The romance series thing, IMO, really only works when there's no overarching plot and the books are not intended to be read in order. Rather, they are all intended to be standalone books in a shared universe. Lindsay Sands' vampire romance books are a great example of this. There's a shared world and characters, but each novel is a fully standalone book, with no need to read any of the others or even to be aware of their existence, and even the tone of the books varies depending on the needs of the particular story she's telling-some are action/thriller romances, some are mystery romances, and some are comedic romances (this type, in particular, is one of her real strengths).
Well, Gena Showalter's Lords of the Underworld series does this and does it well enough. There's an overarching plot, and all the characters are still there, still interesting, and participating in the story. The Midnight breed series by Lara Adrian does it too, but not as well. Some characters do disappear. The point is, there are some series with an overarching plot that follow different couples and still manage to keep the overall plot interesting
@@teslashark it really depends on the specific subgenre. For example, paranormal romance typically has someone who isn't involved in the paranormal world being introduced to it, so the worldbuilding is a natural part of the story, and can be handled in different ways each book depending on the characters and how they respond. On the other hand, ones that are set in the "real world" typically don't require worldbuilding at all, just character introductions. Full-fledged fantasy romance is generally the most susceptible to the worldbuilding issue, since there's not a built-in way to introduce the world in each book.
I agree that it is a romance series thing to have a series where each book focuses on a different set of characters - i really think its because people have a hard time writing books where characters are in a healthy stable relationship
I do like this type of series that follow different couples, because I can just read the ones I want and ignore the others, mostly. However, they're usually just stories set in the same universe and the couples don't even know the others. No overarching plot. On the other hand, there are some series with an overarching plot that do well by the characters, and all of them show up for all the books, and are there during the final battle. The "Lords of the underworld" series by Gena Showalter is one of those. Don't start it unless you want to commit, though, it connects to two other unfinished series.
The romance series formula is not meant to be like a real plot series usually. From the ones I've read it's more like a series of standalones that throw in past characters as Easter eggs or fan service. You are meant to start each one like it's a totally new story. It's good fun if you're a fan of the author or the romance genre/subgenre (and if each installment is actually good obvi), but it's clearly not ideal for general audiences haha.
Can you review Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley, The List of the Lost by Morrissey, Knockdown by William W and J.A. Johnstone, and/or all of Jessica Stranger's novels
Oh yeah, really don't like the "every book in a series basically has entirety different characters"; Read a few like that and gave up on most of them, even changed my mind about reading certain series when i found out it had that.
Honestly watching this video just reminded me how weird and confounding the Romance gente. I get that romantic love in both fiction and real lifecan be very weird and dramatic but seeing some people describe some those elements in fiction makes me wonder what goes through people heads when they are in love.
Reminds me of Yami No Matsuei. Good manga.....bit older, I guess. But less greek, more shinigami. But the same plot of people dying where they should not and that creating issues. I am sure there are, of course more differences but when you first described it in short it sounded exactly the same.
There are a couple of standard English pronunciations of Charon but I don't think it really matters since they're both 'wrong' compared to what the actual pronunciation is. the ch should be an aspirated k sound, the a should be like the a in father but shorter, and the o should be like the ough in "thought" in General American English if you don't have the cot-caught merger.
I don't get what an aspirated sound is and my brain constantly just goes "breathe in while saying this" and that, while making an interesting new kind of gasp and making me feel like I'm indeed aspirating something (a little bit of saliva instead of a k), doesn't sound like what I'm supposed to get. Do you have an idiotproof description of what I'm supposed to do to that k?
Changing the "Ch" sound to "K" is likely more authentic. It has pretty much been established that Latin and Old Greek didn't have "Ch," or "C" pronounced as "S" sounds, and would always be pronounced as a hard "K". But I hate that, that means "Circus" should be pronounced "Kirkus." I don't see that ever catching on.
