Friends and Authors

My mom hates reading celebrity gossip. She has learned that sometimes reading about the antics of famous people can affect how she appreciates their work. For instance, she can no longer watch Tom Cruise movies - even ones she liked. I know I have a harder time watching Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap, and she was just a kid then!

Meeting authors can have a similar effect. Not that I have met authors that I didn't like as a person; every author I have gotten to know has been very sweet. But as I have mentioned before, sometimes reading an author's book after getting to know them can be a bit awkward. Especially if they write detailed sex scenes.

However, I set aside that potential awkwardness and read S.J. Willing's POSEIDON VII this week. I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew that S.J. is a very sweet man with a ready smile and a sense of humor. But I didn't know if I would like his book as much as I liked his silly ties. I was lucky, though, in that I did enjoy the book.

It's a futuristic romance. The action and science remind me of Isaac Asimov, and the romance is completely believable. The characters act and think like humans, not just characters reacting to the whim of the author. And I was interested throughout the book to see what happened. In fact, the sub-romance involving characters who are enemies of each other is intriguing and I hope to read that story in a future book.

I know now not to let a personal knowledge of the author affect my enjoyment of their work. I have other friends who are authors and I have been a bit reluctant to read their books because I thought I would feel bad if I didn't like them, but now I will give those stories a chance, too.

Nicole