I've been both reading and writing romance stories from an early age. It was my governess, Zula, who first introduced me to the world of storytelling, and with her inspirational guidance by my mid-teens I was devouring romance novels and writing my own stories, which I circulated among my classmates (to their delight, but less so to the pleasure of the Catholic nuns who taught us!). So when I finally reached the pinnacle of my writing and signed my first publishing contract, I thought, 'I am really a romance writer now.' But because reading has been such a big part of my life, and my development as a writer, it seemed wrong to abandon that passion to solely focus on writing. Hence my website, http://hannahfielding.net/, names me as both romance novelist and book reviewer, and as well as working hard on my next published works, I also review one romance novel a week. There are several reasons that I love the reading element of my week:
Hannah Fielding
Inspiration: All great writers agree on one fundamental truth: to be a good writer, you must be a prolific reader. We writers learn by reading. So the more you read, the better you write. Plus, to be a writer in this day and age is to be savvy about marketing, and that means knowing the genre in which you write inside and out.
Escapism: Writing is a wonderful profession, but it can also be tiring. I love nothing better after several hours' tapping away on my laptop than to pick up the novel atop my stack, find a quiet corner in my home or my garden and drift away into another world.
Support for other authors: I am deeply grateful to everyone who reviews my novels, whether for Amazon or Goodreads or their own blog. I have found reviewers to be wonderfully supportive, and the feedback is so very useful for my writing. I therefore see it as something of a duty (a happy one) to give something back to other writers myself and review their books in constructive ways.
Sharing and finding book recommendations: I love being recommended a book to read, and I know many others feel the same. Through websites like Goodreads I have discovered many wonderful new authors, and I hope my book reviews allow others to do likewise.
There are times when being both reviewer and author becomes complicated. Sometimes, when I am deeply immersed in writing a scene in my latest novel, I find myself needing to step back from reading others' novels for fear I will lose the 'zone' in which the scene is unfolding. And of course, any author in creative mode knows that ideas flood in from all directions, and you must make sure one of those directions is not someone else's work! But overall, I couldn't be happier with the balance of my week. If you'd have told me, when I was a little girl eagerly showing my governess my latest story, that one day I would be a full-time writer and reviewer, I quite probably would have keeled over with euphoria. As long as I have a book in one hand and a pen in the other, all is well in the world.
Legacy by Hannah Fielding is out on 29th September (£7.99)