My first two titles for Choc-lit are now being re-released by Joffe books. Both were written for a huge reality contest run in the US by the Romantic Times magazine and Dorchester Publishing - both sadly no more. And both books made the final! As you can imagine, that was a huge boost to an unpublished author, even though I didn't come anywhere near winning. Even so, it took a while to find a publisher here in the UK. Romantic suspense is not a well known genre, but then Choc-lit took a chance...
Although I would class all my books as romantic suspense, these two books are very different from the Riviera series that I have been writing lately. Those books are lighter, escapist holiday reading. Never Coming Home and Out of Sight Out of Mind are still romances but much darker - and not just because they are both partially set in Wales, not on the Mediterranean! And I have to say that much as I love the Riviera books and love writing them, I have been hankering to return to my 'roots' for some time. The WIP is much more in that mould - and it's set in Wales.
Since the books were first issued trends have changed. Now psychological thrillers are very much on trend and these two books are being marketed with that designation. I have to confess that this bothers me a little. They are thrillers, there are twists and turns, there is uncertainty, there is violence, there is bad language, they are scary and creepy in places, their heroes have dark pasts and the heroines have tragedy in theirs, but they are still romances.
Not sure how purist crime fans will view them. I'm braced for the reviews that mention Mills and Boon. I hope that there will be some new readers who will like a new view on the genre and a positive ending.
Fingers crossed.
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