What do you consider the essential qualities of a leading lady and a leading man?
Characters who readers can relate to are essential. If a reader doesn’t develop a connection to the characters then that reader has no real incentive to keep reading even if the plot is interesting.
I think our characters have to be likeable and sympathetic, but also flawed. Who wants to read about perfect people?
I also think characters who learn and change for the better as the story progresses is super important. Readers need their characters to have some kind of character arc or an epiphany by the end of the story.
For your novels, you juggle elements of faith, romance, and suspense. What do you consider the best recipe for an inspirational romantic suspense story?
I think a definite balance is necessary to create a story that readers want to finish—and hopefully, revisit at some point in the future. From some of the feedback I get, it seems a lot of my readers really enjoy the suspense aspect of the stories more than anything else. They like the romance thread and are happy to have the faith element in there.
I also get a lot of comments about appreciating the clean reads. But, above all, they REALLY like that high-octane suspense. So, that’s what I tend to lean toward when I’m working on the stories—making it as suspenseful as possible.
You recently teamed up with Dee Henderson and Dani Pettrey for the romantic suspense collection The Cost of Betrayal (Bethany House). How did that project come about?
Dani Pettrey was the lead on that one, I think. I’m pretty sure it was her idea and she ran it by her editor who loved the idea and put it all together.
One day, I got an email asking if I was interested in doing the collection and, of course, I jumped on it! Dee was mentor to both Dani and myself, so I think having our names on a cover with hers was a bucket list item for the two of us. I know it was for me anyway. We’ve done two of those collections and I’d love to do more.
What was the inspiration for your novella, “Code of Ethics”?
It’s funny. I don’t really have “inspiration” for my stories. However, Ruthie St. John is the heroine in that novella because I knew I wanted to write her story. So, I sat down and gave her one. Sometimes it’s really just that simple.
Click through to find out about another project Lynette wrote with other suspense authors…