It's easy to classify your books if you write a police procedural novel or a time travel fantasy or a conventional romance where two young people meet, hate and misunderstand each other but fall into each other's arms in the last chapter.
But how do you classify a book which crosses over from one genre to another, or even a third - and (in the case of my latest, The Family on Pineapple Island) can be read by parents to their youngest children or can be read by parents and grandparents for their own enjoyment?
Most
of my novels are difficult to restrict to one genre. Take 'Affair
With An Angel' for example. The heroine, a feisty young journalist,
finds herself in a strange place that bears a slight resemblance to
the Costa Brava. Or it could be Disneyland. Or the delirious fantasy
of someone who loves pink.
How
did she get there? Is she dreaming - or has she died? She's
surrounded by others equally bewildered, some who've arrived by
cruise boat, others by train from Mumbai, some even on a magic
carpet. And who's this angel who's been appointed her personal
guardian? Golden haired, dressed in white jeans and sporting a
medallion, his name he tells her is Trevor. Whoever heard of an angel
called Trevor?
It's
a romance of sorts. A mystery. Science fiction? Whichever, it caused
me quite a headache when I tried to choose the right genre.
But
stories that wander from classification to classification are the
ones I enjoy writing. Even if they leave me with yet more puzzles when I've
completed the last page.
