As a teen, I devoured gothic romances written by Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart, and Daphne du Maurier. Set against the backdrops of large English estates or foreboding castles, these stories typically featured a young woman whose life was in danger, leaving her at the mercy of a brooding and tortured hero. With a tangled web of dark secrets, eerie settings, and spine-tingling suspense, the tragic pasts of these characters hurled them down a treacherous slope as they fought to unravel the truth. I loved both the mystery and the romance storylines. These novels, in fact, turned me into both a voracious reader and sparked a desire to become an author. They also engrained in me the powerful connection between a page-turning mystery and a multilayered romantic thread.
I read an interesting discussion online recently about how romance doesn’t belong in today’s thrillers or crime novels. In part, I agree. A heavy romantic sub-plot thrown into a book can easily become nothing more than a distraction or filler that slows down the pace of the story. Those against the added romance thread in a thriller argued that if they wanted to read romance, they would have picked up a romance novel.
The discussion challenged me to look at my love of both gothic tales and today’s thriller novels. As a reader, I love the adrenalin rush of a high-stake suspense story, but to me, it’s the personal relationship arcs that add depth to the plot and draws me in deeper. In the gothic thriller, those arcs add to the hero’s tortured past and the heroine’s dark secrets by giving the reader a more fleshed out look into their motivations and fears.
In Victoria Holt’s Mistress of Mellyn, for example, the heroine is hired as a governess for the daughter of a widower. When she starts asking too many questions regarding the tragic death of her employee’s first wife, she quickly finds her own life in danger. At the same time, the hero is fighting his own demons, but it is the interwoven threads of their relationship that intensifies the storyline.
So how can romance strengthen a plot? As an author, this can be a challenging. I write fast-paced romantic thrillers that take place over a very short period time, but in dissecting the appeal of Gothic romances, I realized they are the perfect blueprint for today’s thriller. Here are some reasons why.
Inter-personal relationships humanizes the story. We have all experienced love in one way or another through parents, children, friends, and lovers. The need for love is built into us. Adding romance to a plot line, no matter how subtle, helps put “flesh” to the story, allowing the reader to see the human side of the protagonist. Coupled with their internal struggles, a one-dimensional plot can be further developed through this personal side of the story that brings their humanity to the forefront.
Romance creates deeper characterization. Love is personal and intimate. It’s messy and unpredictable, but our past helps determine our emotions, attitudes, and actions. It becomes a part of who we are. And it can do the same for our characters. Instead of a protagonist simply solving a crime or risking his life in order to find out the truth, a love interests allows us to explore those deeper layers of the character. And as we peel back those layers, we are allowed to explore their goals, relationships, and internal struggles as well as the motivation behind their actions.
Romance can move the story forward. An added romance plot must be carefully interwoven into the story. If not, it can water down the story and distract from the suspense plot. If done well, though, it can heighten the danger the protagonist is facing, as they are forced balance work commitments with personal responsibilities and relationships. This connection between the romance and suspense plots can also add personal conflict between the hero and heroine as they face both an external enemy and whatever is standing between them and their relationship.
In my latest novel The Escape, for example, we find out in the opening that Deputy US Marshal Madison Quinn’s husband was murdered five years ago and the authorities still don’t have a suspect. The scars from Madison’s husband’s death are still a very real part of who she is despite her trying to compartmentalize her pain. The fallout from that loss influences the work she does for the US Marshals as well as her personal relationships. And yet, it’s this relationship that takes the story beyond the fugitive chase and makes the story personal. As she grapples with the death of her husband and her own vulnerability while searching for her husband’s killer, she’s forced to decide how far she’ll go to find the truth and whether or not she will give her heart a second chance with love. It’s this backstory and consequential vulnerability that humanizes Madison.
Daphne du Maurier, the author of the gothic novel Rebecca, once said, “I believe there is a theory that men and women emerge finer and stronger after suffering, and that to advance in this or any world we must endure ordeal by fire. This we have done in full measure, ironic though it seems. We have both known fear, and loneliness, and very great distress. I suppose sooner or later in the life of everyone comes a moment of trial. We all of us have our particular devil who rides us and torments us, and we must give battle in the end.”
It is those very personal and sometimes haunting experiences, that will heighten the impact of a story’s experience and make for a read the audience will never forget.
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