Whisper Falls Question - What subgenre do you write?

What subgenre do you write?What subgenre is the Whisper Falls series? 

The Whisper Falls series is magical realism.  In the magical realism subgenre, the main story is realistic in every way except one. There is always one magical element.

For instance, a story could be contemporary in every way except the hero can read minds. A historical novel can be completely immersed in 19th century South America, only the heroine can see glimpses of the future in Europe.

The point of magical realism is not the supernatural element. It is about how the characters react to, live with, or hide that extraordinary circumstance.

In the Whisper Falls series, the magical element is the ability to travel between present-day and a different year in the past. Mark and Susanna (the main characters of Whisper Falls) encounter a waterfall who permits them to travel between Mark's life (in 2016) and Susanna's life (in 1796). Otherwise, their stories are realistic for the time in which they ordinarily live.

Some readers might assume that this supernatural element makes this a time-travel book. I think it is better to consider this series to be magical realism with time-travel elements.

The point of Whisper Falls is not the time-travel, it is how Mark and Susanna react to and deal with the fact that the distance between their homes is measured in years, not miles.

[I often get questions about the Whisper Falls series.  I'll answer each of the most commonly asked questions in a separate blog post. You can navigate to them from my website, too.]