Book Suggestions for 2011...Help!

Last year I set a goal to read 100 books. I fell short with a total around 70 (I know I’m missing about five, but I can’t remember them now so I won't count them). Some of them were rereads like, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Lord of the Rings and a few of J.D. Robb’s In Death series. Some were classics that I’d never read but will now be a part of my favorite lists, like Pride and Prejudiced, and Sense and Sensibility.

I discovered some fantastic YA novels that weren’t in my genre, like Will Grayson, Will Grayson. It’s been a long time since a book has made me cry tears of joy, but that book did it. Will Grayson, Will Grayson was my favorite book for 2010. The characters stayed with me for weeks after reading that book, so much so, that I bought it after borrowing it from the library.

This year, I’m going to keep my goal of 100 books for 2011. Now that I know it’s MY responsibility to keep track of the books I check out of the library—thought they had an archive, but they don’t—I’ll a keep better list and won’t forget any.

I just finished What I Saw and How I Lied. I didn’t know what to expect, but I really liked it. For this coming year, I want to read more books in my genre—YA, paranormal, urban fantasy, and dystopian. I really want to read more Steampunk and sci-fi too. I like character driven over plot driven and a little romance isn’t bad either.

I welcome suggestions, actually, I’m begging for them. So if you have anything you want to recommend, leave them in the comments for me. Many thanks!

I Love Books!

Sorry I’ve been MIA for a while. I’ve been doing edits on my manuscript, trying to get it ready for my beta readers (if any of you are interested in reading for me, send me an email at kdrose at g mail dot com and I’ll tell you about the book and we can see if we can swap ms if you want).

I’ve been reading a lot. Sometimes I get into a habit where I read/listen to two books at a time. I just finished listening to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson and reading Kill For Me by Karen Rose. I have to say, I almost fried my brain. The two stories were different enough for me not to confuse plots or characters, but they both had TONS of characters in them.

If any of you out there have read any Karen Rose novels you know she gives you lots of people to play with and some of those people aren’t who they say they are. They have different names, nicknames, secret identities or no identities at all. You have to stay on your toes when you read one of her books, but as this novel was part of a series, I already knew most of the characters so I didn’t have so much trouble keeping track.


The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo…OMG! I don’t know if any of you have read it—I mean, I know I’m late to the game and somebody has to be reading it for as long as it’s been on the bestsellers list—but what a dense novel. Admittedly, I struggled in the beginning. My manager has read all three books and warned me that I might have a hard time getting into the beginning, and that was no lie. I was two discs in and I was like, I don’t know what’s really going on. My manager said, “Karen, promise me you’ll stick with it. It’ll be worth it.” I stuck with it and boy was it worth it. I really loved the book and more over, I loved the way Larsson wrote.

It struck me when I was about halfway through the book that as an unpublished writer, I’d probably have a hard time getting an agent if The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was my first novel. It’s a brilliant story and once someone gave it a chance, they’d see the brilliance, but it’s a story that’s heavily told. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard from agents, editors and authors that you should show and not tell. But somehow Larsson tells about 70% of this story and shows about 30%, but it WORKS!

So if any of you are out there looking for a good thriller I whole-heartedly recommend The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Yeah, all both of you who haven’t read it by now-lol. If any of you like a little more romance with your thrillers then pick up a Karen Rose book. You won’t be disappointed.

This combination worked so well for me that I just got The Girl Who Played With Fire on audio and another Karen Rose book, Silent Scream, so I can read some and listen some. God, I love books!

Everyone have a safe fourth! Don’t eat too much and keep your manikins away from fireworks because every year the news show those poor manikins getting their hands blown off…when will they learn?

To Quote or Not to Quote...

A while back I was speaking with a friend who writes, but not really with professional aspirations (which is still good. I don’t care what your goals are for writing if you love it!). She asked if I planned to add quotes to my book. At first I wasn’t sure what she meant. I thought she meant like a foreword or like some song lyrics at the beginning that may capture the meaning of my book.

She actually meant a quote at the beginning of each chapter—something that may foreshadow the plot, the heart of the character, or the main purpose of the chapter. I had to think about that for a moment. First, I don’t know that many quotes that would convey the meaning of all 25 chapters of my book. I don’t read a lot of poetry, nor do I write much (despite how fantastic my mother and my sister thinks my poems are), so I didn’t think I could even come up with 25 places to quote from. Granted, they don’t all need to come from poems, they could just be quotations from people that resonate with my story.

Then I started thinking about the books that I’ve read that have quotations introducing each chapter.

Tithe, by Holly Black and Wicked Lovely, by Melissa Marr are just two that I can pull right off the top of my head. Even though I remember that they both quoted people, stories and maybe even songs at the beginning of each chapter, I couldn’t tell you what any of the quotes were about. I never read one of them. Well, I think I at least read or tried to read one, but I found that it pulled me out of the story to stop and read a quotation that I may or may not get the relevance of at that moment. Most of the time I barely stop to read chapter titles (even though I prefer naming my chapters as opposed to simply numbering them). This in no way means that I think Black and Marr should not have used the quotes in the beginning of each of their chapters, it’s their book, they can do what they want, (like they care what I think-lol). And this doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy the books. I did, very much, and that’s why I couldn’t waste time reading a quote because I was too busy enjoying the book!

So the short answer to this question is, No, I would not add quotations to my chapters. Now if one day I write something with a heavy lyrical pulse, maybe I would quote some songs since music resonates with me more than poetry. And I can certainly think of 25 songs that would speak to the feelings I want to convey in each of my chapter.

Book, Book, and More Books

So far this year I’ve read/listened to 32 books. Last year, my total was 60, which I’m trying to beat this year. Looks like I’m well on my way! I know some don’t count audio books as actually reading, but I do. I listen to books only at work. My job lends itself to sitting in my office and going completely nutters if I don’t have something like the radio or audio books to keep me sane. This way, it’s better than the commercials on the radio and simple silence. If given the choice I’d read the actual book, but as I can’t do that and do my job, audio books have saved my life.

I especially love J. D. Robb’s In Death series. The woman who reads them, Susan Erickson, is awesome. And THAT can really make or break a book. There are some books that I suspect are really awesome, but the reader sucks the life out of the story so it’s impossible for me to listen to it.

Right now, I have no audio books left to listen to, so I’ve taken to re-listening to some of J. D. Robb’s. As for the actual books I have waiting…there are about six in my bedroom and about twenty on my wish list. I just finished the third in the Night Huntress series (At Grave’s End by Jeaniene Frost) and now I’m reading Pretties by Scott Westerfeld…I know I’m late, but there’s no expiration date on good reads!