Well, Hello, Suckers
By Belinda Luscombe (Feb. 19, 2006)

…The appeal of vampires in romantic fiction

One lonely heart meets her true love when she throws a knife into his chest. Another finds hers while she’s trying to raise the dead. Still another happens upon Mr. Right while performing emergency surgery on one of his fangs. If you think meeting guys is tough, you should try meeting vampires. …..

Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy: Defining two popular subgenres
by Keri Arthur – an article for Romance Writers of Australia

…Welcome to the world of Urban Fantasy fiction

The two hottest genres around at the moment are paranormal romance and urban fantasy. Publishers can’t seem to get enough of them, and just about everyone seems to be writing them…….

But what – if any – are the differences between the two? There’s plenty of small differences, but the basic – and most important – difference is the fact that one has its feet firmly planted in the romance field, and the other firmly planted in the fantasy field.

Paranormal romance and urban fantasy have only really been recognised as subsets of Romance since about 2006, so it can sometimes be hard to work out in which category particular books belong.

The most important issue to keep in mind is that paranormal romance always has romance at its heart. That means that the characters, the dynamic between them and the journey they take to find each other forms the heart of the story. When we talk about urban fantasy we tend to be more focused on world building where the complexity of the environment, society, geopolitical structure, species, etc has a supernatural flavour, but the stories are set in contemporary, real-world, urban settings.

You might be interested in looking at Wikipedia for some great information.

What it comes down to is that we love books where an alpha (regardless of species!) male and a bright sassy women are drawn together while faced with challenges and danger. In the 1990s Romance embraced Special Ops, Navy SEALS and Army Rangers as the embattled heros – but the realms of fantasy, science fiction and Romance are now closer than ever before and the sexy bad boys are vampires, demons (they’re the “new vampires” you know),werewolves, shapeshifters and the like. We never tire of Romance, a good thriller, hot steamy scenes and a good ending.

In fact, Romance is a huge business and according to Romance Writers of America, in 2007 sales from romance fiction generated US$1.37billion in annual sales, and that more than 41 million people in the United States alone read romances.  Romance Writers of America. Have a look a RWA because they have great information on authors, genres, books, conferences – as well as fascinating statistics. For instance, did you realise that of the romance releases tracked by Romance Writers of America in 2007:

• Contemporary series romance: 25.7 percent of romance releases in 2007
• Contemporary romance: 21.8 percent
• Historical romance: 16 percent
• Paranormal romance: 11.8 percent
• Romantic suspense: 7.2 percent
• Romantic suspense (series): 4.7 percent

So ……. for those of us who love romance, paranormal romance, urban fantasy, etc …. we are not alone!

When Love Is Strange: Romance Continues its Affair with the Supernatural
By Gwenda Bond (Publishers Weekly, 5/25/2009)

Article on the success and amazing growth of paranormal romance…

Think of a writer known for creating one of the most popular and memorable vampire series in history—one with 17 million copies of her books in print in 35 countries, one whose fans are so devoted that in 2008 the annual convention honoring her sold out in less than three minutes, one who managed six #1 rankings on the New York Times bestseller list in just over a year. No, not Stephenie Meyer—this publishing phenomenon is the reigning queen of the wildly successful paranormal scene, Sherrilyn Kenyon.