Support for Indie Authors discussion

I have three books out that all have the same tone/feel. However, I am having a hell of a time identifying the actual genre. I wanted to call them dark fiction, but they are absolutely NOT horror. I'm guessing they fall more into the general or literary fiction buckets...but not sure. They are all driven by very disturbed protagonists. Mental health is a key theme in all of my work.

Please help! Here are blurbs for two of the books:

The Audit in Graham County

Desk jockey Joe Stetson is on his way to a remote office in Arizona to conduct another government audit. Two recent divorces and the onset of tinnitus have seen Joe become suicidal.

Joe meets up with his boss and they begin the long drive into the desert of southeastern Arizona. It takes all of Joe's power to present a normal facade.

At first, the audit unfolds like any other. Polite pleasantries and plastic small talk. But the day horrifically turns upside down when an armed gunman storms the building. With his life at stake, Joe is forced to confront his demons head-on.

What does he really want?

The Highway to Yesterday

Nearly 40, Ben Addison starts to question his life after the untimely death of his parents. No amount of alcohol can wash away the regrets that are quickly pushing him toward suicide.

During the darkest night of his life, Ben meets his guardian angel--a homeless man that had been camped on the other side of his fence. The two men, fueled by misery, form an unlikely bond that carries them across three states.

When Ben finally reaches his destination, he must decide if reclaiming his past is worth the destruction of somebody else's present.

Dark Fiction seems to me to be the best fit

Your blurbs, especially the second, remind me of the writings of one of our members, Eric Rawlings. I think he calls his books "realistic fiction" or something like that. But, I'd just call it general or literary fiction. Call it dark fiction if you like the term, though.

P.S. Give Rawlings a try. I think you'd like his work.

The Highway to Yesterday sounds like general or literary fiction. Not quite as sure about The Audit in Graham County, though.

They sound like suspense. It really depends on the stories themselves, but both blurbs give the feeling that something dangerous is at risk: an armed gunman in the first, and destroying someone else's present in the second (it sounds like he's getting ready to kill the guy). They both point to something bad happening. Literary fiction works too. Some pretty bad stuff can happen in literary works. Dark fiction hovers around the realm of horror, but since you say they are absolutely not horror, then it's a stretch but that's ok.

I would also think suspense based on the blurbs and your description.

Thanks to everyone!

I would say suspense, thriller, or/and crime.

The Audit in Graham County sounds like thriller or suspense from the blurb, and The Highway to Yesterday more like general fiction. I'm just wondering as you've said the books are already out, have you had any reviews or feedback that could help you work out your genre? I sometimes find that I don't get a full picture of what it is I've written until I get a feel for how other people experience it.

If I saw the label dark fiction on a book and had no other information about it I would probably assume it was either horror, dark fantasy or possibly erotica. That might just be me though so don't necessarily let that put you off! If the main feature of the books is that they are dark it might be the perfect way to describe them, but there might be other features about them that could be used to help choose a genre e.g. are they fast paced with lots of little cliffhangers or more thoughtful and descriptive?

I write psychological suspense/thrillers - they focus on the inner lives and conflicts of the characters and touch on themes of mental health- they can get quite dark, but I feel that they are fast-paced and suspenseful so the psychological thriller category works well for me. I've added a subtitle ("a chilling psychological thriller") to one of my books to give extra information to readers about what they're going to get. Subtitles seem to be really common in the psychological thriller genre and it's helped me a lot to add one, but for other genres I think it is much less common and possibly may not help at all. It's another thing to think about though.

Those are tricky but I would say Literary Fiction or Suspense. I would suggest looking over Amazons keywords and genres lists to see where you feel your book best fits.

The Audit in Graham County sounds like a psychological thriller to me.

The Highway to Yesterday sounds like a mid-life coming of age story. You don't have to 'come of age' when you are young.