The Romantic Side of Suspense Author/Coach/Encourager Sarah Hamaker

“It seems in these days, many people feel so hopeless and so helpless,” Liz says. “That’s why I do what I do very intentionally to show that even in the most terrifying circumstances, … we’re never truly alone in that. God has promised that he’s going to walk through the fire with us. So no matter what happens, he’s always going to be there. Then he promises that he works everything out to our good. There’s that hope that I do bring to the stories and that I hope the readers will pick up on and we’ll be uplifted by it. Even a romantic suspense can be an uplifting book when it’s written from a Christian perspective.”

“Sometimes our writing kind of tells us what to write,” says Jerusha Agen. “Writing suspense fits tendencies of my personality because I do tend to be a fearful person. … I have a hyperactive imagination. So I’m really always imagining worst-case scenarios and danger. In a way, I think writing romantic suspense gives me a healthy channel for the tendencies instead of just freaking myself out in my daily life. I can actually put it in a book, and have more control over it and have a positive lesson come out of it as well.”

“You’re always sort of riding that fine line of believable, but pushing the edge of it,” Jennifer says. “You want to put people in really strange and difficult situations, and you want the stakes to escalate. You want things to get more challenging. … People have to get lost in the story world and feel like it can happen. … One of the questions we ask ourselves as writers is what’s the worst thing that could happen right now?”