All of us are aware that there are no logical answers to the spiritual forces in the universe. However, we can have some fun around the paranormal theme. One way of doing this is playing the paranormal-themed online slot games. Online gaming enthusiasts who are fans of the paranormal fiction can experience these wonders while spinning their reels.

Of course, the online casinos have slot games based on several other themes. For now, let’s explore the top three paranormal-themed online slots.

1. Mysterious

This online slot would take you back to England’s Victorian era. It does this with the help of a creepy story, which features a few ghosts. Mysterious has been designed and developed by one of the leading game developers, Pragmatic Play. The theme is complete with elements of horror and mystery. You’ll enjoy its detailed graphics and colorful icons.

The action takes place in an animated background with bolts of lightning. Among the other things are a street at night and a house on a hill. The game has 4 reels and you’ll have 256 ways to win. When it comes to the game’s regular symbols, you have nine. They are four playing card suits, four door knockers, and the Mysterious logo. The game can activate one of its three modes at random.

All of these three modes have specific features. The three wild symbols in the game substitute for the missing basic symbols. Some of them would give you winning multipliers. They can also expand and turn the icons in the surroundings into wilds.

2. 3 Witches

Developed by The Stars Group, 3 Witches features crisp graphics and some unique icons. This witchcraft-themed online slot has impressive detailing and animated sequences. You’ll also have dark reels in this game. A witch workshop is shown with potions, cauldrons, and several other amazing things.

There are 20 paylines and 5 reels in this online slot game. The game features eight standards symbols. They are a bottle with a potion, a raven, a spider, a burning skull, three witches, and a mortar. The wild symbol in this game is a black cat. If you manage to get 5 cats on a line, you’ll have the highest cash reward.

This wild also replaces all the standard symbols while helping you complete the winning lines. The logo of 3 Witches is the scatter symbol. It can pay you in any position.

3. Merlin And The Philosopher’s Stone

This online slot game has been developed by Arcadem, one of the leading online casino game providers. If you’ve been thinking that Merlin was an old wizard, this game will prove you wrong. Here, you’ll find a blonde alchemist playing the lead role. Merlin And The Philosopher’s Stone has transparent reels with cartoonish icons. It is one of the most popular slot games with a paranormal theme

The alchemist’s workshop is shown by a big image. You’ll have 10 paylines and 5 reels in this game. The basic symbols in this game are red, purple, yellow, and blue potions; Merlin, and gold bars. An image that shows Merlin’s hands holding precious stones is the wild icon. It replaces al the basic symbols, expands, and even covers the reels where it lands.

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They’d spend some time scouring the pages to know whether they’d want to buy the book. Fortunately, you have some good review sites today that make things easier for readers. So, let’s take a look at some of the leading book review sites every reader must know:

1. Goodreads.com

Goodreads has become extremely popular with readers in recent times. This book review site gives you the convenience of organizing your own library. Besides this, you can create your own wish list and see what others are recommending. Goodreads also allows you to track the books you want to read or the ones you’re reading. The site also has a strong social media presence with a huge fan following.

2. Omnivoracious.com

Also popular as The Amazon Book Review, this website went live in 2007. It’s actually a blog from Amazon.com’s book editors. They share news, interviews, reviews and many other things on Omnivoracious.

Be it fiction, cookbooks, non-fiction, romance, children’s books, or science fiction, they talk about books of all genres. You’ll also find other useful stuff on this site, such as book recommendations and interviews with authors.

3. NYbooks.com

Over the years, NYbooks have become one of the leading English literary-intellectual magazine. Some of the earlier authors included Elizabeth Hardwick, W.H. Auden, Edmund Wilson, Hannah Arendt, Susan Sontag, and Norman Mailer. On this book review site, you’ll come across many book recommendations.

They com from renowned contributors in the world of literature. The writers publish reviews of books and arts every other week on Nybooks.

4. BookPage.com

BookPage was founded in the year 1988 in Nashville, Tennessee. This book review site serves as a guide to the best new books that are published every month. In order to keep their visitors engaged, the site also hosts sweepstakes contests and giveaways.

5. KirkusReviews.com

This fantastic website has its origins in a book review magazine, which was founded by Virginia Kirkus in 1933. Over the years, it also launched one of the world’s richest literary awards. It offers $50,000 prizes every year to authors of different genres. Kirkus Reviews also has an immense newsletter subscription list, which serves the book reviewers.

They can benefit from a weekly newsletter that provides the right book recommendations. For over 85 years, Kirkus Reviews has been a reliable source of information about books for many readers.

6. AllReaders.com

This amazing book review site fetches the right results for you. You just need to let it know the plots or genres of your interest. AllReaders.com classifies books based on plot, character, setting, and writing style. It also features detailed reviews of books from different genres. What’s unique about this site is that it’s more detailed and specific than most of the other review sites.

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Historical romance forms the broad category of mass-market fiction. As the novels of this genre are mainly for the mass market, their chances of success depend on the prevailing trends. Large merchandisers and booksellers don’t sell many paperbacks, which adversely affects this genre at times.

More than 770 historical romance genre novels came out in the beginning of the 21st century. Within about four years, the number had dropped below 490. However, it still accounted for almost 20% of all the published romance novels.

History of the historical romance genre

Georgette Heyer’s The Black Moth came out in 1921. This novel was one of the first historical romances to achieve great popularity. The story of this novel had its setting in the mid-18th century. About 15 years later, she came up with the first of her signature Regency novels. Its setting was in the period between 1811 and 1820. This was the time when England was under the rule of Prince Regent.

Jane Austen’s works were the inspiration behind the Regency novels of Georgette Heyer. They were from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The stories of Heyer’s Regency novels were set amid the events that had occurred more than 100 years ago. To help her readers understand the context, she included all the authentic details of the period.

Wherever the author made a reference to the historical events, it gave readers a background detail of the period. It was not of great importance in the narrative. It was in the United States that the modern romance genre was born. This happened in the early 1970s. Kathleen E Woodiwiss’s novel The Flame and the Flower was published by Avon Publications.

Other than the content, this book was quite revolutionary. It was among the first single-title romance novels to come out in the form of an original paperback. The novel went on to sell more than 2.30 million copies. Two years later, Avon published the second novel of Woodiwiss titled The Wolf and the Dove.

Types of Historical Romance Genre

Viking

This type of historical romance novels feature Vikings set during the period of Dark Ages or Middle Ages. The protagonists in Viking romances are the typical alpha males under the influence of their better halves. Most of the Viking romance heroes are tall, blonde, and handsome. The use of Viking culture in these novels allow the authors to include some exciting elements like travel, adventures, and conquest.

More than 200 readers of Viking romances took part in a poll conducted in 1997. In this poll, Fires of Winter by Johanna Lindsey emerged as the best from the sub-genre. Sadly, the readers have not seen many Viking romance novels after the 1990s. It seems that this sub-genre has fallen out of style.

Medieval

Typically set during the times between 938 and 1485, this sub-genre feature women as the weaker sex. These were the times when they were living according to their father’s wishes. Such women often had to use their wits and will power to find the ‘ideal husband’.

He was the one who would accept the woman’s need to be independent, while protecting her from the dangers. The hero of the novels belonging to this genre was usually a knight. He first learned to respect his lady and her unusual ideas and then fell in love with her.

Such heroes were always strong and dominant. The heroines were in a subordinate position despite making all the gains. She usually made that choice for the sake of protection that she got from her beloved. The main purpose of the heroes in these novels was to fulfill the heroine’s wishes.

Western

The novels in this sub-genre usually have their setting in the frontier areas of the United States, Australia, or Canada. In Western romance novels, the focus is more on the experiences of the heroine. The heroes in these novels seek adventures and conquest of the unknown. These men are slightly uncivilized and lonely souls. Owing to certain events beyond their control, the heroines have to travel to the frontier.

Their challenge is to survive in a world dominated by men. By the end of these novels, they usually conquer their fears with love. Mostly, the couple face personal dangers. Amid their troubles, they forge a strong relationship for their future.

Victorian

Novels in this sub-genre have their setting in the England of the 19th century. The Victorian period in these novels usually begins with the Reform Act of 1832. This period is also characterized by the rule of Queen Victoria. Some of the stories set during this period feature a fictional country. One example of this would be the novels that Beatrice Heron-Maxwell wrote.

Pirate

Pirate novels usually feature the protagonist as a ‘bad boy’ who dominates everyone for freedom and wealth. The protagonist or the main character can be a male or a female. The heroes in these novels usually capture the heroine early on in the story.

She is then forced to succumb to his wishes and eventually falls in love with him. Rarely, in some of the novels in this sub-genre, the heroine is the pirate. In such stories, she struggles to maintain her freedom. Much of the action in these novels happens on the waters.

Native American

In a way, these novels can also be placed in the Western sub-genre. The differentiating factor is that this sub-genre always has a protagonist who is a Native American. His heritage forms the integral part of the story. These novels mainly focus on freedom, instinct, creativity, and the longing to escape from social ills. In these books, the members of the Native American tribes are depicted as exotic people.

They possess the kind of freedom that one admires and envies at the same time. Generally, the protagonist’s struggle in these novels is against racism and the resulting hardships. In most of these stories, the hero or heroine gets captured. He or she then falls in love with a member of the Native American tribe.

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They can be about the life of ordinary people or an aristocratic society. Regardless of the narrative’s focus, all novels in this genre have some prominent features. Let’s take a look at them:

1. Setting

Here, setting refers to the place and time in history. The historical fiction novels transport readers to a period in the past in the first couple of paragraphs. This is the reason why they choose such books in the first place. Sometimes, you find yourself in the past just by reading the opening sentences.

As you read further, more details of the period are revealed. They’re usually in the form of costumes, furniture, food, housing, entertainment, sounds, architecture, and several other aspects.

2. Characters

The character in such novels behave according to the customs and traditions that prevailed in the era. Of course, in some of the novels, they’re inspired to push the boundaries. The characters of these novels can either be real or the imagined creations of the author. So, you get to discover some of the beliefs, norms, traditions, culture, and attitudes of the era the novel is set in.

3. Theme

There are many potential themes that the historical fiction novels might explore. Some of them are revenge, loyalty, temptation, ambition, love, patriotism, destiny, and friendship. No matter what the theme of the novel is, it must be within the context of the period. This might involve a lot of research.

For example, what constitutes loyalty in recent times might be entirely different in those times. In some societies of the past, one had to prove loyalty by performing certain actions.

4. Dialogues

Sentences spoken by characters in historical fiction novels might include the period’s vocabulary and grammatical structures. The words and phrases are carefully inserted to remind you of the era that the novel is set in. Most of these novels also take utmost care not to slow down the readers’ pace with cumbersome dialogues. The author does this to make the book easier to understand and enjoy.

5. Plot

The plot of a historical fiction novel has to make sense for the era it represents. It is often shaped by the historical events that have taken place around that period. Usually, this can be seen when the novel is about famous historical figures.

Moreover, they don’t delve into the insignificant events too much as it might confuse the reader. A good author of historical fiction knows that he or she is not writing history but narrating a story.

6. Conflict

What would really keep your interest on in a historical fiction novel is the conflict in the story. The author generally creates this with all the problems that the characters in the story face. A good novel in this genre presents a realistic conflict that’s true to the era and the place.

The readers would obviously want to understand the reasons behind the conflict that the story presents. For instance, a young woman during the 15th century might be forced into marriage with an older man. She might also have to take religious vows forcibly. These are some of the choices that may lead to conflict.

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