Paranormal Romance is the subgenre of romance where, instead of being a Fantasy or Science Fiction story with a romantic subplot, the relationship is brought to the front and the heroine finds her true love when supernatural forces or sci-fi Applied Phlebotinum are involved. (For this genre, what's "paranormal" is defined as broadly as possible.)
So instead of the motley cast of misfits heading out on a journey to slay the Evil Overlord with two characters suffering from UST, the heroine gets zapped back in time. She's lost, lonely and confused with no known way of getting back. To add to her worries, she doesn't realize she has romantic feelings toward that man standing over there with the top hat and monocle.
Using sci-fi and fantasy to create an exotic location for your romance story is fine, provided that the budding romance between the two lovers is the main focus, rather than the magical or scientific Applied Phlebotinum. The story can even take place in the Standard Fantasy Setting. Setting it in any established fantasy or science fiction universe is also fine, provided it's just Fan Fiction, or you have permission from that franchise's copyright holders. With permission from Paramount, for instance, you could set a paranormal romance in a Star Trek Extended Universe novel.
That being said, Paranormal Romance can be combined with almost any other genre out there. These stories can sometimes blur the line between focusing on the relationship and focusing on the setting, plot, and action.
Common plots include:
- The heroine moves into a Haunted House and falls in love with a ghost.
- The heroine or her true love has ESP and we get to see how having ESP can both help and hinder the path to true love.
- The heroine meets and falls in love with a supernatural creature.
- The heroine meets and romances a space alien—or vice versa.
Perhaps you've noticed that up to this point, we've been assuming that the more "normal" character in the pairing is a woman. Because most of this genre is marketed towards a female audience (and often written by women), this is usually the case, with a relatable heroine falling for a hunky supernatural guy. However, plenty of exceptions exist: sometimes it's the guy who is the normal protagonist. Sometimes it's a queer love story and they're both women, or both men, or maybe one (or both) are non-binary. And sometimes it's the more supernaturally-aligned character who is the protagonist.
Compare Urban Fantasy, which is a (very) similar genre but without the focus on romance; A common joke holds that the difference between the two genres is that Urban Fantasy has a half-naked woman on the cover, where Paranormal Romance has a half-naked man on the cover. Compare Fantastic Romance, which refers to love stories that may involve time-travel or dimension-hopping.
Examples
- Call of the Night is about Yamori, a human, trying to fall in love with Nazuna, a vampire.
- Inuyasha is a borderline example; it's arguable whether the A-plot is Kagome and Inuyasha's budding Reincarnation Romance or the quest for the Shikon Jewel.
- Monster Musume is a Romantic Comedy about a human man and a harem of Cute Monster Girls.
- My Lovely Ghost Kana: A man falls in love with a ghost.
- Please Teacher!? Yep: it's all about the romantic (mis)adventures of a space alien who's Hot for Student.
- Rosario + Vampire is also at the borderline, depends of the value you give to Tsukune and Moka's relationship.
- Vampire Blood Drive: A Lesbian Vampire Comedy comic about a human girl who attends her college's annual "blood drive" and meets a gorgeous, princely vampire girl.
- Beauty and the Beast
- Cinderella
- In Turning Red, Priya reads Nightfall (a pastiche of The Twilight Saga).
- WALL•E
- Beetlejuice combines this with Black Comedy. Although in this case the "romance" is more of a Villainous Crush.
- Blood & Chocolate (2007)
- Blood Ransom
- Endless: Riley and Chris's romance doesn't die with him. It continues somewhat after he's dead and becomes a ghost.
- Ghost (1990)
- How To Talk To Girls At Parties
- Jack & Diane
- My Animal
- The Shape of Water
- The Abandon Trilogy
- Along The Winding Road
- The Anita Blake series
- Armadilha para Lobisomem
- Black Dagger Brotherhood
- Blood and Chocolate (1997)
- Bloodsucking Fiends
- The Caster Chronicles
- The Cavaliers Series
- Cemetery Boys, a novel where the romance is between a transgender boy and the supposed ghost of a local bad boy.
- In The Changeover, the romance is between Laura Chant, a "sensitive", and Sorenson "Sorry" Carlisle, a troubled young man.
- The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
- The Cornersville Trace Mythos
- A Court of Thorns and Roses: There's a major plotline involving the protagonists trying to stop evil faerie overlords from conquering the world, but the series largely focuses upon the heroine's romance with faerie royalty (especially in the first two books).
- The Cursed Satyroi series involves human women becoming romantically involved with cursed satyrs.
- The Dark Hunters
- The Dark Carpathians series, a Long Runner with the first book published in the early 90s, makes this a Trope Codifier for paranormal romance.
- Dark Kiss Of The Reaper features a romance between a human girl and the Angel of Death.
- Daughter of Smoke and Bone
- Dark Visions series
- A Deal with a Demon
- Dragon and Damsel
- The Dragon Scales Trilogy
- Elemental Series (Kemmerer)
- Evernight
- Fire & Rescue Shifters, and most other novels by Zoe Chant
- Ghostlight
- Golden Dawn
- Green Hills
- A Grimm Quest
- The Guardians (Meljean Brook) series
- Guild Hunter has strong shades of this, despite being mainly an Urban Fantasy series.
- Halo 2010 No, not that one—this one's about a teenage angel stuck in a Muggle and Magical Love Triangle.
- Heart of Steel features a Beauty and the Beast-esque romance between a disfigured, reclusive Cyborg Mad Scientist and a troubled ER doctor he has captured.
- Hidden Legacy series
- His Fair Assassin series
- The Horsemen series, featuring romance between human women and centaurs.
- The Host (2008), described as a "love triangle with two bodies," has a Puppeteer Parasite fall for the boyfriend of her human host.
- The House of Night series, where the protagonist becomes a vampire; sometimes borders on a harem story.
- Hush, Hush
- Immortals After Dark
- Immortal Guardians
- Keturah and Lord Death
- Kanes Mountains
- Most Lynn Kurland novels
- The Legend of All Wolves
- The Legend of the Ice People is a long series of these, all concerning the same family.
- Longsummer Nights
- The Lords of Satyr
- Lords of the Underworld
- The Magi Accounts
- Magical Annals
- The Mediator series
- The Mortal Instruments is a borderline example—it's an Urban Fantasy adventure about a girl who discovers that she has a magical lineage and helps save the world, but her romantic issues also get a lot of focus.
- My Merlin Trilogy, where Merlin returns as a teenage boy and winds up dating the main character.
- Nightshade Trilogy
- Night World series
- The One Who Eats Monsters
- The Otherworld Series
- Over The Hills Of Green
- Paranormalcy
- The Parasol Protectorate series
- Pretty Dead
- Pretty When She Dies
- Psy Changeling series
- Rainbow
- Rolitania
- The Ruthless Ladys Guide To Wizardry
- The Shadow Raiders duology, about werewolf soldiers falling in love with human women in post- Civil War America.
- Shifting Elements
- The Silver Kiss
- The Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries
- The Syrena Legacy
- Tairen Soul
- Tough Love: Centers around a quintet of horror monsters acting as a supernatural dating service.
- To Wed A Centaur King
- The Turning Vampire Series
- The Twilight Saga: In the first book, Bella falls in love with a vampire named Edward; in the following book, it becomes a Love Triangle with her best male friend, who turns out to be a werewolf. Since the series is a huge seller with a devoted fandom and successful film adaptations, this led to Follow the Leader, making Twilight the Trope Codifier for Young Adult Paranormal Romance.
- Twilight (2005)
- New Moon
- Eclipse (2007)
- Breaking Dawn
- Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined: A retelling of the first book with the genders of the main characters flipped (notably, Bella is now a human named Beau and Edward is a Romantic Vampire Girl named Edythe), with certain plotlines developing or concluding differently from the original series.
- Midnight Sun (2020): A Perspective Flip of the first book, told from Romantic Vampire Boy Edward's POV rather than Bella's.
- Vampire Academy series
- The Vampire Diaries series
- Viridian Saga, about Andromeda Slate, the most ordinary girl in America, who winds up literally romancing Cthulhu. Naturally, she prevents him from destroying the world with The Power of Love, but also gets into a Love Triangle with her Muggle Best Friend. Actually a Stealth Parody of this genre written by several authors, most notably Team NChick, under a pseudonym.
- Warm Bodies has a Zombie Apocalypse where one of the zombies falls for a girl, in part because eating her boyfriend's brain gives the zombie his memories.
- We Can't Rewind, a romance involving paranormal events rather than creatures.
- What She Wants, a romance involving a shape-shifting centaur.
- Wicked Lovely
- Whyborne and Griffin
- Wolves of Mercy Falls Series
- Beauty and the Beast is an Urban Fantasy take on this trope.
- Interview with the Vampire (2022)
- Lost in Austen
- Pushing Daisies
- Shadowhunters, an adaptation of The Mortal Instruments (see above).
- The Vampire Diaries: All of the supernatural romantic pairings classify as this.
- Wolf Like Me
- Monsterhearts encourages this, since its characters are all teenagers and supernatural beings.
- 10 Days with My Devil
- The Arcana
- Astoria: Fate's Kiss
- Beauty and the War: X Playing Pieces
- Black Wolves Saga
- Blossoming Love
- Changeling
- Cinderella Phenomenon
- Cinders
- Da Capo
- Da Capo II
- Da Capo III
- Date Warp
- Demonheart
- Diabolik Lovers
- Enchanted in the Moonlight
- Ever After Academy
- Fate/stay night
- Fatal Hearts
- Fortune Arterial
- Hakuouki
- The Haunting of Braidwood Manor
- Havenfall Is for Lovers
- her tears were my light
- Hiiro no Kakera
- Kisses And Curses
- Lads In Distress
- Love & Legends
- Magical Diary
- Magical Warrior Diamond Heart
- Mystic Destinies: Serendipity of Aeons
- Nameless ~The one thing you must recall~
- Nekojishi
- Ne no Kami: The Two Princess Knights of Kyoto
- Reigning Passions
- Rose of Winter
- Seduce Me
- Shall We Date?: Angel or Devil
- Shall We Date?: Blood In Roses
- Shall We Date?: Destiny Ninja 2
- Shall We Date?: Lost Island
- Shall We Date?: Magic Sword
- Shall We Date?: My Fairy Tales
- Shall We Date?: Obey Me!
- Shall We Date?: Oz
- Shall We Date?: Wizardess Heart
- Sin With Me
- Star-Crossed Myth
- Starlight Vega
- Starship Promise
- Strawberry Vinegar
- Sweet Enchantments
- Tsukihime
- Villainous Nights
- War: 13th Day
- Wicked Lawless Love
- Yo-Jin-Bo
- Carmilla the Series
- Last Life - specifically, a Reincarnation Romance.
