Guest Post: Growing Up a Reader by K. Reed

I'm very excited to welcome K. Reed to Love Saves the World.

K. recently concluded a very successful virtual book tour to promote her debut novel and she generously agreed to do a guest post where I ask her to talk about the books she read growing up and how they influenced her as a writer.

Here's what K. wrote:

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Growing up, I read everything from Agatha Christie to all the Harlequin books I could grab from my mom’s reading pile. Reading those probably didn’t immediately shape how I wanted my books to read, but in retrospect they certainly did make a lasting impression!

I want a strong heroine. Not one who’s strong but bitchy (though we can all use a good bitch every now and then). Strong doesn’t equal mean, it means standing up for yourself and your beliefs. In thinking about those Harlequin romances, it also means having your own beliefs, not just carbon copies of whoever influenced you before the hero happened by to show you the error of your misbegotten ways.

I want a mystery I can’t guess in the first 5 chapters. But then I also want a mystery that makes sense at the wrap-up. Writing a good mystery is incredibly difficult! I prefer thrillers, where you don’t have to keep the bad guy a secret until the big reveal at the end. Makes things easier.

I want heat. I want the tension between my hero and heroine to sizzle, I want it to leap off the page, then I want to read about it. I don’t want to imagine (though I have a pretty good imagination!) I want it to be there, not behind a closed door but against one.

And I want it all wrapped up in a book that flows with awesomeness.

What about you? What were your favorite books growing up and what do you read now?

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Thank you, K!

K. Reed is the author of the dystopian regency romance novel, Dark Inheritance: Fallen Empire.

The once glittering ballrooms of Regency England now lay desolate. A plague has ravaged the countryside. The government has fallen. What vestiges of order remained have been consumed by the endless funeral pyres.

Grayson, once the Baron of Harwich, sought only to protect his people. Rescuing a half-dead woman was not among his plans. But something about her pulled at him. Perhaps it was her beauty, still evident beneath the pallor of loss. Perhaps it was the recently fired rifle at her side. Or maybe he simply tired of death. All he knew was that the plague had taken too much already. He couldn’t let it take her as well.



Lady Juliette Adair had been ready to die with her brother. She didn't expect to be shown mercy in a world that had no room for mercy. When Grayson saved her, she questioned his motives but soon found herself intrigued by him, drawn to him.



Societal rules were a thing of the past, dead along with the ton. Juliette had no manner by which to measure her growing closeness to Grayson any longer. But when she discovers he may not be the man she thought she knew more is at stake than just her heart. The secrets she carries could make a king or destroy one.

Dark Inheritance: Fallen Empire is available at:
All Romance
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Print

Visit K's blog! Click here.



Read my review of Dark Inheritance: Fallen Empire here!