By Sela Carsen
From Chaplin’s City Lights to Moonstruck to Bridgerton on Netflix, we love to see a romance played out on screen. From rom-coms to melodramas, we root for the characters to overcome adversity and get to their Happily Ever After. Hallmark has an entire channel devoted to these sweet, feel-good stories that, for all their variations on essentially a single trope, there’s something incredibly comforting about them.
But for those of us who like a smidge more steam than the Hallmark channel provides, there’s a streaming service called PassionFlix. Yes, it offers a lot of G-rated sweet dramatizations of popular category romances, but it also has the rights to some of the Judith Krantz miniseries from the 80s, as well as series based on recent bestsellers in the romance aisles.
I was drawn in because YouTube (that algorithm knows me too well) was showing me clips from JR Ward’s “Black Dagger Brotherhood” last summer. The first book in the series, Dark Lover, hit the bestseller lists when it debuted in 2005 and I was an early convert. At last count, I’ve read 11 of the 23 books in the main series, and have dabbled in some of the spin-off series, as well.
So how did PassionFlix do with their dramatization of Dark Lover? Let’s just say there were high points and low points. To their credit, they didn’t cut any corners with the story. In six episodes, they included every scene and roughly 90% of the dialogue in the novel, which I re-read as soon as I finished the last episode. I wasn’t as big a fan of their casting, the acting, or the low-budget special effects, but I give them all the props for staying faithful to the book, including the steamy scenes.
I think if you’re the kind of person – like me – who enjoys their romance movies with a side of extra cheese, then PassionFlix needs to be on your radar. Highbrow, it ain’t, but there’s something both charming and defiant about saying yes to a few hours of entertainment that other people might sneer at, or only indulge as a guilty pleasure. Personally, I don’t believe in muddying a good time with guilt. Enjoy it or don’t. Life’s too short to care what snobs think.
Now I’m eagerly awaiting the release of the next season of “the Brotherhood,” which should be based on the second book in the series, Lover Eternal. I’ll pop the popcorn, extra butter, no guilt.
SELA CARSEN is an award-winning author of paranormal and sci-fi romance — with or without sex and dead bodies. Your pick. She maintains a permanent nerd-on for fairytales and mythology, and openly hoards reference books about obscure folklore. Born a wanderer, she and her family have finally settled in the Midwest. Until they move again, at least. Find out more at selacarsen.com!