[2] Crouch defined the subgenre in her blog: In a nutshell, Domestic Noir takes place primarily in homes and workplaces, concerns itself largely (but not exclusively) with the female experience, is based around relationships and takes as its base a broadly feminist view that the domestic sphere is a challenging and sometimes dangerous prospect for its inhabitants.
[3]Crouch's novels, Cuckoo, The Long Fall, Tarnished and Every Vow You Break, had previously been categorized as psychological thrillers, a label she felt inadequate: 'The engine driving my work is more an unravelling than the high octane roller coaster suggested by the word 'thriller'.
'[3] The term was embraced by fellow novelists, including Rebecca Whitney in an article in the Independent newspaper,[4] where she describes her own subject as 'the toxic marriage and its fall-out.'
[5]The subgenre has also been labelled 'chick noir', though the novelist Luana Lewis has written that this term was 'viewed as offensive and degrading by many....The word “chick” inevitably implies female; or synonym for ‘not to be taken seriously'.
'[6] Other women writing domestic noir include Erin Kelly, Araminta Hall, Paula Hawkins, Gillian Flynn, Elizabeth Haynes, Sabine Durrant, Natalie Young, Louise Millar, Paula Daly, Samantha Hayes, Louise Doughty, Julie Myerson, Jean Hanff Korelitz, A. S. A. Harrison and Lionel Shriver.