The Books We Love

Welcome to another edition of the Round Table Discussion- Spanking Hot Topics, brought to you by Spanking Romance Reviews.

This week our guest topic was provided by Lucy Appleby: The importance of dynamic first chapters, opening paragraphs, & narrative

I signed up for this topic and then immediately questioned my judgement.

Sure, I have been dabbling in writing for the past year, but that by no means makes me an expert on our topic today. Then I had a thought, I have been reading my entire life, I know what books I like and what books I don't. So I come to you today as a reader. 

What makes me like a book? Well my first favorite book that I can recall was The Eye Book

"My eyes see. 
His eyes see. 
I see him. 
And he sees me."

Okay, not exactly dynamic I guess, but to a four year old it was high quality. Also, I loved the rabbit on the cover. He looks a little crazy, and even as a kid I could respect that.







Moving on in my reading career. I have a confession to make: I hated reading when I was a kid. This seems like such a sacrilegious statement to make as an author. But I did. I hated reading. Required reading for school was the worst!

We have to jump about ten years to get to my next favorite book in life. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

Required reading for my high school freshman English class.

It may have been the only book I read in entirety during my high school career. I was wondering myself what would have made me actually read this book. Here is how it opens:

"When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.... When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident. I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that. He said it began the summer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out."

I was recently wondering what it was about this book that enticed me to read it. It just may have been these opening lines. Even now it hooks me and I am thinking it has been a long time since I read this. I might have to go dig out my copy.

A while back we were all tagging each other on facebook to name ten books that influenced you. I ended up having a lot of plays on my list. I was a theatre geek and I always read plays. Well, they are shorter than books, makes sense I had chosen to read these over full novels. But I think the real reason is that they are all action. You can't have a lot of set up or back story in a play, it's dialogue, events, things are moving. The audience needs to know what's going on without someone saying "She was crying because she burned the muffins." You have to actually see her burn the muffins.

I think, to me, that is what makes a good book. Putting me in the middle of something that is already going on. As if I'm "joining this program already in progress," go on, do your thing. I'll catch up.

Taking the big picture and zeroing in on one thing you want me to focus on. It sets up an intimate relationship between me and the book.

His eyes see, and Jem broke his arm. Small things going on in a big world, but they were all I cared about for those moments in time.

Now I am all about the spanking, the romance, the sex. Please have sex! I'm not saying I don't like a book without sex, but if you are alluding to it the whole time and then don't seal the deal, I get a little ornery.

My favorite setups into a spanking romance are when it opens on the heroine doing something a little bit dangerous. Maybe a little naughty. Something that feels like it might lead to a spanking. Yeah, I guess I get a little single-minded about these things, but I'm not going to lie about what I like.

What about you? What about an opening paragraph makes you want to read?

Be sure to check out all the other Round Table posts for today! Thanks for stopping by.