Urban Fantasy =/= Paranormal Romance

The first wave of urban fantasy books were fun and adventure-oriented.
It's a pity that you can't find such books any more.
I regularly remind people that it's generally a bad idea to date outside your own species--if you take a few minutes and think about the problems you'd be facing.
Werewolves--come equipped with claws AND fangs. Could YOUR vacuum cleaner stand up to all the extra fur you'd be cleaning up? Mood swings are apparently also a problem with these folks.
Vampires--I don't know about you, but I prefer my blood to stay IN my body and the whole "can't go out in the sunlight thing" would get old in a hurry when I'm needing help with the yard work.
Zombi's--No. Just no. The ick factor is just too high.
Mummies--Too boring. The ick factor also goes too high for comfort on this one.
Faery--No way. I have too much pride to be someone's mercy f**k...or worse, their pet.
(LOL!)
:^D

I don't think I've come across anyone before who has my level of antipathy to the fey. I would rather trust a vamp than an elf, and vampires were my "monster in the night" when I was little.

You've noticed of course that none of the traditional fairy tales ever made the mistake of treating them as though they were friendly toward us.
I figure there must be a reason.
:^|

As soon as I read the words "beautiful" witch/vampire/werewolf, I am inclined to put the book back on the shelf. If it's coupled with a description of two (or more) hot guys who are competing for her romantic attention - or if she's torn between the two (one safe but boring, the other dangerously handsome) the book DEFINITELY goes back on the shelf.

And any book that has the primary focused on clothing/ make-up/ appearance/ or social standing ... goes carefully back on the shelf because libraries and bookstores don't look kindly to finding their stock in garbage cans.

I don't much mind a touch of attraction and/or romance in my adventure, but there had BETTER be more to the story than that.

What if it was the words "she was okay on the eyes, especially for a witch. Not beautiful, just okay." ?

Anyway, yeah, paranormal romance is a bit weird. It can be fun, but there's way too much of it, and most of it is dross.

I prefer my monsters to be monsters. Or to be complex people, at least. Lyria, my dark sorceress, is beautiful but she's asexual and only just barely on the side of romantic. Mostly she's too busy for romance, and sex is just gross to her, a bit like spitting in public is gross to a lot of folks.

Of course, I'm not writing a simple story. The Lyria/Playground of the Gods story is a complex mix of high fantasy, science fiction, and horror with comedic elements and urban fantasy elements (but no elements of romance stories, even though there are relationships/romances between some characters). Also, I plan for there to be the occasional completely unrealistic and absurd thing happening, inspired by the kind of unrealistic and absurd stuff that happens in reality, because sometimes reality has everything from WTF Moments in the middle of a serious time, like the Christmas Truce in WWI, to Deus Ex Machina stuff like a whole fleet of enemy ships wiped out by a freak wind. Because that's just how I do things; I don't do simple genre tales, they're boring. Life is complex, and fiction should strive to equal life's complexity.

Anyway, I don't plan on doing anything to expectations. I like to set up expectations and then knock them down. My vampires will be plain and/or homely at best. The Rakshasa are not pleasant to look at. Both Vampires and Rakshasa have tribes that eat humans, and others that only eat things like cows. The Cavern Elves are pale and blind and gross looking, but can be friendly. And all the fantasy races in the story have their own complexities, just like humans do.

Sounds like the backlash 'romance' tropes have taken more than a beachhead over in the urban fantasy. I knew they were out there, from the whole Twilight and then 50 Shades, but apparently that wasn't enough and now the bookshelves are a run with it not just the screens.

I've been seeing a strain of this in the fanfic, particular handlings of Omegaverse, soulbonds and other subflavors; tastes vary, so it can be hard to tell 'trends' if they aren't the boat you favor.

Get HYDRA out of 'sexytimes'. Not Consent. Nope. Nada. Patriarchy, it's not hot.

If you're not already reading Seanan McGuire, you should. Her stuff is excellent. There are relationships in the books, but they're only a small part of the story. Her Toby Daye stuff is great, and so is her InCryptid series. The Toby Daye stuff has Faery in it, but it's a Faery with a lot more darkness and danger than usual, harkening back to the old fairy tale days, so a lot of frickin scary stuff in it.

And the InCryptid series, based very very loosely on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is about a family of cryptozoologists in a world where every crytpid you can think of and then some are real. From flying snakes to unicorns, from Sasquatch to gorgons, it's all real and the Prices study it all and protect the sentient cryptids from The Covenant of Saint George, which is a nasty group of monster hunters that believe all cryptids should die.

Though there ARE friendly Fae in the Toby Daye series, and Toby herself is a changeling. (Half Fae, half human.)

What's most annoying is that romance is so often devoid of plot. Which is why I avoid published romance and focus on Internet romance/written porn. A lot of that is dross, too, but at least I'm not paying money for any of it, and I do so LIVE for the well-written, complex romances with actual plots and character development.

Where's the "like" button here?

But yeah, Why bother going into bizarre worlds and meeting new species and introducing new concepts if you're just going to play out a trite soap opera?

I haven't read much fantasy recently, but I loved Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. That was quite a while ago though. Also going to check out Incrypted and The Goblin Emporer.