Life's small excitements. Or not.

We don't have lions outside my local library.
Not like New York.

Every now and then I have a binge and reserve a slew of books from the local library. Then I have the fun of the phone call telling me a book is available. Sometimes they come quickly, sometimes it can be months and I've forgotten I ordered them and try to order them again. Sometimes, like this week, several come at once. But back to the phone call - or often, the answerphone message. Now sometimes the librarian tells me what the book is, but often they don't, just that there is one on the shelf with my name on. And then I know I have a little surprise waiting for me. Yes, I know, But I did say it was life's small excitements. You have to get your thrills where you can.

I did a batch last week - which is why I had three to collect this week - but while I was looking up new offerings from favourite authors and putting them on hold, It occurred to me how many writers used to be on my list who are not there any more. It wasn't because of poor writing or unconvincing dialogue, or anything like that. They had simply dropped off my auto list, because I had stopped enjoying their books. And that got me thinking 'Why?'

I'm a writer. Writers do 'thinking'. A lot.

In some cases the author had begun a new series that just didn't chime with me. Others had taken an existing series in a direction that I didn't go for - or maybe I got bored. Relationships, even the literary kind, sometimes end. One or two had begun to take a 'Ripped from the Headlines' approach to plotting - which is something that does not appeal to me, personally, although a lot of people like it. And as I have blogged before, a frequent reason for leaving a book on the shelf was simply that the books were depressing the heck out of me.

Sad, gloomy and often unremittingly violent. Not what I want to curl up with on the sofa.

My books are thrillers - violence and dead bodies, but I hope they have something positive too, which is why I write romantic suspense. Romantic suspense. The love story is, I hope, what lifts them away from the depressing. The thriller part makes them exciting. At least, that's the theory.

So, that's what I'm looking for too when I read. I don't mind dark, or tear jerking, in moderation, but I'm not into depressing.

I know that reading as escapism is often frowned on. But I can get real life in real life, thanks.