Best New Paranormal Romance

Guran's pioneering "best of" anthology, the first in a projected series, offers 12 enthralling tales of romance that incorporate supernatural, fantasy or SF elements. A few of these "stories of love and wonder" end with a standard HEA (romance-speak for "happily ever after"), but all avoid cliché. Among the best are Catherine Asaro's "The Shadowed Heart," about a battle-fatigued starfighter pilot; Elizabeth Hand's "Calypso in Berlin," a siren tale about the obsession an immortal nymph-artist feels for her human muse; Claudia O'Keefe's "A Maze of Trees," an eloquent testament to loneliness and sacrifice in an endangered forest; and Delia Sherman's "Walpurgis Afternoon," a whimsical gem concerning a mysterious Victorian home belonging to two witches that appears literally overnight in a middle-class suburb. Other contributors include Jane Yolen, Sandra MacDonald and Elizabeth Bear. In an illuminating introduction, Guran discusses the recent rise of the paranormal romance genre and the attempts to define what it is and isn't. (Apr.)