Urban Fantasy:
-Takes place in an urban setting/city.
-Usually in contemporary times but sometimes in historical, modern, or futuristic periods.
-Contains supernatural elements.
Paranormal Romance:
-Focuses on romance
-includes elements beyond the range of scientific explanation.
-Romantic relationship between humans and vampires, shapeshifters, ghosts, and other entities of fantastic or otherworldly nature.
What happens when your Urban Fantasy is missing the urban? Or your paranormal romance doesn’t focus on romance, or might have no romance at all? What if you can’t just call it “fantasy” because it still takes place in this world? That’s where Paranormal Fantasy comes in. This is how I would define the genre.
Paranormal Fantasy
-Takes place in any realistic, on-Earth location.
-Contains paranormal or supernatural elements, such as vampires, shapeshifters, ghosts, and other entities of fantastic or otherworldly nature.
-Can be set in historical, modern, or futuristic periods.
-Romance, if present, is not the plot.
So, it’s a lot like Urban Fantasy without the Urban. It may or may not have romance, but if it does, that is not what the story is focused on. The “tone” of the novel may be more like Paranormal Romance, but the plots may be more like Urban Fantasy. In a way, it’s a blend of the two, but it qualifies as neither.
