SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Is there something specific you like within a mystery? Perhaps a female detective, or a certain time period, or one that involves a certain setting, such as a city, island, country, event - you can get even more specific here. If you include such details along with "mystery", you may narrow your selection down a bit.

I usually pick a book of the type I'm in the mood for then I look at the "people who liked this book also liked..." suggestions.

I can't think of specific enough words for a search.

This is when the fine distillation of genres helps. So many people always dismiss genre as being pointless, until they're looking for something they want to read.

In mystery, for example, there's a huge difference between the Police Procedural, Hard-boiled and a Cozy.

Cozies tend to be a bit lighter (aside from the murder that typically sets off the plot) and feature very little sex and violence as the amateur detective goes about her (almost always a woman) investigations.

Hard-boiled generally features a hard-drinking tough guy who is usually a private detective and there is ample sex and violence. there can also be humor, but it tends to be wry and dry. like their drinks. (See what I did there?)

Police Procedurals are the most common in movies and TV. Almost every TV show is a procedural of one kind or another, and most cop shows are Police Procedurals. (Castle, CSI, Law & Order, etc.) But Castle has the witty banter which L&O and CSI lack.

I'd look for Cozies that people describe as "cheeky." Those tend to be pretty fun. Even the dead person usually deserved it somehow.

Gail, was your question relating to searching for novels on GR? or elsewhere? Because if you are searching for mysteries on GR, Listopia is IMO your best bet. If you click on mystery, the lists that come up have helpful headings that will point you to the type of mystery you are looking for. Same goes for other genres, although all too frequently fantasy is heavily weighted with YA or young-oriented titles, unfortunately.

Gail wrote: "Ha ha! I'm considering the words "optimistic" and "inspiring" mystery!"

Inspiring/Inspirational tends to get you Christian fiction. Which might be what you're after, but just warning you.

Oh exactly! There's lots of things the words apply to, but they seem to have become a kind of shorthand.

I second the advice upthread to look at the "Readers also enjoyed". You can click on the headline to get a longer list too, I often fall down that rabbithole and my list of books to read is looking near on impossible for one lifetime as a result, but I've found some gems that way.

Ahh, easy. I find a book I've already read that is the sort of thing I'm looking for, like this one How to Murder a Millionaire (that's a rather fun cozy mystery series btw). When you click on it, on the right somewhere at the top is "Readers also enjoyed" which shows you thumbnails of three or four covers of other books. You can click on that text that says "Readers also enjoyed" and it'll give you a list of 20 or so books instead of the thumbnail view.

I've had some of my stories characterized as "classic Science Fiction." I don't know if it'll help, but I'm adding that phrase to the keyword list on a couple of my books.