Oddly, I tend to think of my writing as more 'gentle', but I suspect that in this genre, there have to be 'high stakes'--namely death--to make a story sell.

I've had an editor tell me before that the stakes weren't 'high enough' in a story about a woman who doesn't want to miscarry her child or lose her niece (you've read that story, BTW). His remark was along the lines of 'she can always have more children.'

It makes me wonder if our society is so hardened to meanness that death is the only real threat...