SBD: the HEA
Oct. 29th, 2007 08:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmc_bks'Tis Monday. I didn't have anything to write about...until I finished my commute book on the ride into work this morning.
A copy of Sherri Erwin's To Hell With Love arrived on my doorstep on Friday. From Amazon. I don't remember ordering it. Did I read a review? An interview? I don't know. But The Devil as hero was intriguing...I was trying to figure out how it was going to work, since he obviously is tied to Hell. Was the heroine going to be a modern day Persephone/Proserpina?
Dear Zebra Publishing:
WTFO? You have labeled this book as Paranormal Romance -- those words are stamped on the spine. I think your advertising is misleading.
You probably know this, being a fairly big publisher of the romance oeurve. But just in case you had some kind of temp working the press or handling quality control when the cover/design of this book was done, I'll restate the Rule of Romance Genre Publishing: The formula or recipe for romance includes a wide variety of spices and flavorings, but the general gist of the romance genre is a focus on the relationship of two individuals ending in an HEA. What's an HEA? Well, the mileage varies on that one. Marriage with 2.3 babies? Yes, for some. A promise of a relationship of some sort? Yes, that's enough for other readers.
One recent book has what is an HEA for some -- the heroine comes back as a ghost. Okay, that didn't work for me. Why? Because in my mind and in the supernatural world established in all the fiction I've read, ghosts are the manifestation of the person at the moment they died. They cannot grow, they cannot change, they simply are. Which means that they are not growing and changing with their beloved (who's still alive). That doesn't strike me as healthy or happy, but as stagnant and sad. So I have a hard time seeing a ghost as a partner capable of participating in an HEA, and nothing Ward wrote, not even in the slice of life on her website, has persuaded me otherwise. But obviously other readers disagree; the two characters are together in the end and happy, thus an HEA. The key word there is together.
What is my gripe about To Hell With Love? Well, that there is no HEA within the confines of the book. That crappy epilogue in which Owen/The Devil is so pleased to see his daughter from afar? Sucked. Telling Kate that they'll be together eventually? Screw that. Eventually being together in the afterlife is not an HEA to me. Is she supposed to be celibate and loveless for the rest of her life, waiting to be reunited with him in Hell? Ugh. If not, how am I (as reader) supposed to think of her new love? Just a stand in until she kicks the bucket and gets to be with The One? More ugh.
Being separated for a lifetime due to Great Sacrifice and Great Love are romantic in an epic saga kind of way...but they do not make for a genre romance's HEA.
Disappointed for The Devil,
jmc
ps I've had this problem with several paranormals in the past year or so. Is the genre trying to grow? Or just trying to scam more bucks from sucker readers who want to see those characters get an HEA and are willing to pay for two or three or more books to get it, rather than just the one book?
pps I think this may be the book that Meljean was talking about here.
A copy of Sherri Erwin's To Hell With Love arrived on my doorstep on Friday. From Amazon. I don't remember ordering it. Did I read a review? An interview? I don't know. But The Devil as hero was intriguing...I was trying to figure out how it was going to work, since he obviously is tied to Hell. Was the heroine going to be a modern day Persephone/Proserpina?
Dear Zebra Publishing:
WTFO? You have labeled this book as Paranormal Romance -- those words are stamped on the spine. I think your advertising is misleading.
You probably know this, being a fairly big publisher of the romance oeurve. But just in case you had some kind of temp working the press or handling quality control when the cover/design of this book was done, I'll restate the Rule of Romance Genre Publishing: The formula or recipe for romance includes a wide variety of spices and flavorings, but the general gist of the romance genre is a focus on the relationship of two individuals ending in an HEA. What's an HEA? Well, the mileage varies on that one. Marriage with 2.3 babies? Yes, for some. A promise of a relationship of some sort? Yes, that's enough for other readers.
One recent book has what is an HEA for some -- the heroine comes back as a ghost. Okay, that didn't work for me. Why? Because in my mind and in the supernatural world established in all the fiction I've read, ghosts are the manifestation of the person at the moment they died. They cannot grow, they cannot change, they simply are. Which means that they are not growing and changing with their beloved (who's still alive). That doesn't strike me as healthy or happy, but as stagnant and sad. So I have a hard time seeing a ghost as a partner capable of participating in an HEA, and nothing Ward wrote, not even in the slice of life on her website, has persuaded me otherwise. But obviously other readers disagree; the two characters are together in the end and happy, thus an HEA. The key word there is together.
What is my gripe about To Hell With Love? Well, that there is no HEA within the confines of the book. That crappy epilogue in which Owen/The Devil is so pleased to see his daughter from afar? Sucked. Telling Kate that they'll be together eventually? Screw that. Eventually being together in the afterlife is not an HEA to me. Is she supposed to be celibate and loveless for the rest of her life, waiting to be reunited with him in Hell? Ugh. If not, how am I (as reader) supposed to think of her new love? Just a stand in until she kicks the bucket and gets to be with The One? More ugh.
Being separated for a lifetime due to Great Sacrifice and Great Love are romantic in an epic saga kind of way...but they do not make for a genre romance's HEA.
Disappointed for The Devil,
jmc
ps I've had this problem with several paranormals in the past year or so. Is the genre trying to grow? Or just trying to scam more bucks from sucker readers who want to see those characters get an HEA and are willing to pay for two or three or more books to get it, rather than just the one book?
pps I think this may be the book that Meljean was talking about here.
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Re: From Carrie http://lovelysalome.blogspot.com
Date: 2007-10-29 02:53 pm (UTC)Which brings up another point: if The Devil is going to be your hero, you may want to share a little more of his world and theology.