Rebecca Shea on changing trends in New Adult books: Darkness rules

Rebecca Shea, author of the Unbreakable Series (Unbreakable, Undone and, most recently, Unforgiven), explores why readers of New Adult fiction are loving the darker stories that authors are delivering.

Rebecca: Out with the old and in with the new. As quickly as fashion trends change, so do the minds of today's readers. 2014 has seen a steady rise of darker-themed New Adult books. While romance and sex still reign supreme, it's the twisted fantasies of dark romance scrawled across pages and e-reader screens that have surfaced in many of today's bestselling books.

With the steady rise of self-publishing, we've seen books with sexy and dark subject matters, those which many traditional publishing houses have typically steered away from, top the charts. Readers are consuming these books in droves, inhaling the cringe-worthy storylines and demanding more.

While these novels still deal heavily in romance, they tend to push the boundaries with taboo stories of the forbidden. Readers are finding themselves lost in the pages of these stories while questioning the morality of the characters. They are seeing the darker side of humanity — the stories we only hear about on the news, never in real life. They're reading and living their worst fears — and loving it.

Readers have begun to crave the tortured souls, the damaged male or female characters who have experienced the unthinkable Those characters have visited the darkest places we can only imagine, only to find love and passion in the journey. Readers are thriving on the morbid curiosity, the danger, and the intrigue and are living vicariously through the eyes of these characters — drawing them into the darkest places of their minds. With every turn of the page or swipe of the e-reader screen, readers are finding themselves falling into the sinkhole of desires and fantasies most will never live in real life.

Readers are engaging in and loving stories of protagonists that have been kidnapped or held hostage. Those characters who've fallen unexpectedly into the world of dark BDSM or are conflicted and dabbling with dubious consent. They've watched precariously as characters have fallen victim to the antics of mafia hit men, motorcycle club members and cartel leaders, while rooting for these characters and their redemption. Many of the antagonists are men that society typically shuns — mobsters and narco cartel members. The ones too damaged to be saved are exactly the ones readers love to hate and hate to love.

As writers, exploring deeper, darker character dimensions allows us to show another layer of depth to our creativity. We're writing stories with conflicted protagonists and damaged antagonists, exploring the boundaries of non-traditional relationships.

We also get to explore and live the journey alongside these characters as we write them. We listen to their voices and bring their stories to life, all while delivering a message to our readers. Most of our stories offer our characters a chance at redemption or atonement. There is typically a resolution at the end of our books, where the reader is left feeling satisfied — complete. It's exhausting, exhilarating and sometimes a little scary to write about the darker side of life. But we thrive on creating characters that readers just can't quite put their finger on. We love it when you love and hate them, all in the same breath.

When you're closing your books and powering off your e-readers, wondering what in the world you just read, we hope you have lived through the eyes of these characters and have loved the journey you took alongside them. We know it's grueling. These stories are your worst nightmares and your biggest fears, but we love knowing that you're finding guilty pleasure in the fantasy these stories bring to you.

So, sit back and lose yourself on the rollercoaster ride of fear, desire and passion. Take it for what it is — fiction. We hope that you love every dark, haunting and romantic story.

Here's the blurb about Unforgiven:

Lindsay Christianson seemingly has it all—the perfect career, the perfect boyfriend, and the best-laid plans for a perfect life—until one phone call changes everything.

With a moment's notice, Lindsay must choose between her perfect life and her professional dreams. The choice momentarily seems clear when the opportunity to propel her career abruptly sends her across the country, leaving everything she loves behind in North Carolina.

Navigating a new city with a broken heart and a job where her colleagues will do anything to sabotage her success, the pressure quickly becomes too great. When old habits resurface, Lindsay finds herself chasing demons she thought were long since buried.

With pain and destruction left in her wake, will Lindsay find a way to erase the damage she's done, or will her sins remain unforgiven?

Find out more about Rebecca and her books at www.rebeccasheaauthor.com.