I grew up poor in a small, dusty town in New Mexico. My mother had always struggled with reading comprehension, and she made it a priority to develop a love of reading within me at a young age. She accidentally turned me into a voracious reader by letting me loose in a library a few too many times. With no cable television at home, I would browse an old set of encyclopedias and read about whatever subject happened to spark my curiosity in the moment. This turned into a lifelong habit of browsing the non-fiction section and spontaneously choosing books I could barely wait to read. 

Then:

In elementary school I read my first murder mystery, The Dollhouse Murders. It was the most thrilling story I had ever read, and I was immediately hooked. Throughout the rest of my childhood, I sought out other murder mystery books such as Fall Into Darkness by Christopher Pike. I read my entire library’s catalog of Mary Higgins Clark books, I’ll be Seeing You was my favorite, until I could predict her writing and had to branch out.  

When I moved out after high school, I lived with a family friend who would check out towering stacks of Harlequin romance novels every week. Inevitably I got competitive and started to read her books too. I continue to regularly read romance books, a couple of my favorite authors being Kresley Cole and Ali Hazelwood.  

Now:

I still really love a good murder mystery, but now I tend to enjoy them more as true crime. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI and I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer were very impactful on me. I have also developed a love of Science Fiction – particularly thrillers such as Dead Silence, Six Wakes, Salvation Day and Project Hail Mary.  

Some more of my non-fiction honorable mentions include Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, Who Ate the First Oyster?: The Extraordinary People Behind the Greatest Firsts In History, He Had it Coming: Four Murderous Women and the Reporter Who Immortalized Their Stories, Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, and Grizzly 399: The World’s Most Famous Mother Bear. 

I hope this will inspire you to think about your own reading journey and how it has developed over the years. You can still find me in the non-fiction section with an armload of books ready to help someone else find their joy.