The Major Fiction Genres

Genres for books seem to be growing on a daily basis. Okay, that is a slight exaggeration, but you get the picture. There are genres upon genres. Let’s discuss the major fiction genres.

Mystery/Suspense

This is a very popular one. Mystery books can take up an entire bookstore if the store had every one written. They cover a wide range of styles. There is the cozy mystery which is the amateur detective solving local mysteries. There is the professional detectives that face life-harrowing situations. Some mysteries are just situations where people uncover truths by stumbling upon things.

The suspense part is added as a partner genre as most suspense are mystery as well. These are usually the ones that are not series and have you on the edge of your seat as you read it. It is the tracking of a serial killer with the reader having no idea it is the person…. It’s suspense.

If this is a genre you’d be interested in reading, here are the top 10 based on Flavorwire.com:

- Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

- Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers

- A Coffin for Dimitrios by Eric Ambler

- Arthur & George by Julian Barnes