Paranormal romance

Romantic relationships between humans and vampires, shapeshifters, ghosts, and other entities of a fantastic or otherworldly nature are common.

Beyond the more prevalent themes involving vampires, shapeshifters, ghosts, or time travel, paranormal romances can also include books featuring characters with psychic abilities, such as telekinesis or telepathy.

Paranormal romance's most recent revival has been spurred by turn of the 21st century technology; for example, the internet and electronic publishing.

Krentz attributes the popularity of this subgenre to the fact that the novels "are, at heart, classic historical romances that just happen to be set on other worlds".

In most, the heroine is from the present day and travels into the past to meet the hero (for example, the manga and anime series Inuyasha).

Some writers choose to end their novels with the protagonists trapped in different time periods and unable to be together—to the displeasure of many readers of the genre.