It's a mystery to me
What is a cozy mystery doing in a romcom series?
The happily ever after. Or, as we in the reading business call it, the HEA. It’s what we crave. We read romance safe in the knowledge that no matter how idiotically our hero and heroine behave - denying their feelings, ignoring their texts - they’re going to end up in a swoony epilogue gently arguing over what to name Baby #3.
But sometimes we’re not ready to be done with our favorite characters as the epilogue closes. Does Baby #3 take after our hero? Can we grab a glimpse of our formerly brooding hero as a suburban dad? Even Julia Quinn of Bridgerton fame wrote an entire book of second epilogues. I love a series of interconnected standalones for this, both as a reader and a writer. It’s so much fun to drop glimpses of other books’ couples in various Degrees of Desire books (as well as in the forthcoming Inner Circle series, which shares a universe with Degrees of Desire!).
As I’ve mentioned in a few previous posts, I changed the series order prior to publication. The OG final book was When It Was Us (then known as Fatherly), which came out last week. It’s now Book 6 in the series of eight. Before I dove into writing the Inner Circle series, I was at slightly loose ends. Trevor and Caroline are one of my favorite couples. Plus, we don’t get Caroline’s point of view in their original story.
With all that in mind, I ended up writing The Tenure Trick, a small-town cozy mystery featuring Caroline and Trevor in their happily married life. The body of a local theatre professor turns up in hilarious and unusual circumstances. Caroline is now a lifestyle creator, but is contemplating writing a book about her time uncovering corruption in the New York State Assembly. Angela’s brother Brian from The Business of Us is now a struggling reporter for Higher Education News. They band together to uncover a web of lies, intrigue, and petty whining only an academe could have produced.
This one is 100% free to read, by the way. You don’t even need a Kindle Unlimited subscription. All you have to do is move your thumb slightly, tap the subscribe button below, and The Tenure Trick will appear in your inbox.
It’s a good 10K words or roughly 30 pages of a standard-sized PDF. It’s a fun read, but it’s not complete. If you love this preview of The Tenure Trick, please, please shoot me a note. If enough notes are shot my way, I will strongly consider finishing The Tenure Trick sooner rather than “someday when things settle down.” I do know who the killer is.
Rather than finish the manuscript - I almost never DNF manuscripts - I embarked on writing a second series that shares a universe with Degrees of Desire. So perhaps it worked out for the best.
Do you ever wonder what happened to your favorite romance characters after the epilogue? Do you ever read or write fanfiction about them? (I am definitely guilty of that.) Let me know! And if you’ve been reading this Substack for a while and haven’t subscribed yet, be sure to tap the button and check out The Tenure Trick.
