It All Started With ...

[Kerstin]

LOL, that would have been a very sweet HEA, Charlene!

[Steph, Serious series addict]

Wouldn't it though?! :)

[Charlene]

He was a sweet kid (let me emphasize kid). I was 48 at the time; he was about 25. Now had he been a little older ...

[Kerstin]

You could have always used him as your boy-toy ;)

[Steph, Serious series addict]

LOL! Bad, so bad, Kerstin. was he cute ..... >;)

[Kerstin]

Lol! You only live once and have to live it up *wicked grin*!

[Charlene]

No Steph. He wasn't what I would call cute. He looked like an old time poet that belonged in a smelly coffee shop with the scrappy beginnings of a beard and what I think was supposed to be a beret. Now if he looked liked Bones and was only 25, I would have taken that boy home and done things that would frighten my cats. LOL

[Steph, Serious series addict]

LOL!!!

[Sandra, Kindle Operator Licence Required]

ROFL Charlene!

[CyberAlmu]

Though I read before Harry Potter's series, Lord of the Rings, I have to admit that my reading frenzy began with Twilight

[Steph, Serious series addict]

CyberAlmu wrote: "Though I read before Harry Potter's series, Lord of the Rings, I have to admit that my reading frenzy began with Twilight"

That one started it all (anew) with many here, as well, CyberAlmu.

[Steph, Serious series addict]

gigi wrote: "hehe my reading frenzy really started with anita blake."

I still haven't read any Anita. Not sure that I will at this point.

[Kristen]

Twilight! Couldn't put the series down and I'm so glad that I read the series after they all were published. Then Sookie. It's only grown from there.

[Jlyates]

I started reading all kinds of books as a kid. When Dark Shadows was cancelled (told my age, LOL) there were books written for it and I devoured them. I had read Barbara Mitchells, and loved her gothic books. Went several years between buying books (family, kids, no extra money). Was needing something to help me survive the dry textbooks from college and picked up a book by C. Feehan, Dark Gold. Was hooked. Had to get the series, now have all.
I have to admit that I didn't like Twilight. For me it was too . . . can't find the words, kiddish?.

As for kids reading it, parents would be surprised at what their teenage kids, especially daughters, are reading secretly at school. Found a book my daughter was reading, was being passed around at school. She was 14 at the time, is now 30 and it was pretty intense in the sex. Same level as what you would find in N. Singh's Psy/Changlings, or C. Feehans. So I doubt that these kids are as innocent as parents think they are. My daughter told me that 12 year olds were passing these books around to each other. That was 15 years ago, so no telling what they are reading today.

[[deleted user]]

My love of series in general probably started with Harry Potter, though I would say that Lord of the Rings was more influential because it began my love of fantasy books. For vampires, Anne Rice was my first introduction and is still my litmus test of sorts for writing. In the more modern paranormal/urban fantasy, however, Kelley Armstrong was my first introduction. From there, I have read JR Ward and some Kim Harrison. I have Karen Chance on the shelf to read, as well as the Fever series.

However, my series taste is much more broad, and I continue to read many regular fantasy and young adult series such as Anne Bishop's books and the Hunger Games. At the moment I'm slowly going through Wheel of Time, which is kind of 'epic/high fantasy' to my mind.

[[deleted user]]

Marisella wrote: " was one of my first most memorable smutty ish book. no, it was Serenissima. both were good"

I remember reading this in about 7th grade. I went back and read it again this summer, and I'm still surprised my mum got me the next two for Christmas that year! Though she's always been pretty good about trusting me to be mature about my reading. I still haven't read the rest of those though....I keep getting distracted.

[Vivian]

Wow, I haven't read Kushiel's Dart, but 7th grade seems young for the contents! It's on my list though.

Where are you with WoT? I pooped out during book 8 years ago. I liked it, but geez, it was getting long-winded, or maybe since I read them all back-to-back. I want to finish it now that the end is in sight. Hmmm, maybe I'll add it to the 'Better Late than Never' challenge...than I'd have to finish it :)

[[deleted user]]

Vivian wrote: "Wow, I haven't read Kushiel's Dart, but 7th grade seems young for the contents! It's on my list though.

Where are you with WoT? I pooped out during book 8 years ago. I liked it, b..."

7th grade was definitely young, and I'm still surprised my mum didn't say something about it! However, I'd been reading Anne Rice and similar things for a good while anyway, so I guess she thought I was mature enough to handle it.

I'm about halfway through the Great Hunt. I keep thinking that I'm going to get bored, but it seems that every time things are going slowly it picks up again. However, I have heard that some of the later books get extremely slow, so I'm hoping that I can make it through the whole thing. I have a friend who just adores them and I promised him I would read them at least once!

[Vivian]

I think about 6-9 is the slower, but it's definitely something I want to finish :)

[Samina The Story Devourer]

For me it all started after a friend lent me her Richelle Mead's Succubus Blues. I was hooked from then on. I had always that that Fantasy books were ...well fantasy but hell I love them now.

[Steph, Serious series addict]

:) Welcome, Samina!

[Miss]

I read Anne Rice in highschool and loved all her books but then I stopped reading for a long time and when I started up again I used to read mostly historicals and somewhere along the way I read Twilight which I loved but that was all. The true obsession started with Anita Blake and then continued with Sookie and now two years later I'm still reading mostly UF.:)

[Michelle]

The Worst Witch started my book obsession, quite a few years ago now! I moved on to fantasy, I was often visiting Narnia as a child. I did move on to fantasy/horror books as a teen especially Stephen King & Dean Koontz and I slowly came back to the softer side as I hit about 17-18. I joined a sf-fantasy book club in which you had to make a purchase every second month and that introduced me to a lot of authors including Sherrilyn Kenyon, Charlaine Harris, Laurell K Hamilton etc. I still remember hounding my local book shop for the 5th Sookie book (it was months after it's US release and for some reason you couldn't get it over here!). I bought Dead Witch Walking the month of it's release and I was hooked to UF after that. Was that really 6-7 yrs ago now? I didn't think it had been that long!

[[deleted user]]

I think my series love started with Lord of the Rings-- I remember feverishly trying to get hold of the second book after just inhaling the first. It was almost like getting a fix when I bought The Two Towers, and sat down to read it! And then I followed The Once and Future King books all the way through. I love series, and the security they give you as you fall deeper and deeper in love with the story: you know that it's not going to end with the end of the book, and you get to inhabit the world on so many levels.

The romance series addiction started, as it did with so many others, with Twiiiiiilight. I have to be a traitor to it though, and say that I can't really go back and read the books now, but it did get the fires burning and I'll always be grateful for that. :)

[Josie]

Yeah I feel the same way. Happy that Twilight has introduced people to the wonderful world of books but after reading a lot of amazing ones since then and after those ridiculous films, I can't say they're a favourite of mine.

Ooohh, that's exactly how I feel about series! Immersing yourself in the world is why I read. Lol, whenever someone says that reading is a waste of time and what on earth have you done today, I just puff my chest out and say 'excuse me! I have defeated Voldemort and saved the world! Give a girl a break'. And that usually does the trick ;)

[[deleted user]]

Josie wrote: "whenever someone says that reading is a waste of time and what on earth have you done today, I just puff my chest out and say 'excuse me! I have defeated Voldemort and saved the world! Give a girl a break'. ."

Heh. Yours is the high road. I spend my days having mad sex with men with rippling muscles and magical powerzz. I say men, but really they're wolves, vampires and the occasional dragon. I save no worlds, but I do have a very good time.

[Sandra, Kindle Operator Licence Required]

Well, that's what counts Moss! That you have a very good time. LOL.

[Kimberly]

Technically, it started with Harry Potter, but I think the obsession went into full bloom after I read Twilight.
Within a month, I heard from 3 different people about the book and decided to find out what everyone was talking about. From there, I joined TwilightMoms and was introduced to The Black Dagger Brotherhood there.
Ever since reading BDB, I've branched off and found some really good reads from there.

[Lala]

for me it really started with this book i just love this series...

[Bobbi]

I have no idea where my love for series started, but I think my UF thing started with Charles de Lint - his books are series-like, but don't really have an ongoing sequential plot. Patricia Briggs really launched me over the edge. Next I think was Wen Spencer.

In the area of PNR, Sherrilyn Kenyon definitely got me going - and I still have a drawer full of her books from pre-kindle days. Her writing sometimes annoys me, but the stories and characters are worth it.

[Lis]

It was Anne Rice for me many years ago. THE WITCHING HOUR!

[Trish]

Mine would have to be Twilight. I picked it up on a whim just to see what all the hype was about and fell in love. I read it on an 8 hour trip to SE Oklahoma to visit a friend and had to make a detour and a few stops on the way back to get the second and third books. From then on its been PNR and UF. After that book I found Goodreads.

[Cindy (eclecticfirefly)]

My series love started in the 3rd or 4th grade. I asked the school librarian to help me cuz I wanted to read all the Little House on the Prarie books in order.

I read Bram Stoker, Stephen King, and Dean Koontz in HS, but my PnR/UF love really took off when I read Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake books. I picked up at my local UBS. Loved it so much I immediately went back for more. They didn't have all the others, so I headed off to B&N to fill in the blanks.

[Sarah]

I haven't found a lot of fans for this particular series but the series that got me started on UF is The Hollows series by Rachel Morgan. I still love it and I plan on re-reading it soon :)

[Tania]

I've always been a reader but the books that got me out of certain "stances"

Christine Feehan's Dark Prince was the book that got me out of my "I don't like vampire books stance"

Naked in Death got me out of my "futuristic books get boring because of the focus on strange technology and not the characters" stance.

One for the Money got me out of my "I hate books written in the first person - they're too one sided" stance.

YA - after several tries with several different authors - I've given up on. Way too much angst for me. I couldn't even finish Twilight. Aside from the bad writing I just kept wanting to shout "grow the f... up" at the characters.

Everything else, well I've been proven wrong so much that I'll try reading anything really.

[Rosina]

It all started for me in the late sixties when I was very little and my dad and I would watch the Dark Shadows soap opera (My dad loved the soaps, Guiding Light, The Edge of Night)...Aaaahhh Barnabas Collins The vampire with the flowing cape...also featured werewolves, zombies, man-made monsters, witches, warlocks, time travel, and a parallel universe...For a farm kid that had never heard of this stuff I was hooked!!! I remember I would play act all the characters after each episode...Aaaahhhh Memories

Rambling again You asked what book or series......When I started reading novels it was when Stephen King was just starting....I read Salem's Lot and that did it for me....

[Cindy (eclecticfirefly)]

I LOVED Dark Shadows......my Mom even tried to fix my hair like Angelique's for the school picture.

[CharleeMoo]

You know I'll say Twilight. My best friend told me how good it was and I was like 'nah no way. Vampires? Please' and then my sister got me the first two for my birthday and by the end of the night I ordered the other two (something I have an issue with. I order complete series without seeing if it is even worth my time).

That got me hooked, even if I wasn't really a fan of the sparkle vampires.

[Sandra, Kindle Operator Licence Required]

Charlie, I have that same problem, ordering complete series before I know what they're like. LOL. It's an addiction!

[CharleeMoo]

A seriously bad (and expensive) addiction!

[Dina]

My first PNR book was Slave to Sensation and, wow, it was so good! The Psy-Changeling series is still my favorite PNR series, and Hawke will always be my favorite shifter. I love that wolf!!!

[Lady Jaye]

It started with K A Applegate. Animorphs (yea!) and I think margaret weis (but i am not too sure)..Then,

and then I discovered Sharon Shinn. Ah-mazing. She still is one of my favorite authors till date and i still read almoost everything she puts out.

She was the person who kicked me all the way over into fantasyland!

[Josie]

I LOVED Animorphs! With the morphing animals when you flipped the pages at the bottom, as well as the cool blue alien-creature, it was brilliant. Man I wanted their powers, what more could a 9 year old wish for? Plus I'm pretty sure Marco was my first book crush *blushes* lol

[Steph, Serious series addict]

Dina wrote: "My first PNR book was Slave to Sensation and, wow, it was so good! The Psy-Changeling series is still my favorite PNR series, and Hawke will always be my favorite shifter. I love that..."

IMO, nothing compares to Nalini's world-bldg and story telling in her Psy-Changeling series. That's my absolute fave PNR. Hard for others to beat it.

[Audrey]

The first book that got me into the paranormal wasInterview With the Vampire by Anne Rice back in high school many, many years ago.


From there I was all about Vampires. Then it went to any paranormal AND series.

[Samantha]

Twilight, then Sookie Stackhouse, then House of Night, then Black dagger Brotherhood....and it continued on from there.

[[deleted user]]

saw it as a play when i was 10 read it the week we got home...never looked back.
Dont think that is either of those Genres but it started my fantasy love. I guess everything just grew in from there

[Tiffany]

I watched True Blood on HBO and loved it so I started the first Sookie Stackhouse book... which led to other books in the genre... and now I'm hooked! :)

[Lisa]

I've always had a penchant for paranormal/horror books and TV shows. I read Stephen King's Carrie when I was 10 and after that I read anything remotely paranormal I could get my hands on. I also remember reading a book as a kid called Bunnicula about a vampire bunny. For some reason that one really stuck in my head......

I loved Christopher Pike as a young teenager, and read some Anne Rice as well - which was probably the start of my PNR/UF love affair although I didn't really understand the categorisations until about a year ago!

I read all the Harry Potters and Twilight novels as an adult as well as the Sookie books and since then I rarely pick up anything other than PNR/UF. My horror habit has dwindled to a couple of books a year instead of a couple a month.

[Steph Ann]

I discovered Stephen King in junior high if I remember correctly. I still love his stuff even though it's not PNR/UF. Then in high school, I started really enjoying romances. I think the "official" start of my PNR/UF obsession began with a trilogy by LJ Smith called the Forbidden Game. I then devoured the rest of her books that she'd written up to that point.

My first introduction to adult PNR/UF was the Sookie Stackhouse series. I had seen commercials for True Blood and was interested in watching it, but I wanted to read the books first. Ever since then, I've become obsessed with the genre. It's pretty much all I read now, aside from the occasional Stephen King book and the Stephanie Plum series.