Sunday, November 16, 2014

Enjoy Romantic Suspense Authors Like Nora Roberts

By Christa Jarvis


Romance is a big seller, as are thrillers full of tension. Romantic suspense authors like Nora Roberts have the best of both genres. Readers have two themes to intrigue them - the interaction between hero and heroine and the fear that a villain will get one of them. With a very skillful writer, there's the fear that the villain will be one of them.

This is a new segment in the mass-produced romances that used to be called 'bodice rippers'. The main theme, which shows up practically on page one, is the strong attraction between a beautiful young girl and a generic male character. The recent twist is to have the inevitable misunderstanding complicated by a mystery. It does make things more interesting than the old boy-meets-girl, girl-runs-away plot.

Novelists with the stature of Nora Roberts offer their readers well-crafted stories. Characters are believable; in fact, they may become more real to fans than real-life public figures or celebrities. Roberts creates characters, plots, and settings that are so compelling that readers eagerly follow her trilogies and series. She never adds sketchy passages that serve only to advance the plot.

Roberts was a romance writer for years before starting a series about a New York city policewoman. For the 'In Death' novels, Nora uses a pseudonym, J. D. Roberts. Although crime moves the plot, the true story lies in the relationship between the detective and her husband.

Of course, suspense does not always involve a crime being committed. Dorothy L. Sayers created Lord Peter Whimsey, a British nobleman who solves problems for family and country. After breaking many hearts, he eventually falls for a woman charged with murder, and the question of whether they will ever surmount the obstacles that separate them is tension enough for several books.

Police are favorite characters, but this doesn't eliminate the romantic angle. Martha Grimes writes the saga of Richard Jury, a melancholy detective whose desire for love is frustrated over and over. Devoted readers enjoy Jury's cleverness and his relationships with co-workers, friends, acquaintances, lovers, and a mysterious Londoner who may or may not have committed the crime Jury suspects him of.

Not all the good authors are women, either. Dick Francis wrote action books based on the world of thoroughbred racing. They are all mysteries, with a central character investigating dark plots among the aristocracy as well as the lower classes. Both worlds are expertly depicted, and the heroes narrowly escape death but never the mayhem that goes before it. However, some of his best books involve romance: Matt Shore falling for his Nancy or Sid Halley losing his first wife to his ambition to be leading steeplechase rider.

Many authors are tops in the romance suspense field for the brilliance of their plots and the excellence of their writing. A great novelist creates characters that develop over time, in a series of books, and may become as much a part of reality for readers as do the 'real life' people they know.




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