This post originally aired on February 26, 2011, at The Blood-Red Pencil.

 

What is a “defining moment” book? Well, for me, it is a book that made me think, made me move, made me change something in how I wrote. Most of the stories and books I wrote pre-defining moment book were relationship based, delving on the lives and loves of my characters. If I had to pick a genre, I would say it was women’s fiction with a heavy romantic element.

That changed for me when I read Mary Higgins Clark’s All Around the Town.

 

I was taking a novel writing class as an elective and for the class, we had to select a book we would read and analyze. While we did that, we would write the first three chapters of our own novel in the same genre as the book we selected. I had always loved mystery, thriller, and suspense fiction, but never thought I would or could write it. There’s so much to think about when writing a mystery and making sure the puzzle(s) fit just seemed too daunting. So, as a challenge, I picked AATT, one of the few books from Clark that I hadn’t read.

I loved it. Still do. Once I year, I still read it.

There were many things I gleaned from the book. I think the thing I liked so much about All Around the Town is that as a reader you had sympathy for the main character and for those characters close to her, but Clark did not write in this syrupy, I’m going to make you feel sympathy by laying the sympathy on thick way. Her writing in that story, at times, is pretty straight forward. I was just rereading it a few weeks ago, and I thought, Man, this could be considered emotionless writing if I didn’t know better, because in that book, it’s not how much sympathy a writer can create in words but how the actions (or inactions) of the character evoke the emotions and the sympathy. And Clark’s also quite good at being pretty concise, getting in where she needs to, and moving out the scene. She doesn’t linger around, adding words for fluff, and she doesn’t add that one more adjective that makes the reader cringe and go, “Yeah, overkill.” She’s also good at layering. The story, in the big sense, is about a young girl who is kidnapped and suffered unimaginable abuse for years and is finally returned one day. We see this girl, older, trying to live as stable of life as she can, despite the fact that the kidnappers still exist, and one of them still loves/wants the girl, and with the girl starting to talk about her past, the kidnappers want her silenced indefinitely. With that storyline, we have many layers, from the girl’s (main character) story to her parents’ story after she’s kidnapped and when she comes home, to her older sister’s story of trying to be protector now that she’s back, to the kidnappers’ stories, to the doctors that try to help/save the girl. And none of it is confusing, and all of it comes together to tell one great story. And as a mystery/suspense novel, that layering is also key in how well Clark embeds intrigants throughout the story that payoff for the reader the more he or she delves into the story. With each page turned, the breath of the reader catches as he/she waits, knowing something is going to happen and being enthralled that Clark is making them hold out—just a little bit longer.

After that novel writing class, I had a renewed love and respect for the mystery/suspense field, and I had the first three chapters of what would end up being—many, many years later—my debut solo novel, Death at the Double Inkwell. And now, two years after that big moment, the second novel in the Double Inkwell series, Into the Web, will drop in a few weeks!

If I’m going to talk about being a fan of a book or an author, then I have to start with THE book I constantly bring up and THE author I have lovingly stalked over the last, oh, say, 10, 12 years: BERNICE MCFADDEN and her debut novel, Sugar.

 

 

I don’t know how I learned about Bernice McFadden’s Sugar, but I do know that in 2000, having read that book, I had found a literary treasure that other works would have to compare to.

 

click cover to purchase a copy today!

 

In 2005, when I first interviewed Bernice at my blog ChickLitGurrl: high on LATTES & WRITING, I told her, “Your debut novel, SUGAR, by far, is one of the best books I have ever read. It is delicate and painful and rhythmic and joyous all wrapped into one, tight pleasurable read.” That passion for the novel hasn’t changed.

It actually has grown, especially as Bernice continues to put out such wonderfully moving works.

If you haven’t read Sugar, pick it up. Don’t think it’s outdated; it’s a classic, so it tastes just as sweet and fresh today as the day it dropped.

And while you’re picking up Sugar, also get Bernice’s last two novels: Glorious and Gathering of Waters.

 

 

 

 

You can click the covers above to head to Amazon and get your copies. Be forewarned, Bernice keeps it vivid, real, and sensory. You’re going to be moved, and you’ll walk away from these novels with more than one thought to keep you company for a while.