IMO most romances that attempt to cross over into horror or fantasy are weak, weak, weak. The fantastical elements usually are paint-by-numbers and not well thought out.

::nod nod nod::

Generally one is better off sticking with fantasy/SF writers who write relationships well, rather than romance writers who try to add fantasy/SF elements.

One of my favourites is Barbara Hambly. The characters in her books are often older adults and the romance, if there is one, is real and complicated.

But are any of them at all worth reading?

Every one I've read has been ghastly, and I didn't respect myself in the morning.

The problem is that the unbreakable rule for romance novels is that There Must Be A Happily Ever After. That's incompatible with a vampire milieu. Happily Ever After when one protagonist is a vampire has some ugly consequences.

You wouldn't believe the @#$@#$@# writers come up with to get around it. She's the hereditary Queen of the Vampires! She has special powers so that she doesn't have to die! He's cured of vampirism by her love! These aren't Vampires, they're Carpathians!

Stick to the vampire/romance/mysteries like Laurell K. Hamilton and Charlaine Harris.

Judy Blume has been selected by the National Book Foundation for its annual medal for distinguished contribution to American letters.

The funny part is, I always found the romantic elements interspersed in the Vorkosigan novels to be the least realistic parts of them. (Okay, some of the Mark sections beat them out, but Mark is only in a couple of novels.) It's all a little too perfect and a little too neat, you know? The rape is narrowly averted; attractions between protagonists are never not reciprocated; nobody ever has screaming fights over stupid things like the toilet seat.

I can see this a little, in A Civil Campaign. But this is also something that I find in many Romance novels, so it's actually one of the things that made me see ACC as both SF and Romance. In the earlier Miles V. books, he did have a lot of romantic trouble. One woman of his dreams wouldn't have been caught dead living on his planet; another falls in love with one of his subordinates and decides never to go back to his planet (and never does fall for him). For that matter, Elena is the product of a rape very much not averted, and her mother's "reunion" with her father was very much not one of those "You raped me but it turns out we have true love so it's ok" situations that turned me off reading Harliquens at around 13. A Civil Campaign was in some ways the Marry 'Em Off book of the series, but Mark's relationship with his lover remained unconventional (as did Alys and her lover's affair) and Ivan couldn't find a serious relationship with both hands and a roadmap.

And you know, I'd completely blanked on Diplomatic Immunity until you mentioned it. I was referring to A Civil Campaign in my other post, and it wasn't her latest in the series. Ah well.

I just read Elizabeth Marie Pope's The Perilous Gard a few days ago, and thought it was very successful as a blend of fantasy/historical romance. Clean, crisp writing, a wonderful heroine, and skillful world-building, with enough ambiguity to allow both fantastical and non-fantasy explanations. I think it might have been targeted for YA audience, but it was miles better than most adult-oriented romances I've read that tried something similar.

I've heard good things about these, but haven't gotten around to them myself.

Re: Liaden: Susan, I gotta warn you, I found them not to my taste. They're just a bit too much with the perfection. Everyone's a Mary Sue, in that they're all idealized, terribly attractive, witty, smart, athletic, talented, a prodigy, and so forth. Even their flaws are the attractive kind: stubborn, resistant to authority, blah blah blah. I read two and decided that the quality of the writing and the world-building wasn't nearly high enough to keep me from wanting to throttle them all.

They came highly recommended by friends online as comfort reads, but I fear I'm out of the target window for them. Much like I would be for, say, Anne McCaffrey or Mercedes Lackey now. t shrugs YBMV, of course. But I'd rather use the time to reread Mary Gentle.

That's one of my favorite books of all time, Vonnie.

Mine too!

I ordered Perilous Gard from Amazon last week, after reading the same discussion you did, Vonnie. (Darn my LJ flist!) Looking forward to reading it, although I have a bunch more ahead of it on the tbr list, including the huge Susanna Clarke novel currently slounging on my couch.

Me three on The Perilous Gard.

Pope also wrote The Sherwood Ring, which isn't quite as good, but has wonderful American Revolution-era ghosts in it.