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I have fretted a lot about whether or not my new Anh Leod novel, Tempting Josie, fits into a couple of the categories it is listed for sale in. It's easy to call the book a contemporary romance - it's set now, and it's a sexy reunion romance between two characters who fall in love for the second time. But is it romantic suspense, or straight contemporary?

Editors have wondered the same thing. I had one editor suggest I cut back the sex scenes to focus on the suspense elements. But I like my sex scenes - I felt they suited the characters! Others said the fact that the hero was an FBI agent meant the book couldn't be targeted as "new adult" because that FBI agent hero kind of locks it into the romantic suspense category, no matter what kind of lifestyle the heroine was living. Or something like that. FBI character = romantic suspense. And I will say, I tried hard to get the FBI parts of the book correct.

I felt a little better when I saw this quote from Lisa Gardner:
 "Personally, I consider a romantic suspense novel to be a book that
focuses on developing key relationships as well as advancing some kind of
intrigue (whether that’s mystery,thriller, action/adventure,
on-the-run, or woman-in-jeopardy—see, even suspense has alot of faces)."

In that regard, Tempting Josie is certainly romantic suspense. Because there is definitely a mystery that my hero has to solve. And to the heroine, the hero is a mystery she has to solve as well. He's undercover and she doesn't know that. What the novel doesn't have are car chases, guns, kidnappings, etc. I wonder if readers expect that kind of excitement and danger in the book if I called it romance suspense.

What do you think? Romantic suspense or straight contemporary romance?