Romance Is Not a Dirty Word in Horror

My favorite romantic couple

If you've been reading this blog for a while, or have read any interviews that I've done around the blogsphere, you know that I firmly consider myself to be a horror writer.
I do write in the zombie sub-genre sometimes and recently took a side trip into the world of sci-fi/horror with THE LAST BASTION OF THE LIVING, but the heart of my stories is the tale of people facing a horrific event or situation. I write about survival in the face of terror.

Examples:
PRETTY WHEN SHE DIES - Amaliya faces the horror of waking up buried in the ground and realizing she is the off spring of a truly fiendish vampire-necormancer.

• THE TALE OF THE VAMPIRE BRIDE - Lady Glynis Wright is engulfed in the horror of being a Bride of Dracula and struggles to escape him.
• THE FIRST DAYS (AS THE WORLD DIES, BOOK 1) - Jenni and Katie struggle to survive in the horror of the first days of the zombocalypse.
• THE LAST BASTION OF THE LIVING - Vanguard Maria Martinez is conscripted to fight the deadly Inferi Scourge as humanity faces the horror of extinction.

That's why I consider myself to be a horror writer. I write about people facing the absolute most terrible circumstances and trying to survive.  Yet, that doesn't mean that my work doesn't have a sense of adventure, moments of humor, or, aghast, sometimes even a touch of romance.  

Since I write about the human condition in the face of horrific events, it is only logical that I would include human relationships. Whether familial, adversarial, friendly, or romantic, human interactions are an important part of any story.  Those relationships drive character development and plot.  I love dealing with the intricacies of human interactions, in whatever form they might take.

People form loving relationships with each other. Those relationships are sometimes the only thing that pulls them through difficult and, yes, horrific times.  I remember watching THE CRAZIES and loving the fact that the husband and wife in the movie are a united front. They drew strength from one another and struggled to survive together. They would do anything for each other. That had much more impact on me emotionally than if I was watching a movie about a man trying to survive on his own without any attachment to another person.

I LOVE writing about the complicated ins and outs of any kind of relationship. On the other hand, I  can't walk away from the horror themes that dwell in the souls of my books.  I can't sit down and write a nice romance without doing something horrible to all the characters. *evil grin*  

The point of all of this is that I am a self-defined horror writer. All my stories revolve around some terrible, horrible event happening and how my characters respond to it. But I'm not going to eschew human relationships to fit some sort of preconceived idea of what horror should be. My books will continue to have elements of horror, humor, and sometimes romance.


Special Note
For those of you who want me to write a romantic story, I suggest you read THE LAST BASTION OF THE LIVING. It's got gore, a type of zombie, massive action sequences, and tons of excitement, but it also has a realistic romance in it that spurs my two major characters to great feats of bravery. Even though it's an intense sci-fi/horror novel, I don't think I've ever written a stronger, more romantic couple.