I’m delighted to have Terry Kate write a guest post today. She writes about an interesting subject that I hope generates some good comments. Please join in!
Hello fellow readers,
Mary has been kind enough to invite me here to discuss questions I have been going over about what books and what genres I read, and what inspires me to break out of that box. The more I thought about my own personal answers the more I wondered how other readers felt.
So here the questions are…
Do we as readers often cross over from genre to genre? If I read Contemporary Women’s Fiction does that mean that is all I read? What would encourage me to move into another genre?
As the creator of a multi-genre website I talk to authors from all of the Romance related genres. (They need to have a romantic element to be on Romance in the Backseat, I mean, it has Romance in the title.) When it comes to areas like Suspense, which I do not read, many of the authors mentioned are new to me. This is not to say that I have never read Suspense or Romantic Suspense, I just tend to walk right by them on the bookstore shelf.
A vast majority of the Suspense I have read was written by authors I followed into the genre Linda Howard, for example. I read her Suspense novels up until her last few books, which are now so far removed from her romances that I am no longer interested. Then there are other authors that moved into the genre that I did not follow like Julie Garwood. The minute she stopped writing Historicals she lost me as a reader.
Sometimes just hearing about an interesting book will make me step out of the norm. Sometimes something about the author will catch my attention, or just a book excerpt posted online. Meeting authors through my interviews has turned me on to a number of books I never would have looked at otherwise. Like paranormal author Virginia Kantra. If I had never met her and listened to her talk about her books they would not have been a blip on my radar.
What makes you pick up a book? Is it genre, author, story, reviews, excerpts? The internet and fabulous bloggers like Mary often open our eyes to books we might not have looked at otherwise. I personally only read two or three genres and how often do I pick up a book outside my preferences? Hmmm… I am not too sure, but from now on I will be paying attention and keeping a more open mind.
Thanks Mary,
Terry Kate
Bookfan 