What would you call this?

Hmm, I'm gonna go and think about this.

I'd call it a historical romantic suspense.

Lots of romantic "suspense" are actually more like romantic mysteries, technically speaking.

You can also call it a Victorian romantic suspense (more romance and less suspense/mystery than Anne Perry, perhaps?).

But I'd go with the first.

JMO

elknutswife said:

Hi everyone. I have been calling my finished-but-for-a-few0-more-edits manuscript an historical romance. But it has a really strong mystery element, and after a few additions and tweaks (and after speaking with a freelance editor friend who looked it over) we decided that it really is a mystery with a heavy side of romance. It is set in Victorian England. So, would I classify this as an historical mystery, a romantic mystery, a gothic romance? I don't know why this is so hard, but I just can't figure it out.

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Which is central, the romance or the mystery? If you can't figure that out, I suggest reading a couple of books that also mix the two and see if that helps.

Such as: Anne Perry's The Cater Street Hangman, a historical mystery where two characters fall in love. The mystery is central, but the love story is an important element.

and

Amanda Quick's Ravished (or almost any of her older ones--haven't read her in years so I'm not sure she's still writing the same type of book), a historical romance which contains a mystery that the couple falling in love is trying to solve. The love story is central, but the mystery is an important element.

It would be hard to produce a gothic romance by accident (mostly because they have a very specific tone), but without knowing more about your story it's hard to say.

If you still can't decide, romance might be easier to break into than mystery, because it commands such a large share of the market.

I think a lot of it depends on just how much of the book deals with the romance. Different publishers/lines have different requirements for the percentage of romance they require in the story, if you are looking at submitting to one of the Harlequin/Silhouette lines, for example. How many words is it? Do you know what publisher you want to submit to?

They say you should write the book you want to write and then try to figure out where it fits in the marketplace. But you are going to be able to figure it out easier if you know what the possibilities are!