I’m a little sad today because my favourite book store closed at my local mall. Something to do with increased rent on their new lease and wanting a bigger location in a newly vacated Sears store. All I heard was blah blah blah, now I need to drive further away.
If you’re looking for me, you’ll most likely find me in a bookstore or a library. When I’m there I have a method to my perusal. I always start in the cooking section because I’m the person who will snuggle up to a cookbook dreaming of ways I will make that delicious cake. In reality, I’m more likely to go buy the cake. I do love cooking, I just have very limited time and energy.
Next you’ll find me in the romance section. When I’m reading for pleasure, I want to be entertained and not emotionally gutted when a beloved character is killed off. The cardinal rule of romance is the HEA (look it up) – no HEA, no romance.** For me, romance gets deep into the basest elements of the human condition – our need to be loved and to belong. These authors and their devout readers have turned this female centric genre into one of the most progressive and powerful forces in publishing today. I am quite safe in saying that romance readers pushed the e-book market to what it is today. There is a romance for everyone: sweet, angsty, erotic, inspirational, heterosexual, LGBT (I’m waiting to see the Q in romance), historical, contemporary, paranormal… The list goes on and on.
Beyond that, anything goes. Self-help – yup, we can all improve. History – only fools repeat it. New Age – why not? All of our minds need a bit of expansion. Comics – Calvin & Hobbes rule. Reference – editors love reference books, especially Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS). Art – never ceases to amaze me.
You get the idea. I’ll read pretty much anything with an open mind. But please, don’t kill off your main character. My fragile heart can’t take it.
**J.R. Ward committed this cardinal sin in her book The Shadows and I still don’t think readers have forgiven her for it!
GRAY PLUME EDITORIAL SERVICES 