Top Ten Tuesday: Gimme, Gimme, Gimme

This week's Top Ten Tuesday prompt from That Artsy Reader Girl is "things that make me instantly want to read a book."

I thought it was going to be hard to come up with ten things that I gravitate toward, but it turned out to be really easy!  I discovered I'm actually quite predictable when it comes to what will draw me to a book.  

1. It's a mystery.  Amateur detectives, police detectives, private investigators -- I love them all.  I want to know what happened and whodunnit, and I would prefer not to figure out the solution before the author reveals it, thank you very much.  Favorite authors for my favorite genre include Raymond Chandler, A. Conan Doyle, Rex Stout, Dashiell Hammett, Jan Burke, and Laurie R. King.

2. It's historical fiction.  Give me something set in the past, and I am instantly interested.  Two particular historical settings are always magnets for me, which I'll discuss below, but really just saying "historical fiction" gets me intrigued.  

3. It's by an author I already like.  Yes, I'll try new authors.  I routinely do.  But the name of an author whose other books I know I enjoy is always going to attract me to a book.  I am a creature of habit who likes knowing a bit of what to expect, and I love to read a new book by an old favorite author.

4. It has a "found family" vibe.  So many of my favorite books have "found families" in them, like The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton, and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schafer and Annie Barrows.

5. It's about a close friendship.  I am far more attracted to stories that revolve around a friendship than ones that revolve around a romance.  Give me two people who would kill for, die for, or live for each other, but aren't romantically involved, and I will just eat that story up with a spoon.

6. It's a retelling.  I write retellings.  I read retellings.  I love seeing how an author can build a new story on an existing framework.  I love finding the parallels and the shout-outs and the references.  I don't love every retelling I've read, but I definitely will be attracted to a book just from hearing that it's a retelling.

7. It's a western.  This is really a recent development.  Until the last ten years or so, I infinitely preferred my cowboys to be on the screen, not on the page.  I had read maybe three or four adult westerns up until then.  Now, I gobble them up.  Not sure why it took me so long to get into them, but I'm glad to be here now!

8. It's set during WWII.  If the Old West is where my imagination lives, WWII is where it goes on vacation.  You put "1940s" or "WWII" in that cover blurb and you instantly have my attention.  

9. It's a classic.  I have read a lot of classics.  I have a lot more classics yet to read.  These books and stories and characters remained popular decades and even centuries for a reason -- because they have important and enjoyable things to say.  Also, I love how, every time I read a new classic, some reference in some other book or movie will suddenly make sense.  

10. It's got a horse on the cover.  This is a carryover from my horse-obsessed childhood, but it still holds true.  Put a horse on the cover of your book and I will at least pick it up and read the cover blurb.  Basically every time.  Powerful stuff.

This was an incredibly fun post to write!  I hope you enjoyed reading it.   I think I might do something similar over on my other blog, only about what draws me to movies, actually.