What’s Your Reading Sweet Spot?

In my Facebook group, The Posse, we have monthly reading challenges. We purposely make these easy to complete, and open to a wide range of book genres and styles. For example, the challenge might be to a read a book with no people on the cover or a book where the heroine is a mom.

Sometimes, though, the challenge theme aims to gently push readers out of their comfort zone. I don’t know about you, but I have a very strong “Sweet Spot” when it comes to reading. Nearly every novel I read for pleasure is set in the 1800’s. I love historicals, and while I might occasionally veer into a medieval or colonial setting, the 1800’s is my go-to era. And within this era, I usually stick to either America or England. Thankfully, there are a lot of wonderful smaller eras within this sweet spot – regency, Victorian, western, gilded age – so it never feels restrictive.

Many readers are far more eclectic than I am and have a wonderfully large sweet spot that entails a multitude of settings and genres. So when our July Reading Challenge arrived last month, challenging our members to read a book set in an era they didn’t usually read, the challenge was different depending on how big of a sweet spot the readers had. Our small sweet spot readers (like me) had to get out of their comfort zone and try something new. Our large sweet spot readers had to find something unique enough that it fell outside their wide parameters.

I created a graphic to help readers find ideas for books that would work for them by defining some specific timeline eras.

I broke out of my historical sweet spot and read a contemporary – Toni Shiloh’s In Search of a Prince. It was utterly charming, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. This month, however, I retreated right back to my historical roots to read The Lost Lieutenant by Erica Vetsch since she and I share the same number of letters in our first name (August’s challenge). I can step out of my sweet spot once in a while, but it always calls me back.

How wide is your reading sweet spot?
If you were to participate in the July challenge, what era would you select?