Paranormal book recommendations?

[Bethany J.]

Hey, can anyone recommend some good books in the paranormal genre? I keep getting ideas to write paranormal stories, but I've never actually READ any (or watched any paranormal movies/TV, for that matter). So I feel completely unqualified.

And I don't mean ghosts, ghouls, and vampires...I'm thinking more like mythical creatures, fairies, etc. Nothing creepy.

I am intrigued by Kristen White's "Paranormalcy" series, because I read her blog, but I have get to get one from the library, so I don't know if they're any good or not.

Any recommendations?

[Kessie]

Well, there's the very lovely Song of the Summer King that I reviewed lately on my blog. It's basically an "animal book" with griffin characters. They all talk, of course. It's kind of like Lion King, only, like, with the lame bits taken out. And also wolves. I don't know if it counts as paranormal.

Going off my booklist on Goodreads, some more books to consider are:

Shiver (And the rest of the trilogy) by Stiefvater. (It's a romance about a werewolf who is a wolf all winter, I believe.)

Cinder, by Marissa Meyer (a sci fi retelling of Cinderella, where she's a cyborg)

Libriomancer, by Hines (people who reach into books and pull out any object they want)

Starfire, by Stockton (dinosaurs with GUNS)

The Lives of Christopher Chant, by Diana Wynne Jones (a little boy finds that he can visit other worlds in his dreams--and sometimes bring things back)

These are all juvie or YA, and not necessarily paranormal. More the various slices of fantasy. You could also give the Twilight books a shot, if you haven't read them. They get slammed a lot, but they're not particularly harmful IMO and you could make up your own mind. They're about vegetarian vampires, and I really liked her werewolves.

Also Stephanie Meyer has this other book called The Host that nobody ever talks about. It's basically Invasion of the Body Snatchers from the perspective of the alien, as the alien falls in love with the human guy in the girl's mind the alien is inhabiting. Strange and entertaining.

[Bethany J.]

Thanks for the recommendations! Some of these sound really interesting, although most of them aren't specifically the kind I'm thinking of. Shiver, Libriomancer, and The Lives of Christopher Chant sound the closest to paranormal as I'd define it.

I really like The Host! I even own it. I've never been able to bring myself to try Twilight, though...it seems like a little too much romance for me...

[Kessie]

It sounds like you'd rather read Fantasy than Paranormal. Paranormal deals with ghosts, psychics, vampires, creepy stuff. What are you really looking for and what are you trying to write?

Mostly I look for/read juvenile/YA fantasy/urban fantasy. I'll take some paranormal if there's not too much sex, which unfortunately is becoming the norm.

[Bethany J.]

Hmm, I always thought Paranormal meant the story was set in our ordinary world, but with a twist, like the existence of werewolves or whatever. Ohhhh, maybe I'm looking for Urban Fantasy? Wow, I guess I forgot that existed as a genre. That's probably more what I'm looking for.

The story ideas I have mainly revolve around fairies (fae)...not the teeny, cute kind, but fairies that are more like ethereal elves or something, and not entirely nice. They are also shape-shifters. One of the story ideas is about a family that takes in a half-fae child and has evil fairies come after them to reclaim her. Another is about a girl who gets involved with the fae after they abduct her grandfather and send in a shape-shifted duplicate of him. Another was just a random scene I started writing where a girl gets in a car accident in a snowstorm and gets rescued by fairies...or abducted, I'm not sure which yet. There's also another about a girl that has some kind of creature, disguised as a flower, sneak into her dreams and grant her a wish (she's disabled, and wishes to be healed, but at the expense of someone else's greatest desires). But that last one is completely bizarre and I'm not even sure what the "flower" is yet. Sound weird? More urban fantasy than paranormal?

[Kessie]

Well, you could always give the Dresden books a whirl. They have very strong internal continuity, so it's hard to recommend them out of order. But you could read Summer Knight, which deals with the fae. Running around Chicago. Having a war. You know, that stuff. And poor Harry's just trying to solve the murder mystery and keep the other wizards from snuffing him for po'ing the vampires.

Alas, that one doesn't have Michael the Extremely Christian Paladin. I love Michael.

Also, the sprites Harry bribes with pizza. They are hilarious.

I'll check my urban fantasy booklists and get back to you. I've been trying to find some to read, myself, just because I need to read more in my genre. I'm interested in this one series called Ashfall, about what would happen if the Yellowstone supervolcano erupted. But that's not exactly urban fantasy. :-)

[metalikhan]

The Spiderwick Chronicles by Tony Di Terlizzi & Holly Black is a YA urban/contemporary fantasy, but it's still a fun read (and a fun movie ).

Other authors who've done excellent work in the genre are Charles DeLint, Terri Windling, John Crowley, and Robert Holdstock.

I read the Dresden series out of order. Didn't have trouble with internal continuity references -- they just prompted me to get earlier books. And yes, the fairies Dresden deals with are a hoot! A good collection of Butcher's short stories is Side Jobs: it includes one featuring Michael and his family, titled The Warrior.

Happy reading!

[Kessie]

I haven't yet read Spiderwick! It's been on my to-read list for ages now. :-)

[Bethany J.]

Ah, I'll have to check out the Dresden books. I am not necessarily looking for books with fae, just urban fantasy in general, since I don't think I've read any. Would you consider your book urban fantasy, Kessie?

I think I'll look into Spiderwick, too! Thanks, metalikhan!

[Kessie]

Yeah, I think Spacetime firmly fits into the Urban Fantasy niche. It's fantasy set in modern day, and once in a while there's a horror flavor. That's pretty much urban fantasy in a nutshell.

You could get on Goodreads and just search for Urban Fantasy, or YA UF or juvenile UF. It's, uh, very educational. I'd been thinking of writing something about the fay (especially after reading the very wonderful Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones, which is all about a girl in real life--except there's fay in there. It's a retelling of Tam Lin, basically. I'd almost call it magical realism.)

Then I poked around Goodreads and lost my enthusiasm. Lots of fairies, fairy queens, changelings, hot elf guys, lonely elf girls raised human, you name it.

[Bethany J.]

Aha, I figured Spacetime was UF! So I HAVE read some!

Based on your list of common UF themes, I'm starting to wonder if my ideas aren't very original! I didn't realize fairies were such a prevalent theme in YA/teen UF. I'll have to poke around a bit for myself and see what sort of stories are out there. I've never been on Goodreads; I should check it out.

[yoda47]

If you're looking for faries and stuff set in the modern world, check out the Artimis Fowl series.

Another good paranormal book is The Earth Painter. It's set in the modern world, but has a really unique twist on the paranormal part.

(Neither of these are creepy at all. I don't like creepy.)

[Bethany J.]

I have to admit, I tried Artemis Fowl once and the first few pages didn't draw me in enough to check it out from the library. Maybe I should give it another try.

[yoda47]

Give it a chapter or two, then see what you think.