My first book has been out about two months. What is my genre? Lost In The Mist, is listed as a Paranormal Romance and I guess that’s true. Though I’ve always sworn with vigor that I do not write romance. Well, romance lives` if the lives of the people in the story are not in a monastery, or convent. And this first novel does have romance, and on both time lines that appear in the novel.
For years, I tried to sell this book as a time-travel. Agents and editors told me “the time isn’t right unless its a romance subgenre”. A couple of years ago I got serious and made an appointment with an editor (who doesn’t do historic, or romance) that I’d met before. I asked her advice about this book. She asked me what it was about. I spent half of the fifteen minutes of the alotted appointment time telling her about the book, never mentioning romance. She asked if there was any romance, I said that yes both the main characters (both women) had relationships that built, and developed. She said to sell it as Paranormal Romance.
The second publisher I queried took the book.
My works are adventure, mystery, suspense, and set in an historical time, and yes, most have some relationships that can be termed as “romance”. Where is this genre/subgenre thing going? From what I see its going gung-ho. Many Romance subgenres are. In my humble opinion, I think that the public is speaking. They want romance, but they want variety in their romance. They want mystery, suspense, inspiration, sci-fi, and yes, paranormal, even in romances.
Filed under: genre, romance | Tagged: civil war, genre, historic, Mystery, paranormal, romance, suspense
