Reading outside my comfort zone by Rhoda Baxter

A few months ago, I entered a competition that required, as a condition of entry, that I read a box of books from categories other than the ones I’d entered. The box of books duly arrived and I had to read 8 romance novels that I wouldn’t normally have chosen to read and I had to fit them all in within a deadline. I did it, reading at every available opportunity (a few weeks, but I don’t have a whole lot of spare time). By the end of it I learned several things.

1.     I really love my ereader. Having read 8 paperbacks in a row, I noticed it makes my hands hurt to hold the books open (I’m such a delicate snowflake!) and I kept forgetting where I put the book down because, unlike my eReader,  a paperback can’t be crammed into my fleece pocket. On the other hand, my pre-schooler started copying me and pretending to read her books, which was lovely to see.

2.     My reading range had become very narrow of late. This is mostly because my recreational reading has to do double duty as market research, so I read a lot of books in my own genre, with the odd sprinkling of other genres coming in only rarely. I read a lot of Choc Lit books, naturally, but thankfully, there’s a reasonable range there.

3.     I thought I wrote ‘romantic comedy’ and that the definition of romantic comedy would be about the same everywhere. Not so. I now know that in the US my books would be a novel with romantic elements. A reviewer described one of my books as ‘Chicklit with depth’, which I adore as a description. The ‘depth’ means that there’s a bit more going on than just the romance. Doctor January has a side helping of emotional abuse issues, my next book touches on the difficulties of moving on from having caring responsibilities. Perhaps I should say I write ‘women’s fiction’ instead.

4.     Red haired women are always Feisty (or Sassy). Which is fine, but there seem to be rather a lot of them and I’m not sure I know what Feisty means exactly. It makes me think they’re all a bit like Amy Pond off Doctor Who.  

5.     I really like reading mystery and suspense novels. Why don’t I read more of them? When Terry Pratchett died, I reread a couple of my old favourites and realised that I really missed fantasy fiction too. We can find out so much about the real world by looking at it through the prism of fantasy.

6.     I read mostly about straight white couples. I’ve never really worried too much about the ethnicity or sexual orientation of characters in a book, so long as the story was interesting, but since my reading range has narrowed  to contemporary romance (see point 1), it would seem that there really isn’t that much diversity in that subgenre. I’m Sri Lankan by background, so I always have at least one Sri Lankan secondary character in each book. The heroine in my next book (provisionally called Please Release Me) is mixed race – this wasn’t something I did consciously, but I’m glad it happened like that.

So, based on the above, I made a quiet resolution to read more, read wider and generally be more open minded. I also gave myself permission to read just for the heck of it, rather than with half an eye on keeping up with what’s going on in my area. It’s been about 3 months now and I’m really glad I made the change. I still don’t have as much variety in my reading as I’d like to have, but it’s getting there. I’m learning new things, gaining new perspectives on familiar things and having fun which is what reading is all about, really.

How about you? Do you have specific genres that you read a lot? Or do you read an eclectic range of books?

Author Bio

Rhoda Baxter always wanted to be a writer, but her parents told her she needed to get a ‘real’ job and write in her spare time. So she became a scientist and now works in technology transfer. She now writes contemporary romantic comedies in whatever spare time she can find around her day job and her family. Which means her parents were right all along. How irritating.

Rhoda can be found wittering on about science, comedy and cake on her website www.rhodabaxter.com,  Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/rhoda.baxter.5), Google+  or on Twitter (@rhodabaxter).

Links for Doctor January

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-January-Rhoda-Baxter/dp/1781891249/

http://www.amazon.com/Doctor-January-Rhoda-Baxter/dp/1781891249/

https://store.kobobooks.com/en-gb/books/Doctor-January/