I’ve been on holiday the last few days. It’s the school
holidays here in New Zealand and I went up to the lovely wine growing region of
the Hawke’s Bay.
I had to laugh when I learned this month’s topic on Romancing the
Genre’s blog was mysteries because I
lost my iPhone in the Hawke’s Bay and I have no idea how.
I’ve been busy cancelling sim cards and phones. As it turns out it’s
a very expensive lesson for me. To replace my iPhone is around $900NZ! I got my
iPhone FREE on a 24 month plan, which I’m locked into and I’m only 11 months
in. So I have to buy a new phone. It might not be an iPhone. I’ll clarify that,
unless my insurance comes to the party it won’t be an iPhone. I’m checking out
my insurance as I type this.
So, I am facing my own little mystery, where did I lose it, and
how did I lose it? Did someone steal it out of my bag? Curses on them if they
did!
I much prefer being an author writing
a mystery into my stories, than being an author facing my own personal mystery
in real life. I’m pretty certain I’ll never solve the mystery of my missing
iPhone. It’s gone. BIG SIGH.
I do write historical romantic suspense. Mysteries or suspense in a romance story lifts the game. Not only
are the couple facing relationship issues, there is usually someone, or
something, set on ensuring they never find their happy ever after. It raises
the stakes, the tension, and the satisfaction at the end.
I do love writing romantic suspense type stories. My latest Regency historical romance,
To Challenge the Earl of Cravenswood (due out late October 2012), is a Cinderella type romance. Here’s the
blurb:
Henry St. Giles, the Earl of Cravenswood, longs to find his soul mate. Now that his two best friends, both reformed rakes, are happily married, the need becomes an obsession. When they challenge him to find a wife by the end of the season or marry his neighbor, the innocently alluring Lady Amy Shipton, he can’t believe his luck. He wins, either way. But a darkened garden, a case of mistaken identity, a drunken kiss, and a dropped emerald earring, leads Henry on a Cinderella hunt. He knows the woman he held in his arms could be the one he's searched for all his life. He just has to find her.
Lady Amy Shipton is determined to marry for love instead of sharing her husband like her mother did. So why did she let her handsome neighbor and romantic fantasy, the Sinful Saint as he's called for his bedroom prowess, seduce her in his garden? And what can she do when in the middle of their passionate encounter; he whispers another woman's name. Now Henry is hunting the owner of the earring Amy left behind, and she's determined to retrieve it before her identity is revealed. She's not about to give her father the ammunition he desperately wants to force her down the aisle.
Can you see the high-jinx involved here? I love that Henry and Amy are at
crossed purposes. Of course we know it all ends happily ever after, but the mystery, the cat and mouse game, and the hoops they both have to jump through builds the story up and makes for an extremely satisfying ending.
Do you
like a bit of suspense or mystery in your books? If so, why? Have you ever lost
anything and been stumped as to how?
