I am abusing Shaun’s hospitality now, but while he is winding his way across country I am playing here on his blog. Mwahaha haha ahaha umm, ok sorry, *cough* getting carried away.
There are three major bookstores in Leicester (UK). In the city centre there are two Waterstone’s, the big one near work and the small one in the main mall. We also have a Borders near our huge out-of-city shopping park (individual stores arranged around the car 
parks). The Borders used to be an electronics warehouse, so it’s a strange place and I love it. I don’t get there much since we moved.
Anyway, I love urban fantasy but I struggle to find what I am looking for. Waterstone’s, I think, have a pretty good idea that Urban Fantasy exists and throw it in the SFF or Horror sections, depending on whether is says Vampires in big letters or something. The stuff they have in their paranormal romance section I would generally say ok to being there. All in all, it varies between stores, but it’s usually in the same area as the rest of the fantasy so no biggie.
I went to Borders recently and was excited because they sometimes stock books Waterstone’s doesn’t get. So off I dashed to the SFF / Horror section. It has become pitifully small for a start; I was appalled at the general lack of a section in the enourmous warehouse, but then I noticed something. Not a single Chris McGrath cover amongst the lot. Eep. Ok I looked again, more carefully. Nope not one single urban fantasy title.
A suspicion started to settle itself in my mind and I slightly, sheepishly dragged my heels towards the romance section (yeah, British, easily embarrased, generally go the ebook route for my romance). Uh huh. The paranormal romance section was as big as the whole SFF area and sure enough there was all my urban fantasy. Now I know UF has a kind of kick ass chicks getting involved with supernatural types thing going on, but seriously, I think they misunderstood where Justin Gustainis was coming from calling his book Black Magic Woman–guys he means it in the “using the body parts of small children to do evil” way, not the “she cast a spell over my heart” way.
Maybe I need to suck it up and learn to live with it, but it really bugs me that Urban Fantasy is seen as romance. Romance has it’s place and it’s genre and is it’s own thing; UF is something else and although there may be an audience overlap, UF also has an overlap with Horror and SFF. Twilight isn’t in paranormal romance; it’s in YA Fiction (it should be in the shredder, but that’s a different rant). I can’t help feeling that Borders are losing it, because really if I want kick ass girls smooching vamps I don’t think I’d be too pleased when I actually cracked open my shiny new Rob Thurman novel and found out the hot guys on the cover weren’t the love interest, they were the whole story.
So what are your misfiling peeves? Are you riled up that sci fi bestsellers (Cloud Atlas?) deny their roots and sit in the fiction shelves while Robert Holdstock languishes on the SF shelf or that the Nadia Stafford books were next to the Otherworld series because they are all Kelley Armstrong with no consideration to genre?
