Guest Author Mary Burton w/ Give away!

So, a friend of mine wants to write romantic suspense and she asked me for a few tips the other day.  “It’s a tricky balance,” I said.  “Too may folks make the mistake of plotting a romance and plotting a suspense and then thinking they can run the independent stories side by side.” 

“Yes, but that story does have elements of romance and suspense.”

“True, but a successful romantic suspense doesn’t just have both elements.  It braids the plots together.  The romance and the suspense are interdependent.   

This was never truer for me than in my latest romantic suspense, DYING SCREAM.   Neither the romance nor the suspense could have advanced without the other.

The story opens with my heroine Adrianna a young widow charged with selling her late husband’s ancient family estate to pay debts she inherited.    As a condition of the sale, Adrianna must move the family’s ancestral graveyard.  Excavation day arrives and who should appear at the site but Detective Gage Hudson, an expert in finding missing persons who three years ago believed Adrianna’s husband was responsible for the disappearance and possible murder of a young woman.  Gage wants to be present when the old graves are removed…just in case his missing person is located.  And did I mention that years ago Gage had loved Adrianna and that she’d left him for Craig? 

Adrianna and Gage would like nothing better than to avoid seeing each other.  But when two unmarked graves are found, Adrianna and Gage can’t go their separate ways.  The suspense keeps them together even as their simmering emotions collide with the murder investigation.

I love to bake and can always find a way to relate writing back to baking and cooking.   One of my favorite desserts to make is a flourless chocolate cake.  Just a few simple ingredients:  chocolate, sugar, and eggs.  Nothing super-fancy but each element must be present and fully blended with the others to make the cake.

It’s the same with romantic suspense.  I couldn’t have written DYING SCREAM just as A Suspense or just as A Romance.  And I couldn’t have baked my favorite chocolate cake with just eggs or just sugar.  Each element needs not only to be present but must mingle to make the whole a success.

So, if you’ve got a taste for writing romantic suspense, I say go for it.  Nothing beats a great romantic suspense.  (Well, that chocolate cake I mentioned is a close second.)  Just remember to fully combine the two elements together. 

Mary Burton
www.maryburton.com

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