I’m an avid reader. There’s nothing I love more than getting sucked into an amazing story. If there happens to be multiple books in a series; all the better. As a kid I loved reading what most girls read in the late 1980s: The Babysitter’s Club and Sweet Valley High. I loved Beverly Cleary’s Ramona books and the Little House books from Laura Ingalls Wilder (I’m pretty sure I’ve seen every episode of Little House on the Prairie on TV).
When my mom realized I could finish a Babysitter’s Club book in a few hours, she lent me her copy of All Around the Town by Mary Higgins Clark. It’s been more than 20 years since I read it and I can still remember the storyline. The next book of hers I read was A Cry in the Night and I was seriously hooked on her books. I probably read more than a dozen Mary Higgins Clark novels before I finished seventh grade. All throughout my teens and twenties, I read novels from Patricia Cornwell, Michael Crichton, Sue Grafton, Michael Connelly, and more that I’m not remembering right now. I remember cutting class in community college to camp out in the library when I was nearing the end of a really great novel; Patricia Cornwell was the reason for many of those days.
This week I learned that beloved author Mary Higgins Clark passed away at the age of 92. She was the author whose words hooked me into so many fascinating stories and I believe she was the one who cemented my love for reading.
I wanted to share some of my favorite books. These are the books or series that I can go back and reread over and over when I don’t have something new to read. For a very long time, I wasn’t ever able to reread a novel. So to make a list of books that I have loved enough to re-love, that’s really saying something.
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SERIES:
The Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon - These will suck you in and you won’t be able to tell what day it is. It’s historical fiction mixed with romance, drama, mystery, and a smidge of science-fiction thrown in. I know some folks dislike the length, each novel is over 1000 pages, complaining that the author spends too much time with the day-to-day stuff that the main characters go through. That’s the stuff I really love; the stuff that makes me understand what 18th century living was really like, and how it could be for someone who’s lived in the 20th century. There are currently eight novels, and number nine is supposedly due out some time in 2020. Oh and there’s a show. It’s kind of amazing.