What We're Writing: Queen of All Genre

JENN McKINLAY: I'm having a moment. Hopefully, just a moment and not a perpetual state of being. I am currently writing the second cozy fantasy book (WT: DEMONS OF QUESTIONABLE INTENT), which is the follow up to WITCHES OF DUBIOUS ORIGIN (Oct 25) revising next summer's romcom THE SUMMER SHARE (May 26), and copyediting the next library lover's mystery BOOKING FOR TROUBLE (Feb 26). I have to work on all three at once so I don't fall behind. 

Three genres all at the same time. It's fine. Nothing to see here. Everything is awesome. Yes, that is my mantra, why do you ask? And, yes, this is why I'm feeling very Queen of All Genre. LOL.

Oh, and before I forget, there is a Goodreads Giveaway for WITCHES OF DUBIOUS ORIGIN for those who want to score an early copy.

ENTER HERE!

Because I am hip deep in revisions, I will share a snippet of THE SUMMER SHARE, specifically, the meet cute if you can call it that. The premise is that Hannah Spencer and Simon O'Malley each inherit a summer cottage on the Outer Banks from their grandfather. The trouble begins when they arrive at the cottage and discover their grandfathers shared ownership of the cottage and now each of their plans for their inheritance is compromised by the presence of the other.

     Simon: A nudge on my fishing line brought my attention back to the task at hand. I pulled the rod to the side, tugging the lure a bit, trying to assess if I’d managed to catch anything. There was no resistance, i.e. no takers.

     “Dude! You get back here this instant!” A shrill voice broke the silence, startling a great grey heron out of the marsh. He launched into the air, beating his massive wings.

     I whipped around at the sound of footsteps behind me and saw a wild haired woman in cargo shorts and a tank top thundering down the narrow dock on the heels of a black and white horse—okay, more like a pony—that was headed straight for me.

     I quickly set my pole in the holder on the base of the dock and crouched down, putting up my hands in surrender as if the beast barreling toward me was there to rob me.

     “Whoa, whoa!” I cried. The behemoth didn’t slow down one bit. By the time it occurred to him to jam on his brakes it was too late. The beast slammed into my chest like a Mack truck and the next thing I knew I was flailing and free falling into the channel.

      The water was colder than I expected for late June, but what did I know? I hadn’t planned to go swimming. Instinctively, I started to kick up to the surface. I popped up to hear the woman, scolding her beastie.

     “Dude, what were you thinking? What if there are alligators in there? That man could be their lunch.” There was a pause and then her voice took on a harsh warning note. “Dude, don’t you do it. Dude!”

     I wiped the water from my face just in time to see the horse come flying at me. His feet were pedaling in midair as if he were still running. His tongue was hanging out and his ears flapping in the breeze. I only had a second to take in the sight of him, realize I was his target, and try to get out of the way before he hit the surface like wrecking ball. I didn’t make it.

     The monster hit me right in the solar plexus and I plunged below the surface and sank like a rock. The pony had knocked the wind out of me, but I’d spent enough time surfing the Carolina coastline to know not to try and breathe, still blacking out was a high probability as everything started to go fuzzy.

     A splash disrupted the water near me and I felt someone grab me by the collar of my shirt and haul me in sluggish yanks and tugs up to the surface. When we broke through, my diaphragm was still locked and I couldn’t breathe.

     “I think you killed him,” the woman gasped. Then she thrashed against me. “What was that? Something brushed my leg. Ah! I bet it's an alligator!”

     I would have told her to calm the hell down but I didn’t have enough air to form words. Instead, I started to slowly sink beneath the surface again.

     “Oh, no, you don’t.” She yanked me back up. “I did not risk getting eaten by a prehistoric creature just to have you drown.”

     Something splashed next to me and I recognized the big pink tongue as the pony swam beside us, kicking his long legs and enormous paws, without a care in the world.

     I tried to suck in a breath but my chest refused to move. I could feel a thrum of panic surge through me as I flailed to get to the dock.

     “It’s okay,” the woman’s voice was a husky whisper in my ear. “I’ve got you. I won’t let you drown.”

     As if I would! My pride took issue with this but I didn’t have enough oxygen in my lungs to protest. My argument would have to wait.

     She wrapped her arm around my torso and towed me to the lower dock where my boat was tied. The small horse was already out and bouncing on his feet, wagging his tail as if he was having the best day ever. Jerk.

     With a hearty shove, the woman rolled me onto the rough wood and then pulled herself up beside me. “Let’s get you on your side.” With a grunt she maneuvered me into a fetal position. Humiliating. And then she started to vigorously rub my back. “Try to relax. You just had the wind knocked out of you. Take small breaths. It’s all right. I’ve got you.”

     I managed a small sip of air and the darkness receded from my peripheral vision.

     “That’s it,” she said. She kept up the circular massage and I felt my diaphragm slowly loosen, allowing me to take deeper breaths.

     When I had enough air to be able to speak, I lifted my head and rasped, “I’m all right.”

     “Thank goodness.” She flopped onto her back on the dock beside me and panted. “I haven’t been a lifeguard in years. I was afraid I’d lost my skills. Plus, alligators.”

     I didn’t know what to say to that so I said nothing, closing my eyes as I concentrated on inflating my lungs.

     “I’m sorry about this. Dude has spatial awareness issues. He thinks he’s a lap dog and I can’t seem to dissuade him from that notion. He’s knocked the wind out of me a few times.”

     I held up my hand, opened it and then closed it, hoping that she could grasp the universal sign for “Stop talking.” Then I dropped my forearm over my eyes while I tried to catch my breath in between coughing and wheezing.

     She must have gotten the message because she said nothing. When my breathing became normal, I dropped my arm from my eyes and turned to face her.

     “Lap dog? I thought he was a pony.” I glanced up to see the biggest dog I’d ever encountered standing over us. His ears were perked and his his head tipped to the side. Was that how he looked right before he ate someone?

The PRH art department recently sent me three different covers for THE SUMMER SHARE that were all so good, my entire team was paralyzed with indecision. After a long chat with my editor, we're going to attempt a mashup of all three. And, yes, Dude (a Harlequin Great Dane) will be featured. Yay!

So, Reds and Readers, tell me. Do you follow authors who write in multiple genres or do you prefer if they stay in their lane fictionally?

LET’S TALK ABOUT GENRES by Keziah Frost (A.K.A. Sylvie Perry)

 LUCY BURDETTE: Today I'm happy to welcome back Keziah Frost to the blog. She raises a great question about genres--why should authors be pinned to writing one kind of book?

KEZIAH FROST: “Write the book you’d like to find on the shelf!”

That’s the advice that writers hear all the time, and good advice it is. However, it may conflict with the encouragement writers also hear to “brand” themselves, to keep offering more of the same to their readers, only each time, a little better. 

When I think about the book I’d like to find on the shelf, I ask, “Wait. Just one book?”  If you’re like me, your shelves are overflowing with books you want to read. And if you imagine the book you’d like to find, your thoughts go in several directions at once.

Sometimes I want to find a light-hearted and wise, uplifting book. At other times though, I’m in the mood for a gothic suspense story. And there are times I look for fairy tale collections, or time travel stories, or silver sleuth mysteries, or… well, you get the idea. Are you the same?

The book I want to find on the shelf can be almost any genre, but it has to immerse me in another world, and it must tell a good story, and I have to enjoy the writing style as well. Genre doesn’t matter to me, really. And this makes me wonder why authors these days are usually boxed into a single category. 

Think of Shirley Jackson. She’s known for the terrifying short story, “The Lottery,” as well as creepy novels such as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. But she also wrote very funny books about raising her four children: Life among the Savages and Raising Demons. 

Think also of Shakespeare. He wrote comedy, tragedy and history, with the only aim being to entertain his public. But there is tragedy in his history, and comedy in his tragedy. It’s always crossing over, because stories, like life, are multi-dimensional. It makes me wonder sometimes why we have these categories at all. 

I guess they do help us to find our favorite “vibes.”

Each reader has a couple of favorite genres, I think. For me, it’s humor and suspense. I think what they have in common is that little twist of surprise. It’s the little jolt that keeps the reader alert and engaged. But these elements can be worked into any genre.

What brings me to reflect on this topic is that I have a new book coming out, quite different from the first two. In this new novel, I move from “up-lit” (an uplifting story) to gothic psychological suspense. And did I have fun writing it!

The Hawthorne School will be published by Crooked Lane Books in December of 2021. In it, a single mother enrolls her 4-year-old son in a progressive, artistic school, which turns out to have hidden darkness behind its idealistic appearance. 

As this is a change in genre, I was asked to choose a different pseudonym so that readers of my books written under the name Keziah Frost would not be expecting to laugh when my intention is to give them chills. So I came up with yet another identity, complete with Facebook account, Instagram account and website. It was all rather fun and gave me the sensation of engaging in some nefarious activity.

How about you? What are your favorite genres, and why? What are the elements in “the book you want to find on the shelf?”

                                         

Sylvie Perry is the pseudonym of a Chicagoland-based psychotherapist. One of her professional focuses is in counseling survivors of narcissistic manipulation. She has a masters in English. The Hawthorne School is her first psychological suspense novel. Her website is: 

Her optimistic twin (a.k.a. alternate pseudonym) is Keziah Frost, author of The Reluctant Fortune-Teller and Getting Rid of Mabel.