To Prologue or Not to Prologue

[image error] New writers are notorious for massive info dumps in the early pages of their precious novels (I'm talking about me here). It's a struggle for every writer to ride the fine line between enticing a reader into the world you created for them and holding hands from start to finish.

So what about prologues as a device to alleviate those massive paragraphs of backstory? As a reader, I love books with short prologues because they give me a glimpse the first chapter can't. Not really a preview, but a domain of questions I must have answered, must as in, I must keep reading. As a writer, prologues are plain fun to write.

Two books immediately come to mind when I think of fantastic prologues, Poison Princess by Kresley Cole and Bound by Night by Larissa Ione. Oh my goodness, talk about being left breathless on the edge of a cliff. So I'm wondering about prologues, when and how to use them. When they should have been left out of the book. When they're just another form of hand holding the reader.

How do you all feel about prologues?

(By Mike DelGaudio (Flickr) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)], via Wikimedia Commons)