It took me until yesterday to realize that today would be Friday the 13th and tomorrow would be Valentine’s Day. I’ve been sort of blocking that day in my head and thinking “You have time” when in reality, no I did not lol Anyways, since I realized it I started thinking a lot about one of my favorite genres, horrormance. If you know me, you know horror and romance are my favorite genres, so it just came as a natural thing that I liked Horrormance.
If you haven’t heard of it before, to put it plainly, horrormance is the horror and romance reader version of romantasy lol It’s like a horror story that has a strong romance plot that helps to drive the story. Some of you might be thinking of some subgenres like paranormal romance or Dark Romance, but they’re actually separate from them. It’s more of a real mash-up. Like, the horror magnifies the stakes in a romantic relationship, while romance adds a layer of complexity and empathy to horror. (Mystery & Suspense) It’s like a spectrum, with some books being romance-forward and others being horror-forward. (A term coined by Book Riot)
In my opinion, there’s not that many out there that are TRULY horrormance, but I do have some favorites. Like The Possession of Alba Díaz by Isabel Cañas. I LOVED that one. In this book, a demonic presence awakens in a Mexican silver mine. It latches onto a woman who ends up finding the one person she’s told not to trust. Now, Alba Diaz is gothic horror, which means it’s categorized as bad vibes or bad “juju” kind of horror and no like jump scare horror. It is a slow burn as it sets up the story, but the whole time you’ll be on pins and needles trying to figure out what’s going to happen and when. There are a few hints here and there as the possession begins to take hold, but there’s nothing really concrete until things start REALLY happening. The ending is where things get really crazy. I don’t want to say more because spoilers, but yeah, check this out today. If you start tonight you can read the creepy parts on the 13th and read it well into the night to hopefully get to the romance right on time.
If you think Alba Diaz sounds good, I hope you try learning more about the genre as a whole. And of course, I hope you pick some of them up in your next haul! Here’s a few more that you can and should add to your TBR!!
- Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake
- Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
- Make Me a Monster by Kalynn Bayron
- Together We Rot by Skyla Arndt
- Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison
So what do you think? Will you read horrormance? Have you read it before? Also, if you think I haven’t talked about Alba Diaz enough, please go and listen to the Reading Room podcast that I did for work lol Tell me how you think I did in the comments!