Romantic suspense is all the rage in the Christian fiction market. In fact, it’s difficult to find any mystery in Christian fiction that doesn’t have romance in it, much to my annoyance.
But if you want to write in this subgenre of romance, take a look at this post by Fay Lamb on the basic components of romantic suspense. A lot of her advice can be applied to any genre, such as making your main character likable.
If you’re a fan of romantic suspense, which ones would you recommend to me as someone who loves mysteries but gets tired of the romance eclipsing it? And I hate stalker stories. If there’s a romantic suspense without a stalker playing cat-and-mouse with the heroine, I might make it to the end.
I had no clue romantic suspense could be part of this genre!
It is huge. In fact, at a conference, an agent told me that since YA Christian fiction is such a hard sell, and I like crime fiction, I should try romantic suspense. Since I can’t read it, there’s no way I can write it.
It’s the same for historical fiction! They’re all mostly heavy on the romance, light on the history, though I’ve enjoyed Sarah Sundin’s WW2 books- they’re still romance, BUT there’s a lot more too the story and very good research (no stalkers either 🙂 ) I’ve half considered tweaking my story a little bit to aim for that genre- there IS a relationship in the story that is pretty important, but it’s NOT a “will they get together?!” and I don’t read straight romance either so nope! We’ll see if that hurts marketing I suppose…
I mentioned to a friend of mine who writes historical fiction that I got tired of the all the romance in the genre, and she said I should like her novel “Brigid of Ireland”, since it’s sent in ancient Ireland and concerns that country’s first nun.
Well THAT should be safe from romantic entanglements 😉 Do you mind if I ask who the author is? (if the book is out)
I’ll respond to your question here and on your site, Anne, to make sure you get it. Cindy Thomson writes about the time Christianity it just making inroads into pagan Ireland. Her trilogy consists of “Brigid of Ireland”, “Pages of Ireland,” and “Enya’s Son.” She also wrote a trilogy of stories about immigrants coming through Ellis Island, “Annie’s Storie’s,” “Grace’s Pictures”, and “Sofia’s Tune.”