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19-500: Dark Prince is a paranormal romance written by American author Christine Feehan . Published in 1999, it is the first book in her Dark Series , which to date has 33 titles. Dark Prince introduces the Carpathians , a powerful and ancient race. They have many gifts, including the ability to shape-shift, and extended life spans, living well over many years. Though they feed on human blood, they don't kill their human prey, and for

38-438: A beautiful human psychic, Raven Whitney. Raven is a strong telepath, and has worked with the police to capture four serial killers. But her gift has come with a price: a life of isolation, and pain whenever she uses her gift. When he meets her, he is shocked and amazed when he suddenly is able to see colors in her presence; he realizes that she is his lifemate. Despite his joy, there is doubt in his mind. No human woman has ever been

57-485: A lifemate to a Carpathian. All human females who were converted had become deranged creatures, feeding on children and had to be destroyed. But he knows she is the only woman for him, the other half of his soul. He is determined to live as a human with her and to die when she does. However, this is not to be. Raven is attacked by fanatics, and he is forced to convert her to save her life. Her survival brings new hope to him and his people, for if one psychic human female can be

76-400: A lifemate, surely there are others. Paranormal romance Beyond the more prevalent themes involving vampires, shapeshifters, ghosts, or time travel , paranormal romances can also include books featuring characters with psychic abilities, such as telekinesis or telepathy . Paranormal romance's most recent revival has been spurred by turn of the 21st century technology; for example,

95-500: A male Carpathian loses the ability to feel emotions and see in color. These will only return to him when he finds his lifemate, the other half of his soul. Mikhail Dubrinsky, Prince of the Carpathians, has worked tirelessly for centuries to discover why so many of their children die in the first years. However, his efforts have come to no avail. It is at this time, when he is on the brink of despair and self-destruction that he meets

114-401: A separate galaxy. This genre has become much more popular since 2000. Krentz attributes the popularity of this subgenre to the fact that the novels "are, at heart, classic historical romances that just happen to be set on other worlds". Time-travel romances are a version of the classic " fish out of water " story. In most, the heroine is from the present day and travels into the past to meet

133-405: Is part of the definition of suspense. Baroni proposes to name rappel this kind of suspense whose excitement relies on the ability of the audience to anticipate perfectly what is to come, a precognition that is particularly enjoyable for children dealing with well-known fairy tales. Baroni adds that another kind of suspense without uncertainty can emerge with the occasional contradiction between what

152-428: The fantasy subgenre known as urban fantasy, many paranormal romances rely on the blend of contemporary life with the existence of supernatural or magically empowered beings, human or otherwise; sometimes the larger culture is aware of the magical in its midst, sometimes it is not. Some paranormal romances focus less on the specifics of their alternative worlds than do traditional science fiction or fantasy novels, keeping

171-812: The internet and electronic publishing . Paranormal romances are one of the fastest-growing trends in the romance genre. Examples of authors specializing in this genre include Dani Harper , Nalini Singh , Jessica Bird , Kresley Cole , Christine Feehan , Kelley Armstrong , and Stephenie Meyer , author of the Twilight series . According to 2013 statistics by the fantasy publisher Tor Books , among writers of urban fantasy or paranormal romance, 57% are women and 43% are men, whereas men outnumber women by about two to one in writing historical , epic , or high fantasy . The same statistics describe men outnumbering women by four to one in writing Science Fiction and that men write 83% of Horror . Paranormal romance blends

190-406: The plot or conflict (which may be heightened by a violent moment, stressful scene, puzzle , mystery , etc.), particularly as it affects a character for whom the audience feels sympathy . However, suspense is not exclusive to narratives. In literature, films, television, and plays, suspense is a major device for securing and maintaining interest. It may be of several major types: in one,

209-664: The why usually brings suspense to the novel. An adjunct to suspense is foreshadowing , as found in hints of national crisis or revolution in Isabel Allende 's House of the Spirits (1982). Some authors have tried to explain the "paradox of suspense", namely: a narrative tension that remains effective even when uncertainty is neutralized, because repeat audiences know exactly how the story resolves. Some theories assume that true repeat audiences are extremely rare because, in reiteration, we usually forget many details of

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228-403: The attention strongly on the underlying romance. Others develop the alternate reality meticulously, combining well-planned magical systems and inhuman cultures with contemporary reality. The first futuristic romance to be marketed by a mainstream romance publisher, Jayne Ann Krentz 's Sweet Starfire , was published in 1986 and was a "classic road trip romance" that just happened to be set in

247-410: The hero (for example, the manga and anime series Inuyasha ). In a smaller subset of these novels, the hero, who lives in the past, travels forward into his future to meet the heroine. A successful time-travel romance must have the characters react logically to their experience, and should investigate some of the differences, both physical and mental, between the world the character normally inhabits and

266-434: The most part live among them without detection. Despite their gifts, the Carpathians are on the edge of extinction. There have been few children born to them in the past few centuries, those that have been born are all male and often die in the first year. It has been more than 500 years since a female has been born. Without females, many of the males are turning, becoming vampires, the monsters of human legend. After 200 years,

285-430: The one in which they have landed. Some writers choose to end their novels with the protagonists trapped in different time periods and unable to be together—to the displeasure of many readers of the genre. Suspense Suspense is a state of anxiety or excitement caused by mysteriousness , uncertainty , doubt , or undecidedness . In a narrative work , suspense is the audience's excited anticipation about

304-502: The outcome is uncertain and the suspense resides in the question of who, what, or how ; in another, the outcome is inevitable from foregoing events, and the suspense resides in the audience's anxious or frightened anticipation in the question of when . Readers feel suspense when they are deeply curious about what will happen next, or when they know what is likely to happen but do not know how it will happen. Even in historical fiction , with characters whose life stories are well known,

323-490: The past and are structured much like any historical romance novel. Others are set in the future, sometimes on different worlds. Still others have a time-travel element with either the hero or the heroine traveling into the past or the future. Between 2002 and 2004, the number of paranormal romances published in the United States doubled to 170 per year. A popular title in the genre can sell over 500,000 copies. As in

342-576: The real with the fantastic or science fictional. The fantastic elements may be woven into an alternate version of our own world in an urban fantasy involving vampires, demons , and/or werewolves , or they may be more "normal" manifestations of the paranormal—humans with psychic abilities, witches , or ghosts. Time travel , futuristic, and extraterrestrial romances also fall beneath the paranormal umbrella. These novels often blend elements of other subgenres, including suspense and mystery , with their fantastic themes. A few paranormals are set solely in

361-543: The story and the interest arises due to these holes of memory; others claim that uncertainty remains even for often told stories because, during the immersion in the fictional world, we forget fictionally what we know factually or because we expect fictional worlds to look like the real world, where exact repetition of an event is impossible. The position of Yanal is more radical and postulates that narrative tension that remains effective in true repetition should be clearly distinguished from genuine suspense, because uncertainty

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