Tuesday 7 June 2011

Author Spotlight Week -Toni Noel shares her passion for Romantic Suspense


Right after 'Write what you know' should come 'Write what you love to read.' A third rule should be 'Write what readers want to read.' Currently Romantic Suspense is outselling all other genres.

I love to read a good romantic suspense, the kind of book guaranteed to makes you burn the hard boiled eggs and forget to pick up your son after baseball practice. The kind of book you can't put down, with characters you fall in love with on page one, laugh with, cry with and almost die with before the end of the book.

All great reads, but not as easy to write as you may think. Writing romantic suspense is far more complicated than writing a straight romance. I have to remember to sow seeds of doubts, plant red herrings and put off solving the mystery to allow the hero and heroine time to fall in love, not an easy goal.

Plotting these novels is like carefully shuffling two decks of cards. One deck represents the mystery, the other the romance. All the events must be seamlessly merged or the reader will be drawn out of the story and is likely to throw the book across the room. Or delete it from her eReader, a new and possible threat for writers.

And yes, I'm a true believer in romance. If my hero and heroine face death before morning, they're bound to spend their last night in hiding in each other's arms. In Temp To Permanent, my romantic suspense just released by Desert Breeze Publishing, right before Carina gets kidnapped, Greg and Carina spend a night in each other's arms, all the more reason for Greg to find the woman he loves and save her life.

I prefer to read books where the hero seeks the heroine's help to catch a bad guy and they fall in love while thrown together, not books where there is no romance, and I have a long list of authors who never disappoint me. I'll share a few with anyone who leaves a comment here.

4 comments:

  1. Romantic suspense is my favorite genre, and yours sounds interesting. Last Resort releases July 15 and is romantic suspense. Congratulations on your new release. BJ

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  2. Good advice, Toni. I confess that I haven't read a lot romantic suspense in the past few years, but I'm feeling myself pulled back to it. This was a very engaging post. Your "voice" even here is engaging.
    Blessings~
    Naomi

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  3. B.J., Naomi, and Linda, thanks for dropping by and good luck with your books. there's a whole world of opportunities awaiting you.

    Toni

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