Top 5 Reasons Best Friends Romances Are Awesome

By: Natalie J. Damschroder

Giveaway Alert!

Romance tropes are standard themes or plot devices, usually in contemporary romances, that readers love. They are classic but updated, and highly recognizable. You know them well. Secret baby. Marriage of convenience. Dating the boss (who is a billionaire). Lovers reunited. Unrequited love.

I’m not a trope-y writer. My books have been rejected more than once because the acquisition team couldn’t identify the romance trope and therefore the best marketing angle. But there is one trope that I LOVE, and that’s friends to lovers. Here are my top 5 reasons why:

1. Best friends are already close, sharing intimacies they took years to be comfortable with.

2. That closeness can lead to deep emotions, which is a cornerstone of a good romance.

3. Often one friend already loves the other, so there’s plenty of angsty aching. Even better if they both have feelings but neither one suspects.

4. If they didn’t see each other romantically, but something triggers them to look at each other differently, it’s exciting to watch it develop.

5. The dynamic fits into any kind of story, including romantic suspense.

In my latest book, releasing today from Entangled Ignite, best friends Brady and Molly are spies falling in love as they search for truth about Brady’s brother’s death. I loved twisting up the typical friends-to-lovers storyline, adding action and urgency as their feelings for each other grew and changed.

Read on for details about Hearts Under Siege, and the huge giveaway I’m doing with Sharron McClellan, who also has an Ignite, Risking It All for Her Boss, releasing today. For a limited time, both books are available at a special price of 99 cents each!

Then tell me, what’s your favorite romance trope, and does it fit well into a romantic suspense novel?

Brady Fitzpatrick has spent a decade burying the pain of a broken heart while working for SIEGE, an information-gathering spy agency. That it kept him away from his family as well as his best friend Molly has been an unfortunate side effect. But when his brother, also an agent, is killed during a foreign op, Brady is drawn into a web of intrigue that threatens the lives of everyone he loves…

Molly Byrnes has loved Brady forever. As his best friend and a de facto member of the Fitzpatrick family, she holds them together in their crushing grief. But as a member SIEGE’s ground team, she doesn't buy the official line about Brady’s brother’s “accidental” death and launches her own investigation—only to uncover a shocking secret that she and Brady must get to the bottom of before their target finds them.

Tangled emotions land them in bed together, opening Brady’s eyes to the incredible, fearless woman who’s been there for him all his life. But after a lifetime of disappointment, how can Molly trust the possibility of a future with him…or if they can count on any future at all?

Hearts Under Siege
by Natalie J. Damschroder
Romantic Adventure/Romantic Suspense
Entangled Ignite, 2014
ISBN 13: 9781622664948

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