Guest Book Blogger: Michelle G.

Today my Guest Book Blogger is Michelle G. from Michelle's Book Blog. She's talking genre's.

My Journey Through The Genre’s

By Michelle Greathouse

I have always been a reader - before I could read on my own my mother would read to me.  My parents and grandparents are all readers and they have always encouraged me to read.  I consider my love of reading to be one the greatest gifts they've given me.

The summer before the sixth grade I read my first 'grown up' series.  It was a set of books that my grandmother had called The Saga of the Phenwick Women written by Katheryn Kimbrough.  The first day of school our Lit teacher passed out a 'getting to know you' questionnaire and one of the questions was what did you read over the summer?  Imagine my surprise when the teacher asked me after class if I had really read that series or if my mother was reading them.  I think she was just as surprised by my answer as I was by her question.

From there I fell in love with the Historical Romance and the dashing hero rescuing the damsel in distress.  I read those for several years, devouring anything I could get my hands on.  Sometime around age fifteen I found Cassie Edwards and her Native American series which led me to another author and one of my all time favorite reads, Ride The Wind written by Lucia St. Clair Robson.

But then I fell out of love.  I don't know if it was due to teenage angst or just plain boredom - but I moved on to Horror.  Stephen King and Dean Koontz (who by the way, scares the crap out of me now) occupied my time for a few years - keeping me up late at night and to be quite honest - sleeping with the light on a time or two.

After that I played around on the Thriller/Mystery merry-go-round with the likes of Stuart Woods, Sue Grafton, Patricia Cornwell and Jeffery Deaver.

But I was missing something.

I joined the Science Fiction Book Club and, on a whim, bought an omnibus edition of The Sookie Stackhouse series from an author I'd never heard of, Charlaine Harris.

I fell in love all over again.

Apparently while I was away a whole new genre had been born - Paranormal Romance.  Now vampire's were the heroes - but they were still saving the damsel in distress.  Now don't get me wrong, I love me some Paranormal Romance.  The sexy vampire playing hero or better yet, playing the anti-hero.  And that is all well and good - but I wanted more.

Then I joined Myspace and I met Anna and she introduced me to yet another genre - Urban Fantasy.

Now the women were saving themselves - and sometimes the guy too.  Urban Fantasy was everything I'd been looking for during my ride through the genre's. Strong ass kicking women, strong ass kicking men and all kinds of critters that go bump in the night.

My journey was complete.

Then came the zombies...

I am a huge zombie nerd.  Rhiannon Frater's As The World Dies series blew me away.  Authors like Ben Tripp and Joe McKinney keep me waiting impatiently for the next read.  I love the whole idea of mindless zombies looking for their next brain fix and the brave (or crazy) folks who fight them. 

I might have an addiction.  I freely admit it - and admitting it is the first step...