Orcs are all the rage

Okay, I know this might not be for everyone and I'm going to be honest and say I haven't read them either, but hey, sometimes I need to alert you of things that you might not know about. And on today's version of "things you might not know" is that orcs are all the rage.

You know what orcs are, right? Those green, slimy creatures from Lord of the Rings who were created out of the goo as cannon fodder in the battle with Gandalf and his band of intrepid warriors and hobbits? They are truly awful and gross in the way they are depicted in the movies and definitely not my idea of hero material.

Of course, then the romance genre comes along and turns things on its head because romance is wide and vast and everyone deserves love, even the icky orcs. And they are not portrayed as icky in the romance novels either. With the current surge popularity of monster heroes and monster romance, orcs are front and centre. I'm seeing a lot of people talking about these books and saying that they are sweet and sexy and some of the best books they have read.

I'm all for being adventurous and reading broadly but I have to admit that I haven't quite ventured to reading orcs as heroes yet. I think I need to reset the mental picture in my head before I do that or maybe I should just jump in, read the book and then discover that hey, I do like orcs after all, well, romance orcs anyway. It was like that for me with aliens who do not look like humans but who are more alien. I still like them human-like but I've managed to venture into aliens with horns and tails (hello, Ruby Dixon's blue aliens, anyone?) and more feline looking aliens.

But we are talking about orcs here and I have a few romances that I can offer up for you to test the waters if you are interested in trying.

First up is Sisterwives For The Orc by Amanda Milo which is about an orc who has a harem. This is NOT a reverse harem and it's about an orc who has many wives. The heroine is one of them and apparently this book is sweet, sexy, and wonderful according to the many posts in book groups I've seen. It's not an orgy or anything like that. Apparently, sexy times is just between the orc hero and the human heroine. The opening line of the blurb says "This is Jumanji meets Elder Scrolls meets medieval romance with a blacksmith Orc. Basically a fantasy union for the ages. It’d be downright perfect… Except for the fact that my new husband comes with a side of three other wives." It's not pretending to be anything other than what it says it is.

 

Next up is an omegaverse orki (Isoellen's version of orcs) in the Orki War Bride Tale series. I love omegaverse and I love Ms Isoellen's 12 Sectors series books so I need to get past the whole orc thing and give these a shot at some point. According to the blurb in the first book "This is an Omegaverse fantasy story featuring scenes with intimate interactions and power exchange, with orc-like aliens set in a world ruled by violence. If you like tame romances, this story is not for you. Please read responsibly." There are two books in this series so far and I think there will be more in the future for those who enjoy reading a series though each book is standalone but set in the same world.

  

Finally, is this Orc Mates series by Cara Wylde. I know next to nothing about this series other than what's in the blurbs which reads "When the orcs invaded the human dimension, no one could stop them. War raged for years, and now the monstrous beasts have agreed to peace on two conditions: one, the human scientists must rebuild the machine that brought them into this world; and two, they must be provided with fertile brides to bear them orc babies." I find the covers and images on this series of books most approachable. They look mostly human albeit with little tusks sticking out of their mouths and a slightly green tinge to the skin, but compared to the other books I mentioned, the orcs on these books seem the most human-like.

These are only a few that I've come across. When I did a search on Amazon for "orc romance" it came back with over a thousand results. That's a lot of orc romance books and enough to satisfy any number of people who are into orcs. I'm going to be honest, my experience with orcs has always been of the icky kind (thank you, Lord of the Rings) so this is a major paradigm shift for me. I'll try to remain open minded and continue to keep an eye on this particular trend.

What do you think? Are orcs your thing or is this the first you've heard of them? Would you give them a try?


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