In one week, on Tuesday September 26, is the Gamester Contest!!! Just leave a comment on that day’s Risky Regencies post talking about MY LADY GAMESTER, and be entered to win!
To learn about the great prizes (including an eighty-page, lavishly illustrated Pride & Prejudice “FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION” Book, a biography of the Prince Regent, and a souvenir guidebook from the Bath Assembly Rooms & Museum of Costume) or to read the complete rules, click here.
Remember — your comments don’t have to be flattering. They don’t have to be clever, or witty, or insightful. They just have to reflect what you really thought about the book.
Now for today’s question: what book was so wonderful that you couldn’t put it down? What book do you reread frequently, or tell your friends “you have to read this!” What book makes you ask “How does she do that?” or “Why can’t every book be like this?”
Or is there a whole series, or an author, that excites you that way? Or more than one author? Please share!
All opinions welcome!
Cara
Cara King — author of MY LADY GAMESTER
Booksellers’ Best Award for Best Regency of 2005
a whole series, or an author, that excites you that way
J.R. Ward’s vampire series–I haven’t started the latest one because I know when I do nothing else will get done.
What book makes you ask “How does she do that?
Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels, her Mr. Impossible
Anne Stuart’s Black Ice–her hero is so nasty, yet you root for him.
Eloisa James’ intersecting plot lines with believable, flawed heroines.
Good question, Cara!
For me it is Sandra Brown and I love her Texas Trilogy; they’re definitely on my keeper shelf.
I’ll definitely have to keep an eye out for the J.R. Ward books, Megan. And I have to confess I’ve never read any Sandra Brown, robynl, though I’ve heard good things about her for years! I’ll look out for those books, too. (My real goal here is to get recommendations for great books to read!)
As for me — definitely Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan books. The first one (Shards of Honor) is merely quite good and readable, but the others reach greatness… At one point I was going around to all my friends who read her books and asking “what makes her so good? What is it she does?” And no one knew. (No one but me cared, either! They just said, “she’s good because she’s good.”) 🙂
And several books by Diana Wynne Jones, who has officially been my favorite author for years: CHARMED LIFE, HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE, DROWNED AMMET, ARCHER’S GOON, and WITCH WEEK. And maybe others.
And Ellen Emerson White’s “The President’s Daughter” trilogy.
And Joan Smith’s SWEET AND TWENTY and IMPRUDENT LADY.
And a whole lot of Georgette Heyer books, including COTILLION, FRIDAY’S CHILD, THE UNKNOWN AJAX, VENETIA, FREDERICA, and BLACK SHEEP.
Cara
Lois McMaster Bujold is that way for me, as well–I am often amazed at how good she is. I will pick up her books just to re-read sections that I particularly enjoyed.
At his best, Patrick O’Brian was like this for me as well. The combination of great characters, description, dialogue, and plot; it’s hard to beat.
I also have felt this way about Neal Stephenson. While I haven’t read everything that he has written, everything of his that I have read has been very impressive.
I could probably come up with others, as well, but that will do for now.
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There have also been many individual books over the years that struck me as absolutely brilliant, so that when I reached the end I wished they were longer so I could go on reading. I remember feeling that way when I finished Possession by A.S. Byatt; the story, told in two times, so well done that it catches you up and carries you along; and the beauty of the language. It is a daring thing for any author to create a character who is supposed to be a great poet; Byatt carries it off extremely well.
A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter Miller, is another such book. And a couple of Heyer books have struck me that way as well, though they are very different in tone: Faro’s Daughter and The Grand Sophy in particular, both extremely funny, happy books. And Damsel in Distress, by P.G. Wodehouse, is another book in the same vein.
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Oo, oo, another one: Thus Was Adonis Murdered, by Sarah Caudwell. Brilliant!
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