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Society Restored... Or Maybe Not. The Challenge of RestoringSociety

in Serial Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy

María T. Ramos-Garcia

South Dakota State University

In her seminal work A Natural History of the Romance Novel

(2003) Pamela Regis points to eight elements that appear in all

romance novels across history, starting with Jane Austen. One of

those elements is “society defined”. At the beginning of each

novel there appears to be an imbalance in society, which is

restored by the union of the protagonists at the end1. While this

element is not difficult to identify and explain in the single

title novels that dominated the romance market until the 1990’s,

society restored becomes problematic when the novel is part of a

series based in the same narrative world, since the happy ending

does not necessarily mean the resolution of the societal

conflict.

In a recent article, An Goris explains how while in the past

romance novels tended to be produced in single titles there has

been an evolution since the 1980’s and nowadays serials are

occupying a large portion of the romance market, especially since

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the dawn of the 21st century. She points out how seriality

affects the concept of the “happily ever after” (HEA) essential

to the romance genre with respect to the couples formed in

previous installments, and shows how this change brings

opportunity for either innovation or reinforcement of previous

models regarding narrative structure and the definition of the

role of women in society. The development of what Goris calls the

“post-HEA” stage in their relationships in subsequent novels

opens new possibilities.

One subgenre in which serialization is the norm, and that has

also grown tremendously in the new millennium is paranormal

romance, and its cousin urban fantasy which shares a greatly

overlapping readership and many hybrid creations in between the

genres2. For the purposes of this paper I will refer to both

genres as “paranormal” except when the distinction is relevant.

Although in these genres the love story of the different couples

(or the love story of the female protagonist through different

partners until she find the right one) is central to each novel,

in addition to the personal or inner conflict common in

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contemporary romance, there is an external conflict that takes up

a significant space and in some cases, especially in urban

fantasy, relegates the love story to a secondary role. This is

atypical for other romance subgenres in which “society restored”

is more of a backdrop and the societal conflict is resolved by

the union of the couple. In recent paranormal, as the fictional

world continues to develop in story arcs across many different

novels, the overall conflict normally grows and becomes more

complex. Many series utilize the societal conflict to create a

“cliff-hanger” that will prompt the reader to purchase the next

novel; however, there is a shift not only on the structure of the

romance, but also on the type of societal issues these novels

address and on reader expectations.

So if the serial novel challenges the romance principle of the

HEA, the challenge is even greater when we consider Regis’

“society restored” element. There is always the assumption that

at the end of the series society will, in fact, be restored, but

what happens more often than not in 21st century paranormal is

quite the opposite, an escalation on the external problems that

the hero/s and heroine/s confront that in many cases reach

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apocalyptic proportions. This paper is a tentative exploration of

those depictions of society identifying a group of common

characteristics to a number of series initiated at the beginning

of the century. It is my belief that the study of this element

and its significant development in these texts will shed light on

the sudden success and mainstreaming of paranormal and its

crossover appeal to readers of urban fantasy, as well as provide

a new lens on popular culture representations of the fears and

concerns of the new millennium.

The vampire as an individual with emotions and insights is always

traced back to Ann Rice’s Interview with the Vampire (1977) and

its sequels. The vampire as a potential romantic partner started

to take hold in the 1990’s but those stories were more

psychological in the nature of the conflict they portrayed. One

example would be Lori Herter’s David de Morrisey series (1991-

1993), in which vampire violence is non-existent and vampirism

becomes little more than a lifestyle choice when a cure is

discovered. In some other series there is an external conflict,

but in the books published in the 90’s it is limited to specific,

marginal individuals or groups. Sandra Booth, talking about the

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rise of the paranormal in the 1990’s describes the sexual

politics of those novels as “a regressive form of romance” (96),

and believes they are “attempting to reinforce a traditional

sense of the heroine’s virtue” (99). In an article published in

the year 2000 that expresses a deep ambivalence towards the

genre, Lee Tobin-McClain states that:

. . . [E]njoying so-called “super-alpha-male” books can

connote anti-feminism or masochism, both unacceptable

to many women and thus unspeakable in everyday life.

The paranormal romance provides a location for these

secret pleasures. (303)

Although the romantic relationships are not the topic of this

article, it should be noted that the outright label of regressive

by Booth or at least the ambivalence of Tobin-McClain has

permeated much of the criticism of novels written years after

they published their articles. While in some cases the label of

regressive is well-deserved even by more recent texts all too

often it has led the critics to just ignore any narrative

elements that did not fit their preconceptions.

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By the beginning of the 21st century the paranormal grew

enormously in production and sales, and even some of the series

that begun publication before that date changed in tone and

escalated the societal conflict. A number of series that

published their first installments between 2001 and 2008

approximately form a corpus with a certain level of commonality

by authors that still now in 2014 are considered the masters of

the genre and continue to appear on the top bestsellers lists3.

One of the factors that has greatly influenced this success of

the paranormal was the events of 9/11. Deborah Mutch links the

transnational nature of vampires in both the Sookie Stackhouse

series and Twilight (2005-2008) directly to this event.4 Mary Bly

also establishes the connection in Dark Lover (2005), the first

novel of J. R. Ward’s The Black Dagger Brotherhood (ongoing)5.

This change from the psychological to the political in

supernatural narratives after the terrorist attacks is not

exclusive to the romance novel. Aviva Briefel and Sam Miller

point out how by the late 1990’s “. . . horror films had largely

fallen off the cultural map. The ones that reached theaters were

characterized by disengagement and psychological

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introversion.”(2) However, “9/11 ushered in a period . . . in

which the fundamentals of our society and existence were

threatened . . . and in which every government and individual

would have to pick a side” (2). They continue stating that:

In a context where we could not openly process the

horror we were experiencing, the horror genre emerged

as a rare protected space in which to critique the tone

and content of public discourse. Because they take

place in universes where the fundamental rules of our

own reality no longer apply . . . these products of

popular culture allow us to examine the consequences

not only of specific oppressive acts funded by our tax

dollars, but also of the entire Western way of life.

(3)

While it would be naïve to assume that all paranormal novels are

critical of the public discourse—some of them can indeed be quite

reactionary—it stands to reason that the surge of the genre after

9/11 is symptomatic and reflects the new anxieties and concerns

of authors and readers. As the Briefer and Miller warn regarding

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horror film, we should be cautious, though, on how to read these

texts and avoid the temptation of simple allegorical

interpretations of the “Others”(5). These anxieties, although

present in other elements of the story, are paramount to the

definition of society. Furthermore, the paranormal becomes a way

to speak of the unspeakable, and functions simultaneously as a

symbolic confrontation with world problems and an escapist

retreat. The treatment of these conflicts in each narrative can

vary greatly, but most of the series share several of the

following themes that I will call “the Discovery”, “the

Pervasiveness of Violence”, “the Alternative Community” and

“Diversity, Globalization and Transnationalism”.

The Discovery- Most of the series that stay in the realm of the

paranormal (i.e., the action takes place in a contemporary world

very similar to ours, and not outright fantastic) have at least

one main character in the first installment of the series—in most

cases it is a human (or allegedly human) heroine—that is not

aware of the existence of the supernatural, and makes the

shocking discovery6. This moment of new awareness of a menacing,

hostile world is one way in which these novels somehow conjure up

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the 9/11 events. In most cases, the discovery that monsters exist

is followed by the realization that not all monsters are good or

evil, and that the world is not so easily divided in black and

white. Humans can be monsters too. Quite often the cruelest

characters are not the paranormal beings, but human beings driven

by greed, violence, and prejudice. There are usually multiple

enemies, both from within and without and the distinction between

friend and foe is not easy to make.

The Pervasiveness of Violence- This is probably one of the most

controversial aspects of paranormal for critics. For the heroes

and heroines, violence is a necessity of life. Whether there is

an open war or they are fighting a more covert enemy, the

conflicts represented sooner or later require the use of brutal

force. In most series the heroes and some of the heroines are

soldiers, or work in some type of law enforcement. More

disturbingly, because of the paranormal nature of the conflicts,

our human institutions are insufficient to fight the enemy and

especially to mete out justice. There is an emphasis in a much

more swift and brutal type of justice. Torture, summarily

executions and all kinds of bodily and psychological punishment

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are common among the “bad guys”, but sometimes also among the

good guys, or at least those characters in between, even if in

those cases they are problematized. One of the most disturbing

aspects is the sexual violence both against men and women, even

if much of it occurred in the past, even if the perpetrators

invariably die, usually a death that satisfies poetic justice.

The importance of free will in who we are and what we do is

paramount. The animal side of the paranormal heroes and heroines

is celebrated, and especially heroes are consistently described

as “predators”. However, those instincts must be controlled at

all times. This tug of war between nature and nature, between the

animal instinct and the rational being is a constant in the

paranormal genres.

The Alternative Community- In most series subsequent installments

in which previously paired characters continue to appear lead to

the creation of alternative communities that in many cases

function as an alternative society model. In the case of

paranormal romance this is usually achieved through a community

(sometimes very literal, although in other cases more of a

network) of couples and their off-spring, while in urban fantasy

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it is forged through friendship and alliances and is usually less

defined. They have in common their place on the margins of human

society and their attempt to create a new alternative that does

not necessarily follow the norms of either the human or any other

group’s traditional society.

Diversity, globalization and transnationalism- Diversity appears

represented through the supernatural others, while color-

blindness is often the norm regarding actual race and ethnicity,

a tendency in many other popular culture genres in recent times.

That is, interracial pairs are formed all the time, but even in

the most realistic of settings, there is no reaction of the

couple or others or any conflict brought up by cultural

differences other than sexism. Conflict is often represented,

however, by the interspecies relationships. At least this occurs

among white female writers writing heteronormative novels. Some

minority writers that identify themselves as such do also include

minority issues in a more direct way. However, even when

characters come from all over the world, and legends of multiple

cultural traditions cohabitate in the fictional world, the United

States is almost always the physical location of the action7.

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Leslie Rabine explains how with the massive incorporation of

women to the labor market, in the 1980’s the world of the romance

novel extended from the domestic sphere to include the world of

work, and tried to find a resolution that harmonized those two

worlds in conflict. In some ways, it can be said that the

paranormal of the 21st century incorporates into the romance not

only the world of work, but also the sphere of global conflict

and tries to somehow find a resolution from the private to the

global. In contrast to the uncertainty of society, paranormal

novels compensate (or even overcompensate) with the romantic HEA

and the victories in the different battles that are fought in

individual books. Even with the temporary break-ups in subsequent

novels in authors like J. R. Ward (as studied by Goris), Nalini

Singh or Caridad Piñeiro, there is a certainty that the love in

those couples will be eternal. In most series couplings (called

mating, bonding, etc…) have magical and/or physical

manifestations that guarantee their indissolubility, unlike

marriage in Western culture. Most importantly, even though the

world depicted in these series is a violent or dangerous world,

and even if it is not clearly black and white, there is always

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the certainty that the heroes and heroines are fighting the good

fight, and are defending humanity. Because, after all, and even

if their biology, their instincts, or their sexual mores are not

necessarily human, what all protagonists aspire to is to be

human, with a Western-centered sense of humanism and personal

freedom that pretends to be universal8. The uncertainty of the

world is therefore attenuated by the certainties of the genre.

However, what the series rarely offer is any solutions. JR Ward’s

The Black Dagger Brotherhood is after all creating a community

under a king that recognizes himself as an obsolete form of

government, although necessary in the current circumstances of

the story. The situation is even more disturbing in the spinoff

Fallen Angels series by the same author, in which even the

archangels in heaven are being murdered. In Sherrilynn Kenyon’s

Dark Hunters series (2002-ongoing), the Atlantian god Acheron

functions as a deus ex machina to solve life and death situations,

but even he is impotent to solve all the injustices of a world in

turmoil. Once you bring the romance into the realm of global

issues, there is no easy way to reach the society restored stage.

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Like the real “war on terror”, in most cases the conflicts

created cannot reach a full satisfying resolution.

Charlaine Harris tried to do just that in the Sookie Stackhouse

series: to provide a traditional and definitive HEA for Sookie

with guarantees of safety and security, but even in this most

successful series the outcome had no credibility. While for some

time Sookie becomes a player that can make a difference in this

new world, her final choice in Dead Ever After (2012) is to

withdraw. She marries her boss in the bar, Sam, who, although a

shape-shifter himself, can be considered the closest thing to

“the boy next door” in the series and stays in Bon Temp, with a

promise from the vampires never to interfere in her life again.9

However, even at the most intimate level, this HEA does not sound

convincing. After many hot and steamy scenes of supernatural sex

with different partners along the series, the only time she has

intercourse with Sam in the novel it seems lackluster. The end of

the series has been considered by readers as anticlimactic, and

the ratings of the book in many popular websites are

significantly below those of the rest of the series. I would

argue that the failure of the coupling of Sam and Sookie has to

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do largely with the associated attempt to move back from a

societal conflict and to limit it to the personal. There is no

society restored, but a retreat from society. Sookie simply gives

up. Looking at it from Mutch’s reading, Sookie chooses to ignore

the globalized, conflicted world that surrounds her, which as a

resolution feels artificial and precarious. Trying to tie up all

loose ends, what the story loses is authenticity.

Thus, in paranormal romance and urban fantasy written by women in

the 21st century larger societal conflicts are represented

through the use of fantastic elements which allow a safer

approach to issues such as the fear and uncertainty brought by

the realization that the world is a dangerous place with unknown

threats, and the insufficiency of our current human institutions

to deal with global conflicts. This larger role of society has a

number of implications, but it resists easy allegorical

interpretations. There is still much critical work to be done to

reach a better understanding of this corpus, nevertheless its

study will bring great insight into the emotions, attitudes and

perspectives of authors and readers of some of the best-selling

fictions in recent years.

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1 According to Regis, society is always “in some way flawed; it may

be incomplete, superannuated, or corrupt. It always oppresses the

heroine and hero.” (31). It follows, then, that once all barriers

are overcome, and the betrothal is achieved, there must be some type

of readjustment or balance recovered in that society, at least

insofar as the flaw affects the protagonists. Their union lets them

“symbolically remake” the broader world (31). “[t]he scene or scenes

defining society establishes the status quo which the heroine and

hero must confront in their attempts to court and marry and which, by

their union, they symbolically remake” (31).

2 Usually urban fantasy series written by women have what has been

define as a “kick-ass” female protagonist in a world similar to our

own in which paranormal beings or other magical elements appear. The

point of view is consistently that of the main character and the

narration is in the first person. Contrary to other texts written by

men, love relationships have an important role in the narrative,

among the adventure elements, and there are usually several suitors

until the heroine chooses the “right one”, even if at the beginning

she was reluctant to commitment. The joining of the main couple does

not end the narrative, though. One example would be Patricia Brigg’s

Mercy Thomson Series (2006-ongoing). On the other hand, each

paranormal romance novel in a series concentrates on the love story

of a different couple, although they are all in the same fictional

world and strongly connected to each other. The narrative voice is in

the third person, but the point of view usually alternates between

the hero and the heroine, although there are cases of polyphony with

other voices added to the story an example of this model would be any

Christine Feehan series. However, there are many hybrids, such as

Yasmine Galenorn’s Sisters of the Moon series (2006-ongoing), which

is published by Zebra as paranormal romance, but has three sisters as

the main characters who alternate as narrators, one in each book,

although the fifteenth has just been published. Although other

couples are formed in the story, it is clear that the three sisters

are the heroines of the story. This series also breaks the

traditional romance pattern because one of them is married to three

men, and another has both a wife and a male consort. Jeaniene Frost’s

Night Huntress series is a hybrid because it mixes books in which Cat

is the traditional urban fantasy protagonists with others (Dark

Huntress World) in which other couples take front stage and are

narrated from the point of view of both the hero and the heroine.

There are many other examples of hybridization, however, as Gwenda

Bond points out, while these two genres share a great deal of the

same readership, readers and keenly aware of the differences and have

different expectations for each genre.

3 It should be noted that some of those series have over 20 separate

volumes already and only a couple are officially complete, such as

Kelly Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld (2001-2012) and Charlaine

Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse (2001-2013), both of them within the

category of urban fantasy or hybrid.

4 However, she gets the dates wrong, since the first book in the

Sookie Stackhouse series was written two years before and published

months before the attack on the Twin Towers.

5 Although not explicitly mentioned in the novel, the construction of

masculinity, the appearance of a new type of threat that is among us

(the lessers in the novel), and the inability of law enforcement to

protect us from the threat, therefore the call for a suspension of

liberties and military action, can be seen in Wrath, the king of the

vampires and hero of the novel (66-67).

6 In some cases, such as in the Sookie Stackhouse series or the

Chicagoland Vampires, by Chloe Neill (2009-) vampires came out of the

closet recently at the beginning of the story, so Sookie and Merit,

the female protagonists, are aware of their existence, but don’t

really know much about them. In these cases, it is the entire society

—not one isolated character—that undergoes the shock of discovering

this scary new world.

7 Even authors of different nationalities tend to locate their

fictional worlds in the US. Most of Armstrong’s Women of the

Otherworld series takes places across the US territory and very

little in her native Canada. Nalini Singh, from New Zealand, places

the action of her Psy-changeling series (2006-ongoing) in San

Francisco.

8 Data in Start Trek

9 Two years before the beginning of the story, vampires had made

their existence public globally on TV. Sookie, a waitress in the

small town on Bon Temps, Louisiana who can read people’s minds fell

in love with her neighbor the vampire Bill in the first book of the

series, published before 9/11 and that is still more personal and

psychological. Over the course of the series, though, we discover

that vampires have a global economic network, working pretty much

like a multinational, and also that there are many other types of

supernatural creatures the unbeknownst to us are part both of human

society and of human economy (Mutch). In the previous novel she found

out that her vampire lover at the time, Eric, had been forced by his

sire into an arranged marriage to a vampire queen. As the only way

out of this promise, Eric was hoping Sookie would use a magic object

given to her by her fairy grandfather. However, Sam was killed in a

fight and she used the object to save his life instead. After this

event neither Eric nor Sookie tried to fight for their love. He

married the queen, and as part of their marriage agreement, he got

protection for Sookie from all vampires in the world. As a result,

Sookie was free to live a “normal life” as long as she stayed away

from vampire politics. Her subsequent relationship and eventual

marriage to Sam, and a life in Bon Temps away from all the conflicts

that she was part of before was, according to Harris, her plan for

Sookie all along, to end up the “right person” for her (quote). In

fact, and leave out any doubts, in 2013 Harris published an

additional book narrating the rest of the lives of most characters in

alphabetical order to provide even more closure. Sookie and Sam work

in the bar, add a catering service to it and have four children.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Armstrong, Kelly Women of the Otherworld (2002-2012)

Bly, Mary “On Popular Romance, J. R. Ward, and the Limits of Genre Study” In

New Approaches to Popular Romance Fiction. Critical Essays. Sarah Franz and Eric

Selinger, Eds. Jefferson, NC: McFarland; 2012

Bond, Gwenda “When Love is Strange” In Publishers Weekly

Booth, Sandra “Paradox in Popular Romances of the 1990’s: The Paranormal versus Feminist

Humor” In Paradoxa; Studies in World Literary Genres 3(1-2): 1997 (94-106)

Briefel, Aviva and and Sam J. Miller Horror after 9/11. World of Fear, Cinema of Terror U of

Texas P: Austin, 2011.

Feehan, Christine “Carpathians” series (1999-)

Frost, Jeaniene “Night Huntress” series (2006-)

Galenorn, Yasmine “Sisters of the Moon” series (2006-)

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