Readers enjoy stories of people falling in love, even ones where nothing more exciting happens than boy meets girl. When things get complicated by conflict or danger, they like it even better. Romantic suspense authors like Nora Roberts regularly top the best seller lists, since contests between heroes and villains make good reading.
The contract romances that used to be called 'bodice-rippers' have embraced adding an extra dimension of suspense to their plots. The naive young woman still meets a strong, mysterious man, but now the secret in his past is more likely to be espionage or law enforcement than personal bereavement or betrayal. The inevitable misunderstanding is still there, but a mystery complicates things, endangers the heroine, and moves the plot along.
However, novelists like Nora Roberts offer a lot more to their readers. Roberts has set a high standard with believable characters in real-life dilemmas. Her dialogue is intriguing and the struggles of her characters absorbing. There are no throw-away scenes that advance the plot or fulfill a formula.
Roberts wrote strictly romances for years, but now she has a best-selling series written under the pseudonym of J. D. Robb. Her heroine here is not a librarian or a schoolteacher but a New York policewoman. The romantic interest is the detective's husband, and this skilled writer has made their on-going relationship the central theme of the series.
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.
Another fine writer with a romantic figure as main character is Martha Grimes, whose handsome inspector Richard Jury falls in love often in the course of his investigations. Unfortunately, his fair ladies are either doomed, so full of self-doubt that they can barely function, or too diffident to cast the lures that would give Jury a clue. Some readers find this state of affairs annoying, but others are addicted to the man's complexity and eagerly await each new installment in the series.
Women authors predominate in this genre, but Dick Francis wrote thrillers with heroes who face murder and mayhem with equanimity. The main characters - all men - as well as the supporting cast are involved with some phase of British thoroughbred racing. Although mystery and suspense rule, the romantic side of things makes the books compelling. Love interests include ex-wives, first cousins, Italian and Swedish lovelies, daughters of aristocracy, and a leading jockey's sister.
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.
The contract romances that used to be called 'bodice-rippers' have embraced adding an extra dimension of suspense to their plots. The naive young woman still meets a strong, mysterious man, but now the secret in his past is more likely to be espionage or law enforcement than personal bereavement or betrayal. The inevitable misunderstanding is still there, but a mystery complicates things, endangers the heroine, and moves the plot along.
However, novelists like Nora Roberts offer a lot more to their readers. Roberts has set a high standard with believable characters in real-life dilemmas. Her dialogue is intriguing and the struggles of her characters absorbing. There are no throw-away scenes that advance the plot or fulfill a formula.
Roberts wrote strictly romances for years, but now she has a best-selling series written under the pseudonym of J. D. Robb. Her heroine here is not a librarian or a schoolteacher but a New York policewoman. The romantic interest is the detective's husband, and this skilled writer has made their on-going relationship the central theme of the series.
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.
Another fine writer with a romantic figure as main character is Martha Grimes, whose handsome inspector Richard Jury falls in love often in the course of his investigations. Unfortunately, his fair ladies are either doomed, so full of self-doubt that they can barely function, or too diffident to cast the lures that would give Jury a clue. Some readers find this state of affairs annoying, but others are addicted to the man's complexity and eagerly await each new installment in the series.
Women authors predominate in this genre, but Dick Francis wrote thrillers with heroes who face murder and mayhem with equanimity. The main characters - all men - as well as the supporting cast are involved with some phase of British thoroughbred racing. Although mystery and suspense rule, the romantic side of things makes the books compelling. Love interests include ex-wives, first cousins, Italian and Swedish lovelies, daughters of aristocracy, and a leading jockey's sister.
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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