I have finished my editing for my book and am ready to start querying agents. The only problem is, I don't know what genre to call it. I know it is a Women's Fiction: it is about relationships, family, friendships, love etc, but the main driving force of the book is a natural disaster. Is there such a thing as Women's Fiction Suspense? I feel ridiculous asking this. Help!
Natural disaster is not suspense, unless you have your MC as a scientist racing against time to prevent a potentially disastrous natural phenomena. If that is the main story, it'll be suspense/thriller/science fiction even if you have 'love, relationship and family' as sub-plots. But if your main story is about 'love, relationship, family, friendship' against the backdrop of a natural disaster, it should come under 'general fiction'. I don't think gender matters much in such a story.
Your identification of the genre is only necessary for selecting publishers who are likely to consider your writing. If you're uncertain about what genre to classify it under, don't specify the genre in your query or cover letter. The submissions editor can make that decision tentatively from your synopsis, and firmly from the full manuscript.
for those who require a genre, if you don't think men will buy it or read it, then just classify it as 'women's fiction'... for selecting others to query, just make sure something in their list of preferences matches what you've written...
