What Are You Reading? A List

One of the questions I receive as an author is: What are you reading? I read widely and a little bit of everything, but most of the time, there is a purpose for what I am reading.  It’s very hard for me to read a book and not study it for what the author did that works and what happened in the book that didn’t work for me.

So, what am I reading currently and why?

Book Group Books–I belong to the Everett Woman’s Book Group and the chapter I am in reads mostly fiction. The book group has a fascinating history as it was originally started over 125 years ago with 23 women who began the public library in the city of Everett. I belong to one of the many chapters of the book group. This month, we are reading, A Sudden Light by Garth Stein.  The book is set in Seattle and has all the things I love in my adult novels–a teenage narrator, a fascinating setting, and a complex family relationship between father and son.  Garth Stein is our speaker for the Spring Tea and I am looking forward to hearing him talk on this book.I also belong to the Seaside Oregon chapter of American Association of University Women and try to attend their book discussions when I am on the coast. The book I am reading for the June discussion is The Woman Behind the New Deal: Frances Perkins FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscious. There is a good article about it on NPR here.
 Romance--I am always reading a romance book or two. Most of the time, I am reading romance which falls into the type of romance I write–contemporary romance. I often read from the Harlequin lines of Heartwarming and Superromance because I am studying what category romance authors are doing to help me improve my own writing. Currently, on my Kindle is Under the Boardwalk by Amie Denman. The story takes place in an old amusement park and is reminding me of my high school years working at Six Flags Over Mid-America in the game department. Someday I will get to the bubbling young adult stories with an amusement park as a setting! And I read non-fiction for research for my characters, plot or setting. I have just finished The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma. This was a fabulous book for understanding trauma such as abuse, PTSD, how it stays in the body and healing from that trauma.