Paranormal ROmance, the ultimate crossgenre Whether publishers call it Urban Fantasy, Occult Adventure, or Paranormal Romance, popular fiction is under the spell of a breakout genre. Darker than traditional romance and drawing deep on gothic roots, these stories are a genre-bending mixture of suspense, eroticism, comedy, horror, and action that appeal to a much wider audience, crossing perceived lines of age, race and gender. Since the initial publication of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, it has never been out of print, but thanks to Hollywood, in the past century Stoker’s originally repellant monster has evolved into a handsome devil more memorable than his victims. A century later, sexy vampires are commonplace protagonists: in Joss Whedon’s televisual Buffy empire, Laurel Hamilton’s Anita Blake mysteries, Twilight for the tweens, and True Blood for the NC-17 cable market. And it’s not all about the fangs; werewolves, sorcerers, zombies, gargoyles and dæmons stalk shelves and screens around the world. The success of the Underworld series proved that Paranormal Romance can kick-ass on-screen as well as at the box office.  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has introduced Jane Austen to a whole generation of unlikely readers. The genre’s popularity has made audiences more than willing to regard monsters as possible mates, humanizing the non-human so that we literally embrace them! Where ghosts and warlocks were once a staple of horror fiction, modern audiences have developed an uncanny sympathy, even desire, for the things that go bump in the night. Nether Regions is pure paranormal romance. At core it’s a Hitchcockian thriller full of secrets and seduction and suspicion. The espionage and exotic locale are transformed by a pinch of magick which drives ordinary characters to extraordinary lengths; supernatural forces amplify the stakes and the spectacle of its powerful central love story.   Just as Spider-Man takes the everyday melodrama of adolescence and paints it in superhuman dimensions, Nether Regions uses occult detail to explore the power and peril of adult relationships. The necromancy provides its heartbeat. For all the spooky trappings, it is the paranormal elements which seem believable and the romance which is miraculous.