David Eddings wrote one of the best characters I have ever read: Sparhawk. I've always wanted to be able to write someone who was so fricken awesome. I must admit this series is a constant re read for me (actually I love all of David's work). I loved how intricate the world was and how well it all seemed to seamlessly fit together. Hell, I even loved his badguy/girl characters. there was just something morally right about Sparhawk, even when he had to do something not quite legit he did it in a way that showed deep down the man was still the real thing...A man of honour...A man of worth.
In this book: Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley... I saw that women characters can be strong. Scarlett truly redeemed herself in this book in my eyes. Don't get me wrong I still love Margaret Mitchell's: Gone With The Wind (it will forever be a classic read). I just didn't really like Scarlet that much in Margaret's book. I loved how she went back to the homeland and became the head of the whole O'Hara family without even realising what she had done...If you haven't read it then I suggest you do... the book was way better than the mini series.
Paul Zindel's: The Pigman is one of the first authors I read where I actually wanted to sit there and read the book from the beginning when I had finished it. I read this book in high school and even though I wasn't that crash hot in English (lets face it I still suck at punctuation) I just loved this story. My favourite scene is where the two teenagers involved cook the dinner. To be honest I don't even think it was my class who was reading it. I think it was my nieces as my class was doing Shakespeare.
Diana Gabaldon's: Outlander series... sucked me in from the very first page. Seven books in with a spin off into the life of Lord John and I was hooked. I loved Jamie Fraser from the get-go. Then the other characters started becoming real to me... Murtagh, Young Ian, Fergus, Jenny and so forth. This is a writer who made me want to go and explore all the places mentioned in her books. I have a list of things I need to see when I finally get to Scotland. I loved the way the characters all were special in their own ways and could have happily read many spin offs about each and every one of them.
Dean Koontz is one of the best horror writers for me. I can honestly say this man made me afraid of the dark (it's funny how I can read a scary book, but I can't bring myself to watch a scary movie). There are so many great books by this man that I can't name them all. I'm slowly rebuilding up my collection of his. If I can have an addiction to reading then in my teenage years Dean was mine. I must admit I would have love to have been able to write a character like Odd Thomas. I just loved the way Odd's mind worked.
In this series The Morganville Vampires by Rachel Caine... I was fascinated by the ruling/protection system they had in place. Mind you I was drawn to the weird characters:- Mernin is one of my favourites... I loved the fact that he was so smart he was crazy... or maybe that was just the sickness effecting him. I also thought it was great how even the good guys could come off as a little less than perfect. To me that alone gave this series another depth. The fact that the secondary character's were jus as important as the main ones was an added bonus as well.
