Adding Mystery to the Mix - Guest Post by Kate SeRine & GIVEAWAY!

If you've been around for the last year, you know I'm loving the Transplanted Tales series.  One thing that has caught my attention, the mystery built in with the Paranormal Romance in a great setting.  Yes, mystery.  Actually, murder mysteries with each story that is full of romance.  I absolutely love it!  This is the way I love my romance, with an AMAZING story and setting, and Kate has it all bundled into one amazing package with each story she tells.

Please, share a warm welcome for Kate SeRine.

Adding Mystery to the Mix

When I began writing my Transplanted Tales series, I didn’t intend to write mystery or suspense. In fact, I only knew that I wanted to write a story about these Tales who’d been living secretly among us for a couple hundred years. How that story was going to unfold wasn’t something I sat down and planned out. I just wrote the story that was in my head. But within the first two pages of RED, Tess “Red” Little’s voice took on a noir tone that grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. I’d written several novels prior to this one and never before had I heard a character’s voice so distinctly. So I went with it.

But it wasn’t just Red who played a part in setting the noir tone for the novel. When I decided to pair Tess up with the grim reaper, Nate Grimm, I got a vision of him as a throwback to the 1930s and 40s movies like the Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. And suddenly the mystery/suspense elements all fell into place. I ended up having a lot of fun weaving a mystery into Tess and Nate’s love story, making sure I was dropping little clues here and there as I went so that the big reveal at the end made sense. It wasn’t always easy—there’s a lot of editing involved in making sure that a mystery is on track.

When my editor and I determined that each book would have a different romantic couple, I spent a lot of time mulling over the best way to handle the transition from Tess’s voice to Lavender Seelie’s. Although the noir tone worked well for Tess and Nate in RED, it wasn’t really going to fit Lavender and Seth in THE BETTER TO SEE YOU. So, instead of trying to force their story to fit into that same voice, I decided to give Lavender her own distinct voice and rely upon mystery and suspense and the series plot arc to provide continuity instead. By the time I began writing ALONG CAME A SPIDER, the mystery/suspense elements for the series were now firmly established.

As to how to weave together romance, mystery, suspense and the paranormal into one story…? I wish I could say that there’s a tried-and-true roadmap for making it work. And maybe someone out there has one. But for me, there are three key components:

Practice – I write, I edit, and I write some more. And then I edit some more. The first draft is just practice.

Study – I study other people whose writing I admire (from the classics to the contemporary). And then I try to learn a thing or two from what they do really well.

Instinct – And, in the end, I go with my gut. I’m not quite sure how to explain that part… I guess I either “feel” the story I’m writing or I don’t. And if I’m not feeling it, I go back to steps one and two until instinct kicks in and takes over. And I’m pretty sure this is when the magic happens. ;)

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Author Bio:
Kate SeRine (pronounced “serene”) faithfully watched weekend monster movie marathons while growing up, each week hoping that maybe this time the creature du jour would get the girl. But every week she was disappointed. So when she began writing her own stories, Kate vowed that her characters would always have a happily ever after. And, thus, her love for paranormal romance was born.

Kate lives in a smallish, quintessentially Midwestern town with her husband and two sons, who share her love of storytelling. She never tires of creating new worlds to share and is even now working on her next project.

Find out more about Kate at www.kateserine.com.

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Learn more about her and her books.

Site:  http://www.kateserine.com/

Blog:  http://www.kateserine.com/blog/

Twitter:  @KateSeRine