You know what subject keeps coming up? Genre. Like, what does it mean? You get Thriller, Romance, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, Comedy... and so many subgenres in each. And each one seems to mean a different thing depending on who you are. It's so confusing.
Just the other day I was having a discussion with a friend about whether a popular Fantasy series could rightly be called Sword and Sorcery (I said it couldn't, because Sword and Sorcery stories had to be simplistic affairs with one hero(ine) going around slaying monsters with little moral consequence). This led to a much bigger discussion about what constitutes High Fantasy, with me saying High Fantasy just implies stories set in a created world, but with him saying that a story had to be particularly well written or have some literary significance before it could be classified in that genre.
With that in mind, dear reader, I ask you - what's your favourite genre, and how do you define it?
Furthermore, I'm going to present my own books to you, and ask you to weigh in on which genre you would put them in. I've already made a call for each and put them into specific genre-based categories on the various retailers, but after having these discussions, I'm not so sure if my decisions were right. I'm not going to tell you which categories I chose for each because that might bias you. Please comment at the end of this post, and let me know what you think.
By the way, if you need more information to make your decision, you can click on the covers to visit the books on my website.
Memoirs of a Guardian Angel
Have you thanked your Guardian Angel today?
I never did... now I wish I had.
I now understand the hard work and difficult situations they face every day. That car that veered off course, the knife that slipped or even the close call when you nearly tumbled from a tree.
It wasn't good luck that saved you, it was me.
My name is Adam and I'm a guardian angel.
Tales From Virdura
Explore Virdura, a world of fantasy, drama and magic.
- Find out what happens when a dashing young farmer’s son sweeps a neighbouring daughter off her feet.
- Meet Queen Tricia and the Royal Wizard Solon. Or Queen Celeste, her daughter, as she continues to struggle to come to terms with her new role as queen after the death of her mother.
- Read about Tobin the Bounty Hunter as he takes down Jarvis, a merciless criminal who brutally slit a blacksmith’s throat.
These stories and more await you in Tales from Virdura, a collection of flash fiction stories that take you deep into the world and the lives of the characters who inhabit it.
You can read this book as a companion volume to A Petition to Magic, find out more about favourite characters and meet new ones within the Kingdom.
You can also enjoy the stories separately from the original short story.
Heaven and Earth: Paranormal Flash Fiction
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
-- Hamlet (1.5.167-8)
A perfect introduction into the inner workings of the weird mind of Graham Downs, this collection of flash fiction paranormal stories contains:
- The Thing in the Window,
- An Automatic Decision,
- Telepathic Link,
- The Witch of Wellington, and
- The Christmas Bird.
All have been newly edited and polished since publication on his website in 2014, and some with new endings.
It also contains the never-before-published story, Under the Sheets, about an old woman who believes she is being haunted by a strange ghost, living under her bed.
Billy's Zombie
Young Billy MacIntyre has always been a weird kid, always taking every little slight to heart.
One day, he decides to exact his revenge on all those simpletons who have done him wrong. And he does it by taking a book of Necromancy out of the library, and raising a zombie from the dead!
Stingers
Thirteen-year-old James Clarke is always being picked on in school. He hates sports, and he particularly hates Stingers, a schoolyard game in which children throw tennis balls at each other. The other kids always seem to throw the ball harder, when it's at him. His physical education teacher, Mr Evans, has no sympathy for the boy, believing he just needs to toughen up a bit.
When James returns home from school after a rough game of Stingers, his mother is mortified when she sees the bruises on his arm and chest. She phones the school to try and put a stop to the cruel bullying of her son.
But her phone call only makes things worse, as the bullying escalates to levels that nobody imagined possible.
Stingers was first published in the charity anthology, "I am not Frazzle! And other stories for grown-ups".
Heritage of Deceit
While surfing the Internet at work, Lloyd believes he's found a relic from an old genocide. If he's right, the artefact would be worth a ton of money, and it will give lots of people closure when they find out what really happened to their families.
But there's one problem. The artefact--if it really exists--is in the possession of Carla, a shy woman in the company's Accounts Department, and she never lets it out of her sight.
Lloyd seeks the help of his friend and fellow employee, Robert, whom Carla is desperately in love with. Will Robert agree to use Carla's feelings for him to get information about the mysterious object?
A Petition to Magic
"Graham Downs opens the door to a fantasy world in his short story, A Petition to Magic, a world of emotions, trust, self-searching and enchanted characters that will definitely leave readers wanting more."
Queen Celeste rose to the throne of Virdura a month ago, after the sudden death of her mother.
Desperate to prove herself, she agrees to hear the case of a simple farmer who claims a neighbour stole his cow.
To help her in this task, she orders her chief advisor, the royal wizard Solon, to cast a spell and divine the truth for her. Solon, however, is keeping a terrible secret. He is unable to perform any magic, and he cannot afford to let the queen find out the reason why.
So what do you think? Care to give your opinion on which genres you think fits each of the above books?
Especially Stingers. It's Young Adult, sure, but that's not a "genre", per se. Other than that, what is it? It's not a Thriller. It's not really a Mystery. It's certainly not a Romance. And it's set in modern times, so it's neither Fantasy nor Science Fiction. What would you call it?
(Image credit R M Media Ltd. See the original here.)
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