A trope is a promise.
When a reader picks up a fake-relationship romance, they’re not looking to be surprised by the premise. They know these two people will fall in love. The author’s job isn’t to subvert that — it’s to make the reader feel every step of the journey as if it’s the first time they’ve ever taken it.
That’s harder than it sounds.
Forced Proximity Is a Gift
Lock two people together — on a private jet, in a snowbound cabin, in an office where they’re the only ones working late — and you’ve done half the work. Chemistry doesn’t require coincidence; it requires contact. The trope removes the excuses characters would otherwise use to avoid each other, and then asks: now what?
What I love about forced proximity in romantic suspense (hello, Code of Shadows readers) is that the danger outside mirrors the danger inside. They have to stay close. They can’t look away. The paranoia of the plot and the paranoia of falling for someone bleed into each other beautifully.
The Secret That Changes Everything
Secrets create tension without requiring an external villain. The protagonist knows something the reader knows. The love interest doesn’t. And the countdown to disclosure is its own kind of slow burn — every tender moment is shadowed by what happens when he finds out.
I built the Secrets & Shadows series around this exact engine. The romance is real. The secret is real. Something has to give.
In Defense of the HEA
Every trope exists in service of the happily-ever-after — the most maligned and most necessary convention in the genre. It’s not naive. It’s structural. The HEA is the proof that all the pain was worth it, that love is a thing you can fight for and win.
I will never stop writing toward it.