Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy discussion

I see there are a few of these topics running already, and am hoping to find my next great read from them, but my idea of "what's next" has a twist. As much as I LOVE the story and characters in the BDB, I believe it's Ward's Writing style that sucks me in the most, I mean she writes just like I talk! And I can so relate to a story that is told just like I would tell it if I were having a casual conversation! So what I want to know is, are there any other authors out there with similar writing styles (preferrably vampires, but i'm cool with other paranormal subjects as well!)? Thanks :)

~Malice

I think Kresley Cole does a pretty good job in her Immortals series. The Valkyrie and the witches are particularly hip in this series and there's no funnier character than Nix with her funny t-shirts and crush on Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs.

How about Jeaniene Frost's Night Huntress books? Cat has a smart mouth, which I always love in a heroine, and Bones has that British slang. I'm just enamored of this series. I was holding back At Grave's End as a reward for myself but read most of it last night instead of working. Oops. I'm saving the last two chapters for tomorrow morning's breakfast. I am sooo impressed with my own self control :)

Caitlin Kittredge's Nocturne City has a werewolf heroine, also wonderfully snide. J.F. Lewis's Staked has a great/scary vampire hero who has lingering after-effects of being embalmed before coming back from the dead, which I thought was great.

With slightly lighter tones -- and all the danger! -- Angie Fox's Accidental Demon Slayer and Sharon Ashwood's Ravenous have real, casual voices, I think.

Hi I think you may like Adrian Phoenix A Rush of Wings and In The Blood::But if you don't::well don't blame me Ha Ha::seriously i love these as they're definately different:: there's good sex and in context of the story and the storyline is not your normal romance /HEA type thing::also the storyline runs at a good pace:: ivread these because i like BDB and was looking for something simlar but not the same if you know what i mean:).

Yall have given me a great place to start. I am headed to the bookstore with a list right now woohoo.
Thanks a bunch!

~Malice

The Night Huntress books are great! I also love the Cassandra Palmer books and the Demonica series.

You might want to try Lara Adrian Midnight Breed Series... I thought it was great!

I ended up picking up the first Lara Adrian yesterday and am liking it so far but I think i'm going to have major issues now comparing everything i read to BDB, and nothing coming close LOL. But so far it's got me hooked so we'll see :)

Also finally grabbed Kenyon's Fantasy Lover, and was on the hunt for the Night Huntress series but the book store was out of the first book so I put it on order.

This should keep me busy for a week or so lol, and the list of others to get is growing. Thanks for all the suggestions!

~Malice

Well, it's impossible not to compare Lara Adrian's books to BDB because they're so similar.
I really like Adrian's books, but they don't quite reach the same intensity level as BDB so just don't go in expecting too much and I think you'll really enjoy them.

I can't wait for you to get your hands on the first Night Huntress book - I love those books!

I totally agree. Lara Adrian's Midnight Breed series is also very good and you have to try not to compare it so much to the BDB series. I know it's hard because I did the same thing when I read the first book but after I read through the rest of the books I really enjoyed them...

OH and Kenyon is good one! She's my favorite so far!

I like The Demonica Series by Larissa Ione

Dawn wrote: "I like The Demonica Series by Larissa Ione"

I have these on my TBR list.

I am dying for the new BDB book to come out but in the meantime I am reading Halfway to the Grave by Frost. It is so good! I am already on the second one in the series and loving it! There are 3 so far and the 4th comes out this year!

Meredith919 wrote: "I am dying for the new BDB book to come out but in the meantime I am reading Halfway to the Grave by Frost. It is so good! I am already on the second one in the series and loving it! There are 3..."

OMG i think everyone is waiting for LA to come out:: have you ordered a copy::i think theres an awful lot of us who are doing re-reads just to get our BDB fix before the big day::28 April is fast approaching ::Yay::

Adrienne wrote:OMG i think everyone is waiting for LA to come out:: have you ordered a copy::i think theres an awful lot of us who are doing re-reads just to get our BDB fix before the big day::28 April is fast approaching ::Yay::

I did a pre-order from Amazon! I am hoping that it comes the day it is released because I can't wait that long! I have been doing re-reads also! It is so hard to find books that I like as much! : )

Meredith919 wrote: "Adrienne wrote:OMG i think everyone is waiting for LA to come out:: have you ordered a copy::i think theres an awful lot of us who are doing re-reads just to get our BDB fix before the big day::28 ..."

You may like to try Sherrilyn Kenyons Dark Hunter books::but you must start at book 1 because everything is inter linked::

Adrienne wrote: "Meredith919 wrote: "Adrienne wrote:OMG i think everyone is waiting for LA to come out:: have you ordered a copy::i think theres an awful lot of us who are doing re-reads just to get our BDB fix bef..."

Thanks! I will have to check them out. Is the first book Fantasy Lover? I heard some people saying they didn't like the first book and not to get put off by it.

Meredith919 wrote: "Adrienne wrote: "Meredith919 wrote: "Adrienne wrote:OMG i think everyone is waiting for LA to come out:: have you ordered a copy::i think theres an awful lot of us who are doing re-reads just to ge..."

Book 1 is very much different than the Dark Hunter books end up being, but the characters in Fantasy Lover, book 1, play parts in the future books.

I recently read Fantasy Lover and thought it was a wonderful story! Havent made it past that one yet, but plan to in the next few days :)

~Malice

I love all of the DH books::many people aren't keen on the Dream Hunters:: i love them!::i read them as part of the DH series but mentally go to Dream Hunter land:)::

I personally liked Fantasy Lover better than the books that came after. I'm one of those special and unique people that can't get into the Dark Hunters. As soon as I finish book 3, which feels like it may take three eternities, I will post a detailed review about all the reasons Kenyon's writing bugs me.

Nichole wrote: "I personally liked Fantasy Lover better than the books that came after. I'm one of those special and unique people that can't get into the Dark Hunters. As soon as I finish book 3, which feels like..."

if you give up on them still try and read *Acheron*::the fisrt part of the story is *nothing* like the rest of the books::so much so that i thought someone else must have written it::when i read the second part of the story i was surprised a how light weight it was :: i read *Acheron* first and read the other books on the strength of that first part::i have found that as the books go on IMO they do get better::but they are not everyones taste::especially if you prefer something a little more *meaty*

Hi, What is BDB? I just started to get into Paranormal romance this year, well that is other then Laurell K. Hamilton work. Which my sister Trinette got me into 3 years back. I'm slowly but sure finding more and more authors from this particular genre to fall in love with.

Kittiya wrote: "Hi, What is BDB? I just started to get into Paranormal romance this year, well that is other then Laurell K. Hamilton work. Which my sister Trinette got me into 3 years back. I'm slowly but sure fi..."

BDB = Black Dagger Brotherhood Series, by J.R. Ward

Fantastic Vampire series :)

~Malice

BDB--ick, ick, and did I mention ICK? Ok, I'm not sure what was wrong with this series, but it did absolutely nothing at all for me, Kitti. Yes, there are plenty of people in our group who love BDB--but there are a few of us who don't really get all the oohhhhhsssss. :o) But still, things would get really, really REALLY boring if we all liked the same books.

Ann wrote: "But still, things would get really, really REALLY boring if we all liked the same books.
"

Well said! I still wonder why I get scoffed at for not liking LKH *sigh* individuality IS a good thing LOL.

~Malice

I tried to get into the chat, but I couldn't get in :(

Well Malice--we could form a "I dislike LKH" forum. :o) Altho I do like SOME Of her works. Mainly the ones pre-divorce when there was a plot, story and the characters were interesting. Before she started writing novels with a short story worth of all 3 and the rest of the book was basically sex, sex and oh yeah, more sex. But I WILL defend her right to write that if its what she wants. I just don't happen to think I should be gung ho for her and love everything she's written.

I got the chat transcript via email today, and I am wondering, what is the spelling mistake on the cover of LA that they are talking about?

Malice wrote: "Ann wrote: "But still, things would get really, really REALLY boring if we all liked the same books.
"

Well said! I still wonder why I get scoffed at for not liking LKH *sigh* individuality IS..."

Thanks Malice! I think I will try the first one. I tend to like a little bit of everything, So I try not to discriminate books on references alone. I get what your saying Ann, I read all the "Twilight" books and get put down all the time for not LOVING them.

I posted the transcribed chat here: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

If anyone is interested. It's the edited version, but it's all there. It came in email last night and had to be posted in 4 parts to fit.

Enjoy.

Thank you so much!

Lauren wrote: "Thank you so much!"

You're welcome, enjoy!

I'm on Lover Unbound :P

Oh yeah I've been meaning to ask people, are the Weather Warden Books good? What about the Morganville Vampires?

People keep recommending Rachel Caine. :P

I've only read the first Weather Warden book, but I enjoyed it and plan to continue on with the series. I've read all of the Morganville books though and love them!

And ooh, Lover Unbound - where the series starts to become more UF and less PNR. I loved it though.

:P I'm like 3/4 of the way through it and really liking it. The series is awesome as a whole too :P

Kyle wrote: ":P I'm like 3/4 of the way through it and really liking it. The series is awesome as a whole too :P"

Told ya so!

So I had to go look at Rachael Caine. Here are some free short stories from her website.

http://www.rachelcaine.com/Free_Short...

I'm on pg. 200 of Lover Enshrined :P I read really fast and when I'm not at work my friends are so I have had all this free time this week so I'm just blazing through them.

By the way..Z is my favorite character.

Yep, Z's my man, too.

lol :P

Love Z, although I'm afraid he lost out to Rehvenge in LAv for me.

Yeah, that's a tough call, isn't it? It's a close tie for Z and Rehv for me. I will take either ;)

And as far as Rachel Caine and her Morganville books go, I just really like the world she developed - vamps being the bad guys for a change. And all of the housemates are flawed and really likeable, so I got really wrapped up in their adventures (of which there are many).

DarkHeart wrote: "And as far as Rachel Caine and her Morganville books go, I just really like the world she developed - vamps being the bad guys for a change. And all of the housemates are flawed and really likeabl..."

What would you compare them to? BDB?

Completely different. They're YA to start, but it's just a very different world. If I had to compare them, it would be more along the lines of Marr's Wicked Lovely series where the paranormal characters aren't necessarily the good guys they are in other books, and the humans are unwillingly drawn in.

I'm glad that I got into the series when there were already five books available (book six is out tomorrow) as they read like chapters in an overarching story. Caine loves her cliff hangers, and the next books starts up right where the last one left off.

Thanks for the information! I do appreciate it!

I'll have to read the Morganville books then :D

Rehvenge caught up to Z :D

When does the next one come out?

I finished LAv ;P

Kyle wrote: "Rehvenge caught up to Z :D

When does the next one come out?

I finished LAv ;P"

The next book Lover Mine is suppose to be out April/May 2010...so I've heard, I can't wait! I love Z too!!! So I guess now I'm just going to sit and wait for J.R. Wards new series Covet to come out in Sept. In the mean time I'm rereading the BDB and then I'm going to finish up the Carpathian's series.