S08.42: Romance Reasons Meet Thriller Reasons with Anders de la Motte

Once upon a time, Sarah went to Sweden and met a thriller writer who likes talking about the rules of writing in genre as much as we do. We’re so excited that to be able to bring Anders de la Motte’s brilliant thoughts about thrillers and mysteries to Fated Mates in this far-reaching conversation on romance’s sister genres—thrillers & mysteries. We talk about Anders’s path to writing, about the rules of writing thrillers and mysteries, about the covenant mysteries and thrillers have with readers, and about Mystery Reasons™️. We had the best time with this one — you’re going to love it.

Learn more about Anders’s books at his English language publishers, Simon & Schuster and Harpercollins

If you want to talk more about Genre Carrying the Myth, Jayne Ann Krentz’s genius way of thinking about the work of genre fiction, or about mysteries and thrillers, come join our Patreon! You’ll get an extra monthly episode from us and access to the incredible readers and brilliant people on the Fated Mates Discord. Learn more at fatedmates.net/patreon.

Our next read along is an old school contemporary, Perfect by Judith McNaught. Sarah says it has the greatest all-is-lost moment in romance history. Read it to find out if she’s right. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.

Thrillers and Mysteries Mentioned in This Episode

• The Mountain King by Anders De la Motte
• The Glass Man by Anders De la Motte
• The Rust Forest by Anders De la Motte
• Shutter Island by Denis Lehane
• The Usual Suspects
• Widow's Bay
• Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
• Columbo
• Poker Face
• Murder, She Wrote
• Knives Out
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
• Killing Floor by Lee Child
• Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz
• Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane
• The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown
• James Bond
• Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie
• Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
• And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
• One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus
• The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
• The Wire
• MemoRandom by Anders De la Motte
• End of Summer by Anders De la Motte
• Game by Anders De la Motte

Notes

Welcome Anders de la Motte, author of mysteries and thrillers. Many of his books have been translated to English, most recently The Asker series.

Many of the most famous fictional detectives we mentioned are on this list.

In fiction, unreliability is a narrative device meant to purposefully confuse or lie to the reader for the purposes of the story. We’ve argued that it’s more or less impossible to have an unreliable narrator in romance.

A good explainer on the difference between close 3rd (used in romance) and limited 3rd (used in mysteries/thrillers)

MacGuffins and other mystery and thriller tropes and vocabulary.

Sponsors

• Jill Shalvis author of Falling Into You, available in print, ebook, audiobook from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your local independent bookstore.
• Jess Turner, author of The Only Catch, available in print, ebook or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
• Hachette, publishers of In the Wake of the Ruined, by Kalie Cassidy, available in print, ebook and audiobook at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, or your local independent bookstore.
• Oliver Heber Books, publishers of The Forbidden Duke, by Darcy Burke, available in print, ebook and audiobook at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books. Support the special 10th anniversary edition Kickstarter.

The Rest

• For even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2026/7/5/anders-de-la-motte
• If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates.
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• If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.