If It Walks Like A Duck & Talks Like A Duck It's Not A Goose

At any given time I’m usually in the middle of reading three books. One that could be considered “serious literature,” one nonfiction and one light-weight escapist read. More often than not the escapist read is a chick lit title. But here’s the thing that bugs me, frequently I’ll read a review that classifies a certain book as being chick lit only to find out that it’s not chick lit at all. It’s a book written by a woman about a woman set in contemporary times and for some strange reason, the critics of the world have decided that all such books should be labeled chick lit. So what if the book isn’t really funny or even trying to be. So what if the issues that are being addressed have nothing to do with fashion and dating and everything to do with child abandonment and drug addiction. If the protagonist is a young woman who occasionally worries about her weight, it’s chick lit, period, end of story.

Of course no one would read Kenneth Miller’s excellent nonfiction book, Finding Darwin’s God and say, “hey, he just cracked a joke! This book belongs in the humor section!” No bookseller has ever said, “Check it out, somebody in this latest Grisham novel gets laid, let’s call it a romantic suspense!” No, those kind of mistakes never happen. But then again, those authors are men. Yes, I know, I just played the sexist card, but if the stiletto fits…

The reason I take issue with all this is because, as an author, I like to see books judged for what they are, not what they were never supposed to be. If you’re going to call my books romance novels then they pretty much suck. Romance novels have nice happy romantic endings and those don't always work out in the Sophie novels. She doesn't even get to have sex until the second book into the series and it takes three before she finds her way into a relationship (a relatively noncommittal one at that).  But if you call the Sophie novels what they really are (chick lit murder mysteries) then it’s fair to say they achieve their goals. They’re funny, suspenseful and a little gossipy (at least I hope they are). That series deserve to be classified as being part of a chick lit subgenre.

But So Much For My Happy Ending isn't chick lit. It's a story about a woman who marries her prince charming only to later discover that he's suffering from bipolar disorder and she tries to cope as he unravels in...well, in a Charlie Sheen kind of way. That novel is darker and a bit grittier than my Sophie series.  That's not to say it's not funny at times and my protagonist, April, is a character I think a lot of women will relate to but that doesn't make it Chick Lit.  And yet, one review praised it as being "a unique entry in the chick-lit genre and should appeal to those looking to move beyond the typical fare."  I realize that's a compliment but the reason it's beyond the typical fare is because it's not actually part of that fare and when you lead people to believe it is you're misleading them.  When you do that the people who might most enjoy the book will never pick it up and those who do pick it up are more likely to be upset because it didn't provide them with the emotional escape they were looking for.  On the same token, Jennifer Belle's books are also not Chick Lit.  In Little Stalker she writes about a woman who got pregnant at thirteen and had an abortion.  The whole experience changes her life, and not for the better. She grows up to become obsessed with a director who happens to be attracted to an adolescent girl in her neighborhood and we follow her as she uses that obsession to address some of her long repressed issues.  It's an interesting book and Belle manages to find humor in rather dark situations. But Chick Lit? No. And yet when I read the reviews that's the category everybody puts it in. My feeling is that once you start dealing with issues like pedophilia the book stops being Chick Lit regardless of how many times the protagonist makes you smile.  Not every book written by a young new female author is chick lit.

So you can imagine my frustration when I read an online review for Martha O'Connor's book The Bitch Posse that said, "Drugs, crime, mental illness…in chick lit? Got that right." I literally yelled at my computer screen, “No, you got that WRONG! Does the woman have to put a neon sign on every cover telling readers what her book is and isn’t?”

Maybe she does. Maybe we all do.  But until that happens I will continue to be irritated by the misclassification of books. 

--Kyra "Fashionista Fatale" Davis

Titillating Titles

A few years before I was first published I was standing in line at Starbucks reading Jennifer Weiner's Good in Bed. I have always felt that reading in public is kind of like being plugged into your iPod at a gym---they’re both international symbols for “don’t talk to me.” 

And as is the case with the iPod, it is a symbol that many choose to ignore.

Thus I wasn’t all that surprised when the guy in line behind me tried to start-up a flirtatious conversation.  I answered his questions politely but made a point of not looking up from my book. That’s when he asked the question. “What are you reading?”

“Good in Bed,” I said before realizing that this was not a wise answer to give. I closed the book hoping the cover would somehow explain away the title but the woman’s legs peeking out from beneath the bed sheets didn’t help a lot. “It’s actually not about being good in bed. It’s about a plus sized woman coming to terms with…” I continued to ramble on idiotically thus inadvertently starting up the very conversation I had been so eager to avoid. I had been working on my first manuscript for about six months at that point and still hadn't given it a title. I swore to myself that if I ever got it published I would not do to my readers what Jennifer Weiner had just done to me.

By the time my manuscript was being pushed onto the desks of editors it was titled Words To Die By.  I was fortunate enough to sell that manuscript as part of a three book deal to what was then Red Dress Ink (and is now Mira).  When my new editor called to introduce herself she was effusive.  She started by telling me that she loved my characters, she found my mystery to be suspenseful and engaging and she adored the way my book was “funny without being slapstick.” She then paused and said in a pleasant but extremely firm voice “The title has to change. It doesn’t tell the reader anything about the book.”

I wasn’t offended. In fact I felt her willingness to criticize added validity to her compliments. So I happily agreed to come up with something new. I played around with a few ideas—Dying For A Cup of Coffee, sprang to mind as did City Parking Can Be Murder but it was my mother who ended up coming to my rescue.

“You’re protagonist wrote a book called Sex, Drugs And Murder so why don’t you play off that and title your book Sex, Murder And A Frappuccino?”

I submitted the idea to my editor and while she really liked it she suggested that it be changed to Sex, Murder And A Double Latte due to copyright considerations. She ran it by marketing and they were thrilled. My book was officially christened.  Shortly thereafter the concept for the cover art was described to me. "It's an illustration of a woman wearing a mini skirt," I was told. "She's standing with her legs spread apart and in between her legs are the words, Kyra Davis, and the title." 


Yes, really. Fortunately the description was more sensational than the reality. Turns out my name was placed between my protagonist's knees rather than her thighs.

.A few months after that was all sorted out I was standing in line at the very same Starbucks I had read Good In Bed in. A man got in line behind me and tried to pick me up (apparently this was like the Studio 54 of Starbucks). I didn’t have a book to hide behind (not that it helped me a lot the last time) so when the little old man in front of me asked for the time I used his question as an excuse to start up a conversation with him thus avoiding the man behind me.

The elderly gentleman’s name turned out to be Henry and in no time at all I had told him I was a soon-to-be-published writer. Upon hearing this Henry called over his wife, a sliver haired lady who had been scoping out the lowfat scones, and introduced her to his new friend, “Kyra, the author.”

“You’re an author? How wonderful! What’s the title of your book?”

“The title? Why, were you planning on buying it? Because it won’t be in the stores for a really long time.”

“So we’ll look for it when it does come out. You simply must tell us the title, dear.”

There was just no out. “Sex, Murder And A Double Latte.”

“Oh,” the woman looked to her husband and then back to me uncertainly. “Well…I like lattes.”

“Yes,” her husband chimed in enthusiastically, “and I like sex!”

See, that’s what I get for bad mouthing Jennifer’s title.

--Fashionista Fatale
AKA: Kyra Davis (this new alias is going to take some getting used to for me)