By Denise Turney
True. The way readers get access to great stories has changed, more readers enjoying digital and audio books then they did a decade ago. What hasn’t changed is the fact that millions of children and adults love books. It’s this passion for entertaining, engrossing and emotionally charged books that find thousands and millions of readers regularly visiting literary websites like Good Reads, the African American Literary Book Club (AALBC), Rawsistaz, Amazon.com book discussions, The Red Room, Library Thing, Shelfari and Book Crossing.

For many people who love books, necessary elements of a great story include suspense, believable characters (even if those characters are placed center stage in a sci-fi novel), thought provoking dialogue and, of course, an intriguing plot. Readers, whether they appreciate and regularly buy love inspired books, mysteries, sci-fi novels, romance or westerns, want to care about characters in stories. They also want to fall in love with an author’s style, some readers preferring the work of authors whose writing flows akin to poetry.

However, perhaps it’s the way talented authors develop characters, dialogue, plot and story scenes that pull readers into the very heart of the stories they’re telling, until readers forget their own surroundings and challenges, that readers appreciate most. Before they know it, readers find themselves trying to figure out how to solve book characters’ problems, challenges that might mirror their own. As readers come up with solutions to challenges characters in books they enjoy face, they (without conscious awareness) gain solutions to their own real-life challenges.

It’s a benefit no one can put a price tag on. Redeeming love book stories change readers’ lives. And it might be because of that benefit that readers continue to seek out remarkable fictional stories. It might be why some readers can’t load their digital and wood bookcases with enough titles. What might be lesser known is that “the chance to change people’s lives in good ways” is a major reason why some authors sit down and create stories people love in the first place.

Thank you for reading my blog. To learn what happens to Raymond, Brenda and the other characters in my new book, Love Pour Over Me, hop over to Amazon.com, B&N.com, Ebookit.com, or any other online or offline bookseller and get your copy of Love Pour Over Me today. And again I say – Thank You! Consider Love. 

Sources:

http://www.writersrelief.com/blog/2012/02/literary-love-stories/ (Writer’s Relief:  The One Thing All Great Love Stories Have In Common—And What It Means To Your Writing)

http://www.examiner.com/article/top-five-african-american-romance-novels (Examiner: Top 5 African American Romance Novels)