(This post first appeared on Substack: Writing Magick with Maggie Sunseri. Click to subscribe.)
Haunting Adeline is a dark stalker romance novel in which a tall, tattooed hottie stalks a young author who recently moved into a Gothic family home in Washington. Zade, the lovable stalker, is the head of an underground hacker organization that aims to end human trafficking. He sees his girl, Adeline, at one of her book signings—and his obsession locks into place instantly and irreversibly. He follows her, watches her, breaks into her home, cuts off a man’s hands for touching her and leaves the severed limbs on her doorstep… (swoon!) Eventually, Adeline falls just as madly in love with her stalker as he had with her at first glance.
Haunting Adeline has ranked in the Top 100, often in the Top 10, of the Amazon charts for years now. Years! It has remained there, pushing thousands of copies a week, despite vocal opposition to its dark themes and sex scenes with dubious consent. These harsh voices, scathing reviews, and criticisms pale in comparison to the cold, hard sales data—and thousands upon thousands of enthusiastic 5-stars, fan art, and obsessed, adoring readers.
Since the release of Haunting Adeline, countless more stalker romances have been published, and many have hit similar sales milestones. Two in the past year—Lights Out and Once You’re Mine—launched into the Top 100 and were quickly picked up by traditional publishers in major deals. Lights Out is an interesting case study, as it subverts the original genre with a teddy bear “golden retriever” main male character (MMC) who is actually gentle, kind, and conscientious, merely playing the role of a scary stalker because he knows the female main character (FMC) is into it. It’s also categorized as a rom-com, often satirizing itself and the tropes of the niche—masked men, kink, obsession, violent themes, hidden cameras and tracking devices. It’s surprisingly sweet, romantic, and funny for a stalker romance, and I highly recommend it. It serves well as a palette cleanser between darker reads. 😉
My own dark fantasy romance novel, Stalked by Seduction and Shadows, is often described as “Haunting Adeline but with vampires,” and that is a marketing hook I will never turn down. Because it works.
Turns out, stalking is hot. To many, many people. No matter what they might say (or not say) publicly. The charts don’t lie.
But why?
When I explain my genre to vanilla folks, non-readers, or oblivious men, I’m often met with emotions ranging from curiosity, horror, disgust, and astonishment.
Men are especially flabbergasted. “You’re telling me women want to be stalked? Violated? Harmed?”
Opponents of the genre will claim that we’re encouraging dangerous behaviors and violence against women.
What the confused and the disturbed fail to understand is that what people read is very different to what people want out of relationships and sex in the real world. Just like what is sought in porn is often far more extreme than what the viewer may want to experience themselves. We’re discussing the realities of the subconscious mind—fantasies, dreams, fears, wounds, yearnings—that don’t directly translate to actions and desires in physical reality. Or, they might, but only inside consensual, healthy roleplaying.
None of these thousands upon thousands of readers want an actual stalker.
What they want is to feel seen, understood, and loved. Stalker romance is merely an extreme offshoot of the core desires that make us human. If you think this is a stretch, let me break this down further.
In stalker romances, stalking isn’t stalking. Stalking is a deep, subconscious yearning for safety, security, romance, intentionality, adoration. It’s about being chosen. It’s about effort, consistency, and pursuit. Don’t let these dark romance girlies fool you—they don’t want violence—they want love. (Though, they might want sex that explores violence, and there’s nothing wrong with that in safe, consenting environments.)
The point is, there’s a kind of comforting security in a big, strong man setting his sights on you and deciding that you belong to him forever. These men protect the objects of their obsession with unwavering ferocity, committing violent acts in their name with no remorse. They’re confident and assured. They’re proponents of grand romantic gestures, spoiling the FMC with affection, gifts, and chivalry. They’re charming, witty, and secretly good in some way, despite their violent tendencies. Nothing is more seductive.
Rune, from Stalked by Seduction and Shadows, might follow Scarlett around and watch her sleep, but when he sees her barren apartment—he immediately furnishes her place and continues to gift her new clothing, art, love letters, etc.. He might be a scary vampire lord, but he’s her scary vampire lord. He kills men for touching her, frightening her, or disrespecting her. He doesn’t merely stalk Scarlett for power’s sake. He does it to deeply understand the inner workings of her mind, to protect her, and yes, of course, because it turns him on. (It turns them both on.)
And that was what I wanted most. I wanted to gaze inside the powerful, haunted, beautiful mind of which I had only ever caught glimpses. I wanted to pry her open and drag her hidden pieces out into the chilly autumn air. I wanted to hold her trauma in my palms and study it, find where the tears began so I could help her mend them. I wanted to know her void and how compatible it was with mine. My pain wanted to flirt with hers. She was so used to manipulating desire, and I wanted her to set her sights on me. I wanted her to become frustrated when I refused to bend and downright terrified when she realized that her heart was the only thing ever truly in danger.
– Rune, Stalked by Seduction and Shadows
Rune and his beautiful words…
To understand the stalker romance trope, you have to peer deeper than the surface. Beyond the obvious sexiness of kinky smut or a tall, tattooed, dominant man, the main draw of this kind of obsession is actually the romance. Of course, women want a man who’s singularly focused on them in a world of internet porn, dating apps, social media, and the erosion of traditional romance. We all want to feel like we’re the object of someone else’s obsession. What is more powerful than another person wanting to peel back our layers to see us at our very core? And not only glimpse our inner world—but accept, cherish, consume, fucking bathe in those depths.
That’s what’s sexy. Not the hidden cameras or the vampire blood tracking.
The love.
(Okay, it’s both. It can be both.)
As SBSAS’s dedication reads: For soulmate love—however dark, powerful, & all-consuming.
That’s a fairly accurate summary of the stalker romance genre.
As for the “you’re glorifying violence against women!!!!” naysayers, let me gently remind you that women are overwhelmingly the primary consumers and producers of dark romance novels. You’re allowed to dislike things, even hate things with every fiber of your being. But attacking or harassing a group of people for “promoting violence,” who are very often the targets of said violence, is a very strange use of time and energy. Maybe let’s focus on blaming and targeting the actual perpetrators of harm and leave romance readers alone.
After all, many of us are survivors ourselves, and we should be allowed to express our sexuality and cope with trauma however we damn please.
It costs me nothing to see something I don’t like and quietly block, unfollow, or scroll past, and then move forward with my day. The world is too vast and full of beauty to focus on what we hate rather than what we love—darkly, devotedly, and obsessively. <3
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(This post first appeared on Substack: Writing Magick with Maggie Sunseri. Click to subscribe.)
