Good writing is good writing. In many ways, it’s the audience and their expectations that define a genre. A reader of literary fiction expects the writing to illuminate the human condition, some aspect of our world and our role in it. A reader of genre fiction likes that, too, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of the story.

I was the designated grown up in a family that operated in different reality than the rest of the world.

How about this?" I said, because now it was the principle of the thing. "I'm sorry, jackass.

"Oh My God," I blurted, grabbing onto Phin as we faced the open bedroom door. "It's the axe murderer." "I doubt he would knock," she said, but she was whispering, too, and didn't move away from me.

He rose to his feet in one fluid move, the better to look down at me. “You don’t know me, princess. Some people have reasons for doing things, and don’t just go wherever they’re told or drift whichever way they’re pushed.

[W]hen Ben was kissing me, the whole world retreated. I felt things I'd never felt before, in places I never knew were connected. But I was pretty sure that whatever was buzzing against my thigh was not normal. For one thing, it was ringing. Ben dragged his mouth away from mine and mumbled a curse that was a little shocking and kind of hot. "Ignore it," he said. That was easy for him to say when his cell phone was rounding third base. If anyone got a home run tonight, I didn't want it to be Verizon Wireless.

That was easy for him to say when his cell phone was rounding third base. If anyone got a home run tonight, I didn't want it to be Verizon Wireless.