credit: pualib.blogspot.com