07 August,2010 10:21 AM IST | | KATHAKALI JANA
From beautiful vampires to faerie tales, and forbidden fantasies -- the love story was never this edgy, dark and out of the ordinary. The Twilight-hooked reader is lapping up every minute of the choice at hand, quite literally
It's official. Teenagers all over the world -- and sometimes their mothers too -- are now in the vice-like grip of beautiful vampires in love, evil shape shifters, poison potions, and magic spells. With plenty more of the fantastical stuff pouring forth from various publishers' lairs, the Stephenie Meyer-Twilight-Eclipse phenomenon looks slated for a long run.
a whopping 4.5 lakh copies, including boxed sets and special editions. Publishers Hachette Book Group International haven't stopped smiling since, untiringly churning out similar wondrous material for teenagers as well as adult readers.
"Our second big series, The House of Night books by PC and Kristin Cast, is doing well, having sold 70,000 copies so far and still ticking. There is also the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris that's doing remarkably well too. Then there are Blue Bloods (Melissa de la Cruz), the Vampire Diaries (LJ Smith) and Night World (again, LJ Smith), the last title has been on the New York Times Bestseller List for children's books for 22 weeks since May 2009," says Vatsala Kaul Banerjee, editorial director with Hachette India.
Publishers HarperCollins are determined to cash in on the trend, unleashing a clutch of dark fantasies on young adults with a taste for ghouls, spirits and faeries. They have recently come up with titles such as Evernight (Claudia Gray),u00a0 Poison Diaries (Maryrose Wood), Radiant Shadows (Melissa Marr) and Spells (Aprilynne Pike). With the last two authors slated to come out with new novels from time to time, the publishers are obviously talking big business.
"The genre feeds on a mix of fear and inquisitiveness about a world that one can never experience. The
phenomenon was always there with our grandmothers spinning tales earlier. Now a youngster can just pick up a book and immerse into its magical atmosphere. The urge to know the unknown has only become bigger, with this genre of material doing great business," explains Lipika Bhushan, marketing manager, HarperCollins India.
Add generous doses of love to this world of irresistible allure and you get the recipe for a winner. Kaul Banerjee describes the phenomenon as "romance with a twist or a bite". "These are extraordinary love stories, excitingly impossible, potentially dangerous, even life-threatening, and definitely forbidden. As they do not involve ordinary men and women, the parameters of romance turn fluid. The emotional and physical interfaces between two people are transformed, raising the unpredictability bar," she says.
Even angels don't fear to tread this world of electrifying unknowns. Random House's 2009 title, Angel Time (Anne Rice) is replete with strange omens and unceasing suspense, with an exciting dash of time travel.
And while the going is good, booksellers are stocking their racks with faerie-tale titles. Says Shashindra Nath Mishra, chief operating officer, Apeejay Oxford Bookstores Pvt Ltd, "Though these books have a wider appeal among teenagers, adults look for them too. We are looking at increasing sales in the upcoming quarters."
He adds that while Stephenie Meyer is the hottest among the authors in the genre, PC and Kristin Cast and Richelle Mead also notch up good sales figures. "In the coming days, we hope to see translations of these books to appear as well," says Mishra.
The paranormal's evidently here to stay. For a while, at any rate. Till some other brand of mind-numbing brain candy comes along to take its place.
WHAT IS A FAERIE TALE?
Dark and edgy, a faerie tale is the modern-day urban fantasy with romantic horror is the underlying flavour of a love story. Werewolves, vampires, half-humans, mediums and shape shifters rule this world of the paranormal and the supernatural that coexists with humans. Faerie tales caught the fancy of readers across the world, particularly after Stephenie Mayer's cult-like Twilight series broke new ground in book sales.
