Bardot’s Comet a finalist in cross-genre fiction category in American book award

My 2011 novel, Bardot’s Comet, was a finalist in the 2013 National Indie Excellence Book Awards announced on May 22, 2013. Bardot’s Comet was a finalist in the Cross-Genre category.

Cross-genre is a term in fiction that blends themes and elements from two or more different genres. For example, the Twilight series can be categorized as a mixture of three genres: paranormal, fantasy, and romance. Bardot’s Comet is a combination of the mystery genre with suspence, crime, science, and historical fiction.

Why write across genres? Writing across genres is increasingly becoming more popular with many authors. Historical fiction, in particular, lends itself to the inclusion of other themes—in the case of Bardot’s Comet, set in The Sixties in Adelaide, South Australia, these themes include real events, scientific theories, films, dress codes, social conditions, and the morals of the times. The rise of feminism, uni-sex dress codes, the Vietnam War, the moon landing, the religion versus science debate, and Youth Quake are all themes in Bardot’s Comet.

With readers becoming more sophisticated in their reading choices, complex themes are often best handled using multiple genres, providing depth, interwoven issues, current affairs, and historical realities. For me, the starting point was the period 1966-1969, one of the most progressive periods in history in terms of science and social advances. Hence, Bardot’s Comet is historical fiction with science at the core—specifically mathematics and astronomy.

Bardot's Comet was my first foray into the cross-genre category because my other novels are specifically about a country context, such as with The Sudan Curse (2009), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010), and Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012).

I have provided a link below with a free 30-page download sample PDF of Bardot’s Comet. The Kindle and Barnes &Noble links are on the last page.

http://epubco.com/samples/978-1-61897-570-6sample.pdf

Bardot’s Comet is also available at amazon.com or directly through my publisher at

http://sbpra.com/martinanicolls

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