Day 10 - A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving
This one's an easy answer for me. At the risk of being stoned by 90% of the romance-reading world, I'm going to admit that I'm not a huge fan of Nora Roberts' books. I am, on the other hand, a huge fan of Nora, herself. I love that she's forthright and pretty down-to-earth considering how rich and famous she is. But the books are too inconsistent for me. In fact, up to a certain time in my reading history, I'd never actually finished a book by Nora.
I'd tried. Oh, how I'd tried. Millions of readers can't be wrong, I told myself. Obviously, the woman delivers on many levels to not only win, but keep, so many fans for so long. But book after book ended up moving from my To-Be-Read stack to my Not-Gonna-Happen...Ever stack, and my confusion kept growing.
What was it about her books that kept readers shelling out so much money year in and year out? I just didn't get it. And worse, I began to feel a little bitter over her numerous RITA Award wins. I suspected that some judges automatically marked her books high just because of who she was.
One year, in my role as judge for a published author contest, I received a box of books to judge and among them was Nora's Birthright. Eager to give the book the score I just knew it would deserve, I plunged in. And within just a few pages, I was hooked. I can't say that I was forever hooked on all of Nora's work, but I can say that I've since found several of her books that I not only finished reading, but liked a lot.
When she's good, she's very, very good.
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