GUEST BLOG: Shouldn’t You Be Writing Crime Fiction? by Tara Lush Plus Giveaway!

When I first started writing fiction, romance seemed like the obvious choice. It was a genre that I’d read and loved, along with mystery and true crime. When I told my oldest friend about my plan to write a steamy novel, she studied me with a look that said, yeah, right.

“Shouldn’t you be writing crime fiction?”

It was a good question. I’ve been a journalist in Florida for two decades, with many of those years devoted to the weird, the horrific, and the highly criminal. I’ve covered many of the state’s biggest crime tales. High-profile ones such as Casey Anthony and Trayvon Martin. Lesser-known murderers who had abducted children and those who attacked fellow citizens in a drug-induced haze. I’ve also covered mass shootings and executions.

“Way too depressing.” I waved her off. “Too much like my day job. I want something different. My muse wants me to write about sex.”

And yet, my muse also told me to write a romantic suspense for my first novel. I entered the first chapter into Harlequin’s So You Think You Can Write contest and people commented on how… disturbing it was.

Not romantic. Disturbing.

Maybe that should have been a tip-off. But I was undeterred. I loved writing about sexytimes and relationships. I wrote contemporary romance and erotic romance, even getting a story published in Best Women’s Erotica. And while I had some book success — a RITA finalist in erotic romance in 2018 — crime fiction lurked in the corners of my brain.

In 2019, I was on a trip to Vermont and sitting around my best friend’s house. I mused aloud about the next steps for my fiction career. Self-publishing contemporary romance was increasingly difficult and competitive, I whined.

“I still think you should write a mystery novel,” my friend said.

I mulled this over for the entire month. I’d been reading Kathy Reichs’ Deja Dead, and although I adored the writing voice, I couldn’t imagine myself writing about such a dark topic. There was the matter of the day job trauma, after all. But what if I could write something softer, something with a little romance and a twisty murder… something gentle.

Something like a cozy mystery.

While sitting in an adorable café in Quebec City and drinking the most potent espresso I’d ever had, I sketched an outline for my mystery. I used my experience as a crime reporter to plot the murder. First I chose a victim. Then I chose a murderer. I worked backwards with the details and clues, thinking about all the police reports I’d read over the years, all the news conferences I’d been to, and all the cops I’d chatted up.

I was able to blend my quirky characters and my love of a Florida setting with a murder and a romantic subplot. Cozy mysteries are known for having no gore, no swearing, and no sex, and I had to stick to those rules because that’s what the readers expect.

So my heroine — and I — settled on a chaste forehead kiss in book one. I focused on clues and red herrings as opposed to blowjobs and BDSM. I finished the book and sold GROUNDS FOR MURDER to Crooked Lane Books. It was book one of the Coffee Lover’s Mystery series.

The second book in the series, COLD BREW CORPSE, was released Dec. 7.

So you’re a romance author looking to branch out and try something different, I recommend getting cozy—with a mystery. The genre has a lot of the same elements as romance, and the books end happily — but instead of plotting sexytimes, your writer brain will be challenged by solving a murder. I had a blast taking my heroine through another murder investigation in COLD BREW CORPSE.

She and the hero also take their relationship up a notch, with an actual kiss.