When I started writing my first novel, Reprobation, I wasn’t thinking about genre or audience – I had no idea whether anyone would ever read it. All I knew was that I had a scary idea in my head based around the concept of predestination, and I needed to write about it. As the story and characters developed, I realised that I was writing a crime thriller. Sort of. It was a crime thriller set in Liverpool, with a supernatural element, a bit of gothic horror… and a bit of heavy metal. It was exactly the book I wanted to write. But would anyone want to read it?
Some of the best novels can be described as ‘cross-genre’. Recent examples might include China Miéville’s The City And The City (scifipolice procedural), Eva Dolan’s This Is How It Ends (psychological thriller/ social activism) or The Seven Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton (time-swap murder mystery). For a publisher with vision, a genre mashup could be a gift. Agatha Christie versus HP Lovecraft. Sherlock Holmes meets Slayer. Mary Shelley meets Metallica in Merseyside… some of the ways I imagined my first book could be described (I’m not very good at marketing).