I like to believe my suspense novels marry the strong characters from my romance writing past, with the twisty, clever plots of my mystery writing present.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I think of my books now as suspense novels, usually with a love story incorporated. They're absolutely a lot harder to write than romances. They take more plotting and real character development.
As for suspense, I like to write books that draw you into the hero's plight from the opening pages, where people put their lives on the line for something - a belief, a family member, the truth.
I read what I like to write: romantic suspense. I also love thrillers and novels of suspense, but I can't handle extreme violence and torture.
Whether labeled as such or not, I think every book I've ever written has been, more or less, a romantic suspense. I have always put tremendous effort into making each book a page turner: The harder it is for the reader to put it down, the better I've done my job.
I still read romance, and I read suspense. I read them both. And part of it is, I like stories with strong characters, and I like stories where there's closure at the end. And I like stories where there's hope. That's a kind of empowerment. I think romance novels are very empowering, and I think suspense novels are, too.
If you lift the romantic element out of my plots, you still have fully formed mysteries. In the same fashion, if you pull the mystery out of a historical romance, you are left with a perfectly satisfying story.
The mystery form was very helpful for me as a beginning writer because mystery novels and suspense novels have a beginning, a middle and an end.
It's a luxury to be able to tell a long form story. I love novels, and I love to have a long relationship with characters.
The characters are always the focal point of a book for me, whether I'm writing or reading. I may enjoy a book that has an intriguing mystery or a good plot, but to become one of my real favorites, it has to have great characters.
The funny thing is, though I write mysteries, it is the one genre in adult fiction I never read. I read Nancy Drew, of course, when I was a kid, but I think the real appeal is as a writer because I'm drawn to puzzly, complicated plots.
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