English Folkloric Liminality in Queer Paranormal Historical Romance Novels
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| Year of publication | 2025 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
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| Description | Since 2013, there has been a curious influx of queer paranormal historical romance novels that show an in-depth use of old English folkloric material that goes beyond the generic use of folkloric elements just for the atmosphere, and attempts to reach a more fundamental, structural meaning behind them. Specifically, what appears over and over in these novels is the theme of in-betweenness and transition – in other words, liminality. In this paper, as well as in my dissertation, I argue that authors of queer romance use this theme so often, both implicitly and explicitly, because of the subversive, queering potential liminality has on folklore, history, and common themes and tropes in romance. I show how this potential is realized in a cluster of queer paranormal historical romance novels by KJ Charles, Freya Marske, Arden Powell, Sebastian Nothwell, Lee Welch, Emily Tesh, and Harper Fox, which are set in England and were published between 2013 and 2023. |
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