Hot Market!

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately, internet reading, trolling through sites that discuss current fiction trends and whatnot…just out of curiosity…and I’ve been finding the same kind of message being repeated over and over…apparently the romance market is HOT right now…hotter than it has been in a while. In particular, paranormal and historical romance is leading the way in high sales.

Now, the common belief that is presented by various publishing professionals is that the reason this type of romance is doing so well is because, due to the current economic crisis, we are all seeking a safe way to escape into a fantasy world.

I find this idea very intriguing. I am both a reader and writer of paranormal romance; I also enjoy a Scottish rogue from the sixteenth century or so every once in a while…but I never considered this a means of escaping the depression of the current economic times!

Personally, I think that there has always been a desire for paranormal romance; it’s just taken the rest of the world a while to figure out what a market there is for it. When I was a teenager I was reading historical romance, The Outlander by Diana Gabaldon was the first one I ever read…and then I was hooked. But there really wasn’t anything around that entered into the romantic paranormal world….except for Anne Rice…and although I love her books, they aren’t exactly satisfying in the romance department.

It doesn’t surprise me that paranormal is going strong. I have been entrenched in the supernatural genre in one way or another from the time that I was a child, preferring children’s books about little witches over Winnie the Pooh…I love writing in a genre that allows me to escape into a world of my own making. So escaping is on the agenda, just not from the current economic woes!

So what do you all think? What draws you to paranormal or historical romance? It is a way of escaping reality? Or do you love it for other reasons?