What Is It About Books You Love The Most?

Difficult question to answer isn’t it? So much depends on the genre chosen too.

Overall, it has to be the characters who grip me. I’ve got to want to find out what happens to them. I’ve got to care about the outcome. It does have to matter to the character and therefore to me as the reader.

For historical fiction, I’m always keen to find out how a writer shares the information we need to know about the period without giving us “information overload”.

That is they don’t give a whole wealth of information so you end up forgetting what the story actually is. I like to see information drip fed to me in an entertaining way.

One of my favourite books ever is The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey and that is a great example of how information is shared while keeping the story going and the pace up.

For crime fiction, I want to see how the author gives clues without giving the whole game away and that is not an easy balancing act.

For fantasy, I want to see characters I can identify with in terms of their needs and longings even if their species is totally alien in every sense of that phrase!

For me, a good read of whatever kind is getting the readers hooked to the characters.

For non-fiction, that character is the voice of the narrator.

Happy reading!