"What is your book about?"

That's the first question someone asks me when I tell them I've written a book, and that's the most difficult question for me to answer.

It's about a woman who is crowned Empress on the eve of her country's revolution...well...yes, that happens, but is that what the book is about? Yes, there's romance in it, but that isn't the focus of the book. There's philosophy too, but that certainly isn't the focus.

There's adventure in the book and that's how I like to think of it. Adventure. But, it isn't anything at all like a book by Tom Clancy ("The Hunt for Red October" ), or Dan Brown ("The DaVinci Code") or David Baldacci ("The Camel Club" et.al). I've read a lot of books in my life and I love adventure, but in all the adventures I've read, something was missing. It was the woman's perspective.

Yes, there are plenty of books with a woman as the main character, who leads the adventure, who gets into and out of trouble, who saves the day...I've also noticed that so many of these women, especially in SciFi and Fantasy books act like men, think like men, and feel like men. Does a woman have to be like a man to be adventurous or heroic?

There's nothing wrong with men. I respect men. They're half of humanity and are just as important to it as women are. This isn't about the "battle of the sexes." This is about voice and perspective. This is about genre - how I would classify my book.

Some months ago, a freelance writer friend of mine said I had created an entirely new genre, but he didn't say much more than that. What genre did I create? How would I identify it? It suddenly hit me. I'd classify it as "Women's Adventure." My "heros" as well as my main characters are women. They're intelligent and independent. They may be stubborn and willful. Impetuous. Emotional. But, they're still women, with women's emotions and perspectives and responses to circumstances.