What Romance Readers Want (a Guess by Stephanie Queen)

Does this cover shout “Romantic Comedy Suspense” to you?

According to the best seller lists, one (meaning me) would think that readers wanted nothing but erotic romance novels of the “Shades” series ilk (commonly termed “Spank Books”). But drilling down into the data, mostly driven by my disbelief, I’m not so sure about that.

Our dear readers (you) are much more complicated. As it turns out, almost half of the Amazon reviews for Shades are rated 1 star–with the other half being 5 stars. Geesh.

Scrolling down the list past the Shades look-alike titles, the next best seller is in a category called Mature Young Adult/New Adult. Easy by Tammara Webber turns out to be the hot version of a young adult romance–thus the new category. I’m sensing a pattern. One more indication of the popularity of titillating romance. So what’s new?

Well, nothing. But what I found interesting were the OTHER novels on the romance best seller list. One of them was Stephanie Bond’s latest romantic comedy Our Husband. Interestingly, many of the readers had never read Bond’s books before. Most of the Amazon reader reviews used words like, fun, funny, LOL, great characters, great mixture of mystery romance and comedy.  I could have been reading comments for one of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series, especially when I read the comment “would make a great movie”.  Oh, and one other thing Bond’s novel has going for it–the price is 99 cents.

Apparently price matters–even for big names. Being an unknown author doesn’t matter so much–especially for the right price and the right topic. Being exceptionally well written doesn’t always matter according to the comments for Shades, but that may be an exception.

Personally, I was thrilled to see the romantic comedy mystery genre so well received and so many other readers excited by this mix. For fun new voices in romantic comedy mystery on the rise check out Carol Devaney’s A Smoky Mountain Christmas or J.M. Griffin’s  Murder on Spyglass Lane. For romantic comedy gems I recommend Joan Reeves, Sophia Knightly and Gemma Halliday.

Since I love reading romantic comedies with a twist of suspense, it’s no wonder I write them. My series on the Scotland Yard Exchange Program started with The Throwbacks, but the world and many of the characters were introduced in Between a Rock and a Mad Woman, which is now free! The next book in this romantic comedy caper series, The Hot Shots, cover shown here, will be available next month.

What do you think? Does the cover of The Hot Shots shout romantic comedy suspense? If not, what do you see? I’m curious about your thoughts, so don’t be shy!