I enjoy reading almost every genre out there (with the notable exception of steamy romance), but I must admit that until I got to my 50s and became an author myself, I never really considered categorizing books in terms of the genre. I just read whatever sounded interesting—whatever story fascinated me.
Even now, most books seem to me to cross genre lines. What’s the difference between thriller and suspense? Between psychological thriller and horror? Between science fiction and suspense? And don’t get me started on the subgenres of the mystery category. I feel a little like Bubba in Forrest Gump: You’ve got your cozy mysteries, your
amateur detective mysteries, your police procedural mysteries, your historical mysteries, your noir mysteries…
Keeping that in mind, I attempted to go back through my own reading history and figure out what books influenced my love of reading in my favorite genres, along with a more current book that keeps me reading said genres. Disclaimer: my memory ain’t what it used to be, so very few books prior to the 80s made the cut!
A is for Alibi, by Sue Grafton, 1982
Everyone on this Train is a Suspect, by Benjamin Stevenson, 2023
Suspense:
Gone Girl, by Gillian
Flynn, 2012
First Lie Wins, by Ashley Elston, 2024
Science Fiction:
Congo, by Michael Crichton, 1980
Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel, 2014
The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig, 2020
The Measure, by Nikki Erlick, 2022
Young Adult:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by JK Rowling, 1997
Truly Devious series, by Maureen Johnson, 2018
The Hunt for Red October, by Tom Clancy, 1984
The Drowning Game, by Barbara Nickless, 2024
Psychological Thriller:
When the Bough Breaks, by Jonathan Kellerman, 1985
The Silence of the Lambs, by Thomas Harris, 1988
Anyone But Her, by Cynthia Swanson, 2024
Detective Fiction:
Where are the Children? by Mary Higgins Clark, 1975
The Black Echo, by Michael Connelly, 1992
Lethal Prey, by John Sandford, 2025
Horror:
The Shining, by Stephen King, 1977
Never Flinch, by Stephen King, 2025
The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, by Lilian Jackson Braun, 1966
The Thursday Murder Club series, by Richard Osman, 2020
What do you think of my genre choices? What books inspired you in each genre, and what keeps you reading now?
The Callie Cassidy Mystery series is available on Amazon Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and paperback.
***
Lori Roberts Herbst writes the Callie Cassidy Mysteries, a cozy mystery series set in Rock Creek Village, Colorado, and the soon-to-be-released Seahorse Bay Mysteries, set in a Texas cruise port town. To find out more and to sign up for her newsletter, go to www.lorirobertsherbst.com
I'm with you that subgenres are (pun intended) a mystery. I have no idea which category best fits my thrillers: domestic thrillers (most involve family drama), psychological thrillers (we see characters suffer through making life-decisions), crime thrillers (they all involve crimes of one sort or another), mystery thrillers (some you don't know who done it), etc.
ReplyDeleteGreat choices!!
ReplyDeleteSo much fiction defies categorizing. Readers are often eclectic in their tastes. Although sometimes an author sets out to write in a given genre, most of us write what we want and read what we want.
ReplyDeleteA good read is a good read, especially when trapped on an airplane. I write short stories, cozy to gritty, and write traditional mystery books.
ReplyDeleteThis is a wonderful list. It’s hard for me to believe that Gone Girl came out in 2012! Seems like yesterday. I, too. loved the Cat Who mysteries, and now that I think of it, they were my introduction to the cozy as well. My own book list of intros and current reads would run the length of a post, but let me thank you for bringing back some wonderful reading memories.
ReplyDeleteYour take on the genres and examples intrigued me because one of the things agents often say is that they don't know where or what shelf the book would go on. In many of your examples, we have a book that maybe didn't fit a genre when written but helped create the sub-genre. What was fun for me in your post is that I agreed or had read many of the books you listed, but there were many new ones, too.
ReplyDelete