Romantic suspense promises justice. Dark romance promises consequences. Love Me Darkly offers neither—and both.
In my previous post on Why I Love Writing Dangerous Men, I compared shopping for a romance novel to choosing an ice cream flavor at Baskin Robbins. In comparing romance subgenres to ice cream, I touched on something I’d like to explore further … the idea of mixing and blending flavors. In fact, let’s leave Baskin Robbins behind and take a trip to a place I always liked better.
Cold Stone Creamery.
If you’ve never been to a Cold Stone Creamery, I’ll keep it real simple for you. It’s ice cream (of course), that gets spread out on a marble slab and then meticulously mixed in with the additives of your choice. There are pre-set combinations for you to choose from, but the option for a custom job is there (at least it was back in the early 2000s when I used to go to the mall one town over from mine just to get a few scoops). ANYWAY, we’ve segued from B.R. to C.S.C. for a reason: customization. Blending. Mixing. Turning something classic into something innovative.
Customization is my FAVORITE thing about being an indie author. With the ability to build one’s own platform and speak with one’s own voice, comes the creative license to tell stories however the fuck one wants to. And if I want to write a dystopian high fantasy epic erotic romance with a werewolf alpha hero and a schoolteacher/librarian/archeologist heroine, who’s gonna stop me?
I promise that my latest project, Love Me Darkly, isn’t quite that complicated a mashup. As eclectic as my tastes are, and as ambitious as I can be, I didn’t bite off quite that much this time around. This time, I considered a mashup between two genres I’ve always enjoyed: Dark Romance and Romantic Suspense. On the surface, these genres seem pretty comparable. Like Romantic Suspense, Dark Romance often includes elements of thriller/suspense, and the HEA is often achieved after certain threats have been dealt with. However, when one digs deeper, one can see that in a way these two genres are often at odds. Romantic Suspense promises justice. Dark Romance promises consequences. Love Me Darkly offers neither—and both.Subscribed
Allow me to explain. Romantic Suspense typically centers morally-upright protagonists and the danger is external. The love story is usually emotionally grounded. In a Dark Romance, there is a great deal of moral ambiguity, almost always on the part of the hero, but sometimes the heroine as well. There might also be an external conflict, but the majority of the danger is the love itself … it is both a threat and a reward. Most of the danger is emotional and internal on behalf of both protagonists.
The Romantic Suspense hero is often heroic and protective, willing to lay down his life for the heroine without a second thought. The Dark Romance hero is certainly protective (sometimes ferally so), but he is also not above thrusting his heroine into the flames to achieve his desired outcome. The Romantic Suspense hero protects his heroine from the darkness. The Dark Romance hero IS the darkness, and the heroine is in no way safe from that, even while she is shielded from outside threats.
In the case of Romantic Suspense, think ‘FBI agent falls in love while chasing a killer’. For a Dark Romance, it’s more like ‘killer falling in love while stalking the woman who might either save or destroy him.’
The lines between these genres are just as sharp in film. In the Romantic Suspense arena we have movies such as The Bodyguard (classic protector romance), Mr. & Mrs. Smith (sexy thriller with a blend of violence and romance), or Safe Haven (small-town romance meets domestic suspense). Romance blooms under pressure while danger unfolds around the characters. The threat is external. The mission is clear. The heroes are flawed, but good. On the Dark Romance side there are films such as Phantom of the Opera (seducitve villain, psychological manipulation, blurred lines of love and possession), Crimson Peak (obsession, manipulation, a toxic marriage turned mind game), Wuthering Heights (the dark romance blueprint, love as obsession). Dark romance doesn’t just flirt with danger—it sleeps beside it. The lines blur between love and obsession, protection and possession, villain and lover. It’s about surrendering to something you’re not sure you should want—and wanting it anyway.
Love Me Darkly straddles this line between these genres in what I think is a compelling blend. The hero might be an FBI agent, but his mission is one of vengeance rather than justice. The heroine might, at first, seem like an innocent victim of circumstance, but is far more than she seems. There is a villain, but he might not be the worst thing lurking in the dark. Love Me Darkly is fraught is emotional tension, psychological warfare (between the hero and the villain, but also between the hero and heroine), and a romance built on broken trust and dangerous longing.
As a writer, my love for both genres and longing to create something fresh and original drove me to approach this project differently than my past works. I didn’t want clean lines and perfect adherence to faithful tropes. I wanted scorching heat, violence, confusion, lust and love, all mixed into one stunning cocktail with a biting finish.
If you love the moment in a Romantic Suspense novel where the agent realizes he’s compromised… and then wish it got darker, messier, and more unhinged from there—Love Me Darkly might be the book you’ve been waiting for.
If you crave romance that dares to get messy—where danger kisses desire and trust is never guaranteed—tap subscribe and stay close. Love Me Darkly is coming soon.