Top Ten Tuesday - How to Tell if You're a Character in a ...

Today I'm linking up with Top Ten Tuesday hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl which is all about lists.  This week's Top Ten list is a character freebie so I thought I'd do how to tell if you're a character in a few of my favorite genres.  You never know when you're in a cozy mystery and it's best to be prepared!  So here are a few tips to help you tell if you're a character in a...

Cozy Mystery

1.  You own some kind of small retail store - it can be a bookstore, a clothing store, or a hobby store of some time.  It could also be a cafe or bakery.  Maybe an antique store or a bed and breakfast.  But whatever it is it needs to be small enough where you only have a couple of employees (who are cool with you running out on very short notice for hours on end) and a group of regular customers.

2.  You live in a small town that seems to have a fairly transient population.  There's always someone new who is moving to town to open another store, restaurant, or bed in breakfast of some kind. 

3.  You have an extreme sense of curiosity, very few boundaries, and no problem going up to acquaintances and asking them very personal questions.

Contemporary Romance

1. You have a very tight group of friends.  Like kind of strangely tight.  You're all single and very different and in totally different careers and have very different ideas on marriage and dating as a whole.  Bonus points if you all have different hair colors.

2.  You have just moved to a new town or apartment building and said new town/apartment building is full to the point of bursting with single guys in your approximate age range who are incredibly good looking and spend a massive amount of time in the gym without actually seeming to spend a massive amount of time at the gym.

3.  You know in some capacity an older woman who has no filter and no fear of announcing what she thinks to anyone in the vicinity.  She has no problem meddling and setting up situations to force you to be alone with one of the above guys.

Women's Fiction

1.  A parent has recently died (or grandparent or mentor) and they had an enormous dilapidated house that you must either live in for a certain amount of time or get cleaned out (or both)

2.  Some kind of workplace catastrophe has occurred and you have somehow lost your job, significant other (he was kind of a creep so no great loss), and sometimes even your house.  OR you've been married for a long time and thought everything was going fine if maybe not exciting until the husband shows up and announces that things are not only not fine but he's leaving and occasionally he'll have a mistress on the side.

3.  For whatever reason you are escaping (see above two reasons) to a beach on the east coast.  I'm not sure why one must go to the Eastern seaboard to recover but apparently it's a rule.

All of the Above:

You have a pet and not just any pet but a pet with a big personality who you discuss things with and who answers you in some way. This pet also gets into things or gets out or causes some kind of problem at very strategic moments.

What do you think are signs that you're in a book in a certain genre?