As we wrapped up engaging coffee house talk at Market Square Coffee today, one question remains: What genre is this book?

That should be the easiest question of all. It’s the first question most people ask. And yet our discussion revealed that it is not as straightforward of an answer as I had hoped. I’ve been asking myself this question for years now, and during the editing phase I debated whether to shift it one way or the other. Writers in online forums told me I would have a hard time finding a publisher, and perhaps buyers, if I didn’t pick a side. But I didn’t want to pick a side. I feel part of the magic of the tale is that it is so unique. That reality is what drove me to self-publish and now, as the publisher, I am left with the decision of what genre to market this as and what readers to market to.

You see, for every reader that adamantly puts it in the romance genre, I have another reader insisting that Knightess is more than that. I had one reader today say “I don’t like those raunchy romance novels…this isn’t that.” Meanwhile, when we did book club with the library, that group put it in the romance category because the love story is so strong. (They also said that this book is not raunchy, so yay!) I think the dilemma is there is so much more plot and action than what normal romance readers are used to. There is a solid love story, don’t get me wrong, but not everyone can tell who Eleanor ends up with starting at page one. And in the meantime there are battles, dead people, and mystery. It gets intense at times. More intense than a standard romance novel? You tell me.

I currently have Knightess listed as something on the line between Historical Romance and Historical Fiction with a romance subplot. Today we also discussed if it could fall into the lesser known genre of Women’s Fiction, where we cheer for the female lead regardless of who she ends up with. The vote on that was undecided, as the book is not explicitly a feminist work and yet it has a female lead that pushes traditional boundaries. And yet because it’s set in the twelfth century, doesn’t that shift it back towards historical?

Deciding What This Is becomes a larger problem as I work to finalize Book 2. The unspoken “rules” of Historical Romance are that it “must have a Happily Ever After or Happily for Now ending” and that “the love story must revolve around the two main characters”. Yeah, if only I could show you Book 2. It breaks all the rules, and yet I personally think it’s even better and more emotional (in a good way) than Knightess. Here again though, I’m in the editing phase, and I need to make decisions. I’ve even debated putting in a disclaimer!

Let’s see if we can carry on the coffee house conversation, my dear readers. What genre would you put Knightess in and why? Am I categorizing it correctly? Maybe I’m just overthinking it, and it’s a romance and that’s that. If you are a romance reader, have you ever read a romance novel that didn’t have a Happily Ever After? Please share the title and if you wanted to throw it out the window or not. All this can be done in the comments below. (Edit: The sharing that is, not the throwing.)

In the meantime, we’ll let stand what the coffee roundtable decided: It’s a good book.

Yours, JA Stein

P.S. Copies of Knightess are for sale at Market Square Coffee House in Orwigsburg. Just look on the counter. And they have a pretty awesome Pumpkin Chai Latte right now….

UPDATE ON GENRE 11/16/22: After discussing this book with a variety of people, we have confirmed that it belongs in the Historical Fiction category, just be forewarned the romance line is strong. There is a heavy dose of plot and some challenging themes (see content warnings under the Eleanor’s Tale tab) that shift it away from classic Romance. When book two of the series, Lady of the Tournament, releases in spring, that will confirm the placement of the series, as that book breaks all the rules (in a really good way). Disagree with this placement? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.