NOT YOUR USUAL SUSPECTS

A group blog featuring an international array of killer mystery, suspense, and romantic suspense writers. With premises and story lines different from your run-of-the-mill whodunits, we tend to write outside the box. We blog several times a week on all topics relating to romantic suspense and mystery, our writing, and our readers. We welcome all comments and often have guest bloggers. All our authors can be contacted separately, too, using their own social media links.

We find our genre delightfully, dangerously, and deliciously exciting - join us here, if you do too!

NOTE: the blog is currently dormant but please enjoy the posts we're keeping online.


Julie Moffet . Cathy Perkins . Jean Harrington . Daryl Anderson . Nico Rosso . Maureen A Miller . Sandy Parks . Lisa Q Mathews . Sharon Calvin . Lynne Connolly . Janis Patterson . Vanessa Keir . Tonya Kappes . Julie Rowe . Joni M Fisher . Leslie Langtry

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

"But wait, I'm really a romantic suspense author!"

I love romantic suspense. I mean, seriously, I love romantic suspense. So much so that I created a site called JUST ROMANTIC SUSPENSE, which has celebrated romantic suspense authors for five years now. I just finished up a three-book romantic suspense series that was a joy to write and is receiving wonderful reviews.

So, for as much as I am ecstatic with any book sales, why is it that my young adult/science fiction has to be the popular one?!  

Okay, you ask, why did you write it if you are, "Little Miss Romantic Suspense"? Good question. I had this silly fantasy as a child (after watching way too many Battlestar Galactica episodes) that I wanted to be whisked away from my back yard on a space ship. Funny enough, when I grew up I still had the fantasy. LOL! So, writing about it seemed a tad more attainable than actually sitting in the back yard every night...waiting.


BEYOND was released a few years ago, but after all this time the series is suddenly rising up the Amazon ranks. It reached the top 20 in the entire Kindle FREE store a couple weeks ago. I get fan mail for this series. I get readers begging me to write another book in the series. And somewhere deep inside me is this timid little writer calling out, "But wait, I'm really a romantic suspense author."

Why do I feel like a traitor to myself? (Go ahead and say it, "because you have issues!") In the end I justify my impetuous segue into this alternate genre by claiming that it's really still romantic suspense...just in a different galaxy. :)

How far have you ever ventured from your favorite genre roots?

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13 comments:

Mia Kay said...

Maureen - I understand completely. I love romantic suspense - something about torturing my characters, but there's this story that keeps bubbling in the back of my head: a steampunk/atomicpunk/historical/time-travel/murder mystery/treasure hunt/romance. Did I miss a genre in there somewhere? :-)

Maureen A. Miller said...

Funny enough, I was just mentioning that I wanted to open a "JUST" Steampunk AtomicPunk Historical/time-travel/murder Mystery/treasure hunt/romance" site! Your book would be perfect for it! :) Sometimes the gremlins in our heads won't rest until we right their tale.

Rita said...

I've ventured pretty dang far. Sitting on a book of short stories I can't come up with a cover or name for. Time travel, murder, mystery,heart breaker, snark and one story I no idea where it came from that is so dark it scared me!

Maureen A. Miller said...

You can call it, "Rita's Shorts" with a picture of you on the Florida beach in your shorts.

Readers, somewhere Rita is rolling her eyes and shaking her fist at me right now. :)

Rita said...

Snort! Maureen that's better than anything I've come up with.

Dee said...

I'm thinking I've never ventured off path so far ...considering I grab and read any genre I feel like reading (love romantic suspense, historical, contemporary, soap opera, steampunk... Mayhap I just have no sense of directions and just roaming the fiction universe aimlessly. LOL).

Maureen A. Miller said...

"Roaming the fiction universe aimlessly." I like that, Dee!

Marcelle Dubé said...

Maureen, I think you should revel in your galactic side trip! Go ahead and write another book in the genre. Come on over to the dark side...

Maureen A. Miller said...

And now, Marcelle, I'm picturing you standing seven feet tall, in a black helmet, talking to me in a raspy voice. LOL

Anne Marie Becker said...

Maureen, I love that you've written different things. I'm considering branching out, but have been kind of scared to do it. This just might be my inspiration. ;)

CathyP said...

Good for you!

(And how did you know I not only wrote a space opera thingie years ago, I also drew pictures and illustrations for it!)

Maureen A. Miller said...

You can do it, Anne Marie. Your writing is so splendid no matter what the genre!

Cathy, I have to look that up!!

Maria said...

Well, I have a semi-Western book out (Soul of the Desert) so I'd say I stray pretty far from just writing my usual mystery! As far as my reading goes, gosh! Anything from Julie Moffett's Lexi Carmichael series to Frank Tuttle's Markhat series (steampunk/mystery/fantasy). I wander from Karen Cantwell chic-lit and mysteries on over to Aimee Gilchrist's young adult (Tell-tale Con is really good. I have her new one to read too. The Librarian Shoots a Gun. She wrote that under Amber Gilchrist though, I think.)

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