I”m always up for a good scare. Ghosts, abandoned houses, demonic possession, things going bump in the night . . . bring it on, I say. The horror genre fascinates me because I find it interesting to consider what truly frightens people. The causes can be so vastly different. A writer who’s figured out how to scare us in an artfully told story or film deserves a round of applause. (yeah, Mr. King. I’m talking about you).
Over the years, horror and erotica have become intermingled, and nowadays there are lotsa books and lotsa movies that are scary and contain lotsa sex. And hey, you’ll hear no complaints from me. I like the smexy stuff just like the next gal. But I did start to wonder whether it’s truly possible to scare the panties (oh my!) off the reader, make her tingle with arousal, and have a satisfying HEA or HFN to boot. Hmmm . . .
A quick Google search of erotic horror gives me results that I expect: references to dungeons and depravity abound. I also uncovered an excellent post by Gregory Burkart entitled Ten Landmarks of Erotic Horror Fiction. But there’s a paucity of results related to erotic romantic horror. Oh, you’ll find results, but are the stories truly scary? Like horror book scary? And truly romantic? Writer Brenna Zinn (on Keira Kohl’s blog) wrote a good piece on the subject recently. She says horror and erotic romance go together like peanut butter and bacon, except that peanut butter and bacon go pretty darn good together. She’s got some examples of what she feels are good erotic horror romance. Check it out here: http://bit.ly/QzRHoq
As for me, I’m still on the hunt. I want it romantic, scary, and hot, not necessarily in that order. All suggestions welcome.
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