Rachael Ruddick's Blog, page 4

What I Really Really Want

Everytime I log onto a bookstore on the internet or, shock and horror, walk into an actual real life one in search of a new book to read I am looking for something particular.

I don’t mean a particular book, I mean more a book to compliment whatever mood I happen to be in, and to cover a topic that is of interest to me at the time. Walking into a bookstore to me is like walking into an endless world of opportunity. It feels almost sacred. But I always have high expectations, I want to find something that will exactly fit what I am looking for, and ifI happen to discover something new that fits that I feel all the more excited.

When it comes to choosing my next romance book I take into account several factors.

1: When/where will I be reading the book.

If it has to last more than 2-3 days than it will definitely be a single title, as I go through category books in a number of hours. I also keep the majority of my books (I have a large number of containers of them in storage crying out for a bookshelf). Therefore, I also need to consider if I am going to have room to transport my book home when it has been finished.

2: Is it a keeper?

As I said I like to keep most of the books I read, but if I’m not one hundred percent sure I will try and borrow it from the library first.

3: Availability.

If you live anywhere but the US you will understand my frustrations. I am very upset that I live in a country where the price of books are ridiculously high. If I want a book in hardcopy I will first look for it at bookdepository. But nowadays I will search for it first as an e-book. I REALLY hate when I know an ebook is available, but not outside the US. I also hate when I find out it is available at different prices for US v International. All of these are taken into consideration when I purchase a book. Basically if a publisher is trying to do me wrong then I am turned off from buying their product, frankly there are a million good contemporary romances out there, so why buy something where I feel like I am being ripped off.

4: Mood.

Like I said I am always looking for a particular type of book when I go searching for new reads. My favourite sort of contemporary romances are sport based because I like being active. I also find these books a bit more fun, the characters aren’t always so dire. I also like western romances simply because I have always been fascinated with that culture, and living somewhere with nothing similar it is one of my only sources to feel a part of it all.

Outside of this I am always looking for a female character that is doing something that interests me. It could be that she is working in a male dominated field, or that she is a journalist that travels. Really as long as I find her life situation interesting it draws me in.

As i have been married for 3 years I am now much more interested in characters that are also married. You start to realise that the getting together is such a small part of the whole relationship and what comes along later is a lot more complex and meaningful. These relationships are therefore really interesting to delve into and read about.

I am also at an age (28) where my mother feels the need to tell me on a weekly basis t I should have kids already, not to mention a mortgage I can’t afford and be locked into a job i hate, because as she puts it, that is what life is about and I better get with the program… Yes obviously there are mother issues there, but I do the best to ignore it, especially when I discovered recently that my mother has no idea what I actually do for a living, just that it is wrong and I should be an actuary instead, which funnily enough she also didn’t know what an actuary does either. Moving on, with all the pressure to get pregnant I cannot stomach reading a romance book where pregnancy is a major part of the plot. I’m sure in the future this will change, but for now it is an immediate put the book back on the shelf offence.

5: Tried and True.

I will always be partial to a new book by an author I have read and liked, ONLY, if the new book also fits in with my criteria above. If it is a book that I am not quite in the mood to read, but I know I definitely would be interested in in the future I will buy it and keep for later, as i go through them so quickly.

As mentioned I read ALOT of romance books. This means I need to constantly be searching for new authors that I haven’t yet read. I like the tool on Amazon ‘others who bought this also bought…’, I also regularly troll through iTunes, Smashwords and Amazon for books based on keywords that take my fancy. I also am a big fan of Goodreads, and I know I should make more of an effort to write reviews or at least rate books I read, as I rely on other people’s feedback so much on their. Their forum is also excellent.

So that is how I go about selecting a new book. My quesion is: How did you decide on the last book you read?

Telling All Your Friends

I will admit that there are still a number of people that I feel the need to withhold my ‘romance reading addiction’ from. It’s sad isn’t it. I do this not so much because I feel ashamed, but more because I know the reaction I will get and I don’t want to have to deal with their prejudices and naivety.

In public I use a book cover. My mother bought me a sewing machine shortly after I got married, she felt I wasn’t a proper woman without one. My first experiment was creating a cover using stretchy material, that would allow me to fit it over paperbacks of various thicknesses. It works quite well, allowing me to read in peace in public. Yep I even feel the need to hide it from strangers.

I would like to say in my defence I am slowly but surely opening up, and standing up, for my passion. Knowing that the romance genre is the highest selling of all books you have to wonder why it is still considered so taboo in our society. Obviously a large number of people are reading it, they just aren’t telling anyone, and so for all you know the persons you are so desperately hiding it from, may be doing the same in return.

I would like to know what sort of a romance reader are you? Loud and proud or still in the closet? What can we do to be more accepted in society, and get more people exposed to such a positive and uplifting genre?

My Sort of Contemporary Romance

I started to read Contemporary Romance 4 years ago now on an overseas trip. My boyfriend was away for work for 6 months and i had decided to take a month off of work in the middle of his absence to break things up a little. I was in a Wallmart in a small town on Vancouver Island looking for a book to cheer me up a little as I had just come from Iceland where a girl of the same age that I had made friends with died in our hostel room one night.

Anyway I have always looked for books with strong female characters that I can relate to. Frankly traditional ‘chick lit’ often leaves me angry and disappointed. I am not interested in shoes, have never been in debt, certainly not credit card debt, and don’t have any interest in going out clubbing or drinking. Basically these girls don’t represent me in anyway. I want to connect with the heroines not be repulsed by them.

So I picked up a Linda Lael Miller book and it wasn’t until I had finished it, that I looked at the spine and saw the infamous words ‘Contemporary Romance’. From there on my affair with the genre quickly flourished and four years later I am still a devoted reader, and now writer too.

My writing (No this blog isn’t just about my writing) is based around the fact that from time to time you want to read a certain type of book and occasionally you can’t find what you are looking for. In my case I am a sporty kind of girl, and I like to read books where the women are into sport, not just the men. Hence I have written a book about a male and female athlete. Now that I am married, I am also interested in the dynamics of an established relationship, and consequently the two are also married.

On this first post I would like to hear What you are hoping for when you read the back cover of a book? Is it a certain type of relationship, situation, or character trait?