Mystery and Romance

This Friday please welcome our latest guest blogger, Tina Whittle, a writer of crime fiction set in the south that features both mystery and romance. You can find her on the web here: http://www.tinawhittle.com and buy her book here: http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Ash-Bone-Randolph-Series/dp/1464200939. Take it away, Tina!

Mystery and Romance

By Tina Whittle

Ah, February, when young lovers’ thoughts turn lightly to thoughts of staying warm. Or on this day — the day after Valentine’s Day — perhaps to thoughts of paying off the massive restaurant bill accrued the night before.

I am not immune to the massive love bomb that is February 14^th. However, as a writer of crime fiction, my plots tend toward the darker side of human passion — jealousy, rage, vengeance, possessiveness. Mystery is the genre of justice, after all, not love.

Or so they say. I’m not so sure anymore. The more books I write in my current series — an amateur sleuth mystery that I often describe as “cozy noir” — the more I realize that the sanguinary realms of the human heart are as addictively puzzling as any whodunit.

My point-of-view character, Tai Randolph, is an adult woman of various robust appetites, several of them related to my other main character, Trey Seaver, who is a grown-up man with equally grown-up ideas about the kinds of things two consenting adults can do for fun. Granted, they don’t do much about their mutual attraction in their first book, The Dangerous Edge of Things. Oh, there’s a kiss, and they do make some very specific carnal plans, but they don’t end up in bed until maybe ten minutes after The End.

So here I am writing the fourth book with these same characters, only now they’re officially a couple. There is some contention about what that particular designation means, some pondering and awkwardness, but one thing is for certain — there’s no more will-they-or-won’t-they for Trey and Tai. It’s all why-yes-I-absolutely-will from this point on.

Which works for me. Writing the complications of a real couple in real relationship is a fascinating creative endeavor. It’s dynamic, it’s fertile, it’s revealing. My novels are traditional mysteries, but the emotional struggles of my characters run in parallel currents to the whodunit. Tai and Trey solve the crimes and save the day, yes, but they grow and change as they do it. And their sexual life together is an important part of this growth even if my particular genre doesn’t make room for that on the page.

But here’s my confession —I write every sex scene these two people share even though not a single one ends up in the books. I cut away. The door closes. The curtain ruffles in the breeze.

I see what happens, however, and I take careful and thorough notes. Authors are the ultimate voyeurs. We have an all-access pass to our characters’ lives — I watch them argue, make dinner, and confront killers. It’s equally important that I make space for their sex life to exist in the universe of this series, even if those scenes don’t get a play-by-play in the book.

Some readers, though, want to see the whole shebang. I understand, which is why I decided to share some of these episodes on my website (which you can read on my website). Apparently there are lots of readers like me, people who find human relationships as intriguing as any murder investigation. There is no mystery like romance, I always say, and that’s something to be grateful for this Day After V-Day.

So put a fresh aspirin in the day-old roses, have another piece of chocolate, and revel in the exploits of your favorite love-blinkered literary couple. There are lots of ways to stay warm until spring returns, and cuddling up with a good book is one of the best.

Bio:

Tina Whittle’s first novel — The Dangerous Edge of Things, published by Poisoned Pen Press — debuted to starred reviews in Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly, and Library Journal. Continuing with Darker Than Any Shadow, this Atlanta-based series features gun shop owner Tai Randolph and corporate security agent Trey Seaver. The third book — Blood, Ash and Bone — premieres March 2013. You can find the author online at her official website —  http://www.tinawhittle.com.