Oops . . . I Mean a Big Oops . . . I Missed My Third Day Yesterday . . . Menage & Paranormal Romance--from the Sublime to the Ridiculous .

So I am going to post something now and hope Mother Tracy doesn't get on my case. I have certainly done that often enough in her growing up years. Actually, I had something all composed and got stuck in the doctor's office for four hours yesterday. What a pain . . . no pun intended . . . and when I got home I was thrashed. So after an already full day today--we even went to the county animal shelter to scope out a dog for the National English Shepherd Rescue--I realized that I hadn 't taken the time to put up anything for yesterday or today. So here goes . . .

I was first introduced to Paranormal and Menage romances about two years ago. Go figure . . . I must have been living in a cave. Just too busy with other stuff and had, in truth, just let my love of reading get stuffed away for quite a few years. I was busy going back to school and such, so when T

Wolf Signs was one of the first and I absolutely loved it. I was so over the top over this book that I didn't hesitate to get all the succeeding stories in the series and I still enjoy them whracy challenged me to get involve in book reviewing and blogging, I discovered these two genres of romances and found them fascinating. I rapidly developed a love for the work of authors like Vivian Arend and Tymber Dalton, Nalini Singh and others who created alternative species and universes in which they looked perfectly normal but were most definitely unique.

en I go back to one or the other. Maya Banks' Golden Eyes was also the first feline shifter

story I read and I also began to appreciate her writing style and the gifts she brought to telling a story that really should sound strange but just didn't. I couldn't get enough of those sexy shifters.

But then I caught on to Menage stories and here again Maya Banks shown brightly with her Coulter Family series of books. But even then, I began to wonder about the multiple lovers and such. Now I don't think there's much out of the ordinary and the multiple partner component is more often in stories than ever before.

Now it seems that the multiple partner component is even greater and I just recently found a series about some shifter brothers that had all fallen love with the same young woman--longhorn shifters. I have to acknowledge that I was so fascinated with the thought of men turning into behorned cows that I had to buy the novellas. Each story now is about one of the seven brothers. It wasn't enough that this woman took on seven husbands. They all started sprouting horns everytime they spied anything red--you know, red is, I guess, a real turn-on for bulls.

Move on to a menage series that recently came out which was set in the future--on a planet where seven brothersbought" a woman at an auction--where women who had no resources and were not allowed to work and had been brought and dumped on this particular planet--and now she was deemed worthy of only being a purchased house woman who "serviced"others (the eighth brother seemed to have dropped out of sight) were research scientists and security personnel and were on a planet where there were few women. They "serviced" the men who bought her, kept house, etc. Apart from the very upsetting use of women in that setting, it did turn out that all seven men fell in love with her and as multiple/plural marriages were allowed and in this instance, encouraged, this young woman was released from slavery to become the darling of her husbands. The eighth brother turned up eventually and this "lucky" (?) woman took on another brother and seemingly was happy to do so--at least, in the story, anyway.

I don't know how much more we can tease out this multiple partner business but it seems that it just keeps growing. I certainly believe in a fantasy world, but I don't know--I have a deep respect for these women to take on seven bulls or eight brothers or whomever. It just keeps on getting gooder and gooder. I know now that I have lived a very sheltered life--just haven't lived at all if this is what I have missed. Anyway, its fun reading and even as riduculous as it gets sometimes, we all need fantasy in our lives, possibly more than we realize.

In truth, I am astounded at all the variety that is out there, and in a world where people are often required to live pedantic lives according to someone else's template--even we here in the States find social and moral codes oppressive at times--it is delightful to encounter writers who are willing to push our boundaries out into the unexpected and possible the overly fantastic. Keeps us thinking and makes us appreciate the possibilities when brains are allowed to think at will. Ain't creativity grand???

Thanks for letting me visit these days. I have loved being a guest here and appreciate your responses more than you can know. Be safe and well.