Who doesn’t love a hard-to-shelve book?
Don’t get me wrong, genres are great. They keep libraries and bookstores neat and tidy but when it comes to my bookshelf? We’re talking full-on chaos. That’s because my favorite books are what I usually call “not reallys,” as in “It’s not really a X but it’s not quite a Y.”
A New Lease on Death (coming from Minotaur on Oct 29) is one of those books that doesn’t fit neatly into a single genre. The newly deceased ghost of Cordelia Graves isn’t happy when the annoyingly perky Ruby Young moves into her Boston apartment, but being dead, there’s not much she can do about it—even as Ruby kills off her beloved houseplants one by one. But when their across the hall neighbor is killed and the overworked police dismiss his death as a mugging gone wrong, Cordelia decides to take matters into her own hands. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have hands anymore, so she has to enlist the help of her plant-killing roommate. Now it’s up to this unlikely duo to forge a friendship across the supernatural divide while working together to investigate their neighbor’s murder.
Cozy mysteries have no adult situations, no cursing, and no graphic violence. A New Lease on Death has a little cursing and plenty of inappropriate behavior throughout. It also deals with addiction, poverty, suicide, and gun violence, all things that don’t fit into the cozy envelope. Traditional mysteries can have these grittier elements, but are usually more hard-boiled and rarely have whimsical supernatural roommates that can walk through walls. It’s not really a cozy, but it’s not quite a traditional mystery, either. It’s sweet and funny like a cozy, but has adult language and situations that you would find in a traditional mystery. It has supernatural events that are normally found in a thriller or horror novel, but not the scary kind that keeps you up at night.
One series I adore that falls in between genres (in my opinion) is Elle Cosimano’s Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice. It’s usually categorized as mystery, but whereas most mysteries are focused on whodunit, Finlay is usually up to her neck in hilarious hijinks, trying to stay out of trouble. Finlay is more worried about not getting caught with a murdered body (or body parts) than how the dead guy got killed. In many ways, this series reminds me of Janet Evanovich’s One For the Money, which is hilarious and has high stakes, but Stephanie Plum is primarily chasing bail jumpers, and usually only solves a murder by accident. Like Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice, A New Lease on Death has some laugh out loud moments, along with a touching friendship and a dead body (or two).
Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto is another fun example of a hard-to-shelve book. It’s not really a cozy mystery but it’s not quite a rom-com. There are car chases, smugglers, and eggplant emojis. The love story is front and center, but so is the dead body. The familial relationship is every bit as central, if not more so, than the romantic plot. And the comedy is chef’s kiss on every page. Dial A for Aunties is centered around a loud, zany family. Cordelia and Ruby aren’t related in A New Lease on Death, but as their relationship grows, they become a found family.
Another cross-genre trend I’ve been reading a lot lately is the historical mystery, the special blend of Bridgerton and Sherlock Holmes. Darcie Wilde’s The Secret of the Lady’s Maid and Celeste Connally’s All’s Fair in Love and Treachery both merge mystery and intrigue with Regency drama and romance. Why shouldn’t the belle of the ball solve a murder? Historical mysteries blend the best of historical romance with the murder and intrigue of a mystery. Set in Boston, A New Lease on Death is surrounded on all sides by history, but unlike The Secret of the Lady’s Maid and All’s Fair in Love and Treachery, it’s set in modern times.
And what about women’s fiction? Is Look on the Bright Side by Kristan Higgins a second-chance romance or domestic fiction? Like most of her books, it’s a tear-jerker, but I don’t think that’s a genre of its own. And how would you shelve the fantastic and heartwarming Nosy Neighbors by Freya Sampson? It features the crime-solving mismatched duo of a cozy mystery along with a sweet age-gap friendship that’s more often found in woman’s fiction. In Nosy Neighbors, the mismatched neighbors have plenty of communication issues, mostly because they don’t want to put aside their differences and learn to see eye-to-eye. For Ruby and Cordelia in A New Lease on Death, the communication issues are even more difficult because Ruby can’t see or hear her ghostly roomie.
Then there are books like the charming and whimsical India Holton novels. Is The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels a romance or a fantastical adventure with pirates chasing each other in flying houses? Is The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love a historical romance or a how-to manual for identifying, and safely capturing, mythical birds? And does genre even matter with books this eccentrically delightful? The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love describes all sorts of devilish creatures that shouldn’t exist, and A New Lease on Death features a dead woman solving mysteries. With a little bit of suspension of disbelief, why can’t phoenixes and ghosts co-exist?
Books like these that straddle genres are helping redefine what our bookstores and bookshelves look like, and I’m totally here for it! Not only do they introduce readers to new genres they might not have tried before, but also, they’re delightful fun. The next time you’re in the mood to try something different, ask your local bookseller or librarian what books are the hardest to shelve, and you just might find a “not really” that becomes your new favorite read.
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