Yeah. I remember back in the early 90s when paranormal romance first reared its head, the entire idea seemed extremely fresh and exciting -- now everybody and their sister is publishing it and the crossover with Urban Fantasy/Horror is injecting Paranormal Romance genes into a genre already top-loaded with Anita Blake/Merry Gentry/Sookie Stackhouse ripoffs homages.

And, man, I've tried to read some of these long-running paranormal romance series' that have been recommended to me and I..just can't get into them. I can't take them seriously as either romance or horror.

Admittedly, this is part of the reason I'm taking the tact I am with the story I'm working on: in pure Lovecraftiana, "no hugging, no kissing" is frequently in effect as one of the genre conventions, male protagonists who are not supernatural love interests are actually pretty rare in Urban Fantasy/Horror, there's less overall pressure to hook up a male protagonist with a love interest by default, and, frankly, people are more likely to read the idea of having a Humanoid Abomination Stalker With A Crush as horrifying rather than romantic when the lead is a guy. Well, okay, there will be some who read it as romantic, but there's nothing I can do about that.