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Love: It's Perfectly Paranormal

Enchanted Hearts are liberation with limits; each volume of the series seems to empower its readers only within the narrow confines of the genre. This semi-formulaic love series pushes the romance boundaries by incorporating elements of the supernatural within the romance plot. The teenaged heroines' seemingly sudden discovery of malleable, otherworldly forces allow them to manipulate and influence their romantic relationships. Though the heroines' supernatural trickery is titillating, love--a virtual third character hovering above the romancing duo--is equally engaging. Love's force, as described in Cameron Dokey's Lost and Found and Janet Quin-Harkin's Love Potion, is transcendent, powerful and inevitable.

Though the recognition of her psychic powers occurred outside the novel's narrative, Cameron Dokey's Lost and Found describes the clashing of Amy Johnson's powers with the force of love. Amy is a clairvoyant whose talents have been used to assist the police in abduction cases; her psychic ability allows her to literally see through the eyes of the victim. When Amy is called upon to investigate the ransom of a millionare's son, flashes from a past tragedy coupled with a growing love for a stranger met only once, threaten to obscure her view.

Dokey's romance is actually a suspenseful mystery, told in a third person narrative style. About 75% of the novel is devoted to Amy's thoughts and actions, while the remainder of the narrative focuses on Nick, the kidnapping victim Amy is trying to save. In a rather predictable coincidence, Nick the victim turns out to be the hero of Amy's romance fantasy. The two teens had met at the scene of a crime Amy had investigated in California and, though they barely spoke, each made a lasting impression on the other. This plot twist allows Dokey to characterize love as somewhat of a savior's helper; it is Amy's memory of her mystery love that allows her the strength to save Nick and the subsequent comfort of her search (Amy can project her thoughts into Nick's mind) that gives Nick the will to survive captivity.

"[Nick] wouldn't give up. Wouldn't ever give up. . . She was out there, somewhere. Searching. . . Because, with a certainty no fear, despair, or logic could shake, Nick Granger believed that Amy Johnson existed. And that she would be his salvation"(98).

Here, Dokey implies that love is an unbreakable bond, a uniting force existing outside of Amy and Nick's control. Before each realize their mutual affection for each other, another power is orchestrating their union. Explained with the types of coincidence that seem to pepper any "And That's How we Met" anecdote, Amy and Nick's story is made more urgent, more hyperreal by their deeper connection with each other. Dokey uses Amy's powers to hyperbolic effect; the emotions felt at the formation of their coupledom are exaggerated versions of the highs and lows of teen romantic relations.

When, at last, Amy and Nick seal their friendship and begin their romance with a kiss, the invisible bond between the two teens is characterized with an almost physical description:

"Touching her wasn't even like touching another person, [Nick] thought. It was like touching some previously undiscovered part of himself. . . All he knew was that he wasn't alone or lonely. . . At long last he had found a place where he belonged"(139).
This "place" Nick describes is an interior temple, built with the assistance of love, an emotion characterized by Dokey as a force as powerful as Amy's psychic talents. This discovery is the pinnacle of romance, the inevitable end to what would seem to be an intrinsic part of a search for spiritual completion.

Janet Quin-Harkin echoes this belief in her Enchanted Hearts offering, Love Potion. Though Quin-Harkin's heroine T.J. doesn't realize it at the beginning of the novel, she, too is in possession of otherworldly powers. When T.J. and her dad move to her eccentric, former movie star aunt's creepy manion in L.A., T.J. uses a found book of spells and a newly discovered talent for witchcraft to attempt to snag a T.V. star boyfriend. When a love potion intended for Brandon, the snobby star, ends up ingested by a cute neighbor, T.J. begins to question her initial crush.

After Jack, T.J.'s neighbor, swallows her love potion laced brownie, the two share a kiss. To T.J.'s surprise, she feels a spark when their lips meet:

"I hadn't expected to feel anything, but I had. It was like my lips had known what to do when they met his, and for a second, I had felt safe"(130).
T.J.'s reaction to her physical union with Jack is similar to Nick's response to his kiss with Amy. T.J.'s surprise feeling of safety and comfort is not unlike the interior temple Nick describes.

Though love is not as forceful a presence in Quin-Harkin's novel, it continues to shape the romantic events which transpire in spite of T.J.'s witch-y attempts to manipulate them otherwise. In Love Potion, as in Lost and Found, love is a force woven within human desire, elusive yet pervasive. The supernaturally talented heroine's attempts to control this force are admirable, even empowering; however, love continues to dodge their efforts and play its own game. Here, romance involves a surrender, though not, as in more traditional fare, to a man. In the realm of the Enchanted Hearts, love supercedes the patriarchy.