Quote:
Originally Posted by hildea
You might like Proper English by KJ Charles. Early 1900s, a house party where one of the guests is found murdered, and two of the guests falling in love while sleuthing. It's mainly a romance, but the crime mystery is also good.
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I might. However I was referring to the Romance novel that's structured like a cosy detective, not one with a detective mystery, thus:
The protagonist has a HEA with one of the characters, who must be introduced at the start (The perpetrator needs introduced at the start, not last chapter), but you don't know at least in 1st chapter who it might be.
Not clear at the start who are friends or enemies (c.f. allies & criminals).
Loads of believable red herrings, other possible love interests (other suspects).
Clues that the reader spots and other clues the narrator sneakily keeps secret (Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and for Romance, the unreliable narrator, one of the Brontė novels).
Thusly more complex than simply couple meet and the plot is only how they get the HEA (see most romcom films: The Shop Around the Corner, Youve got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, One Fine Day, While you were Sleeping etc, though some of those have more complexity, but obvious enough).
Some of the Mary Burchill books have pretty complex plots, and some have good "red herrings".