What Makes A Brilliant Book?

What makes a brilliant read? That is a very good question. What makes you pick up a book up in a bookstore or hit click on your e-book store? I have to be honest; I’m a bit of book buying addict. I’m sure even by reading at least two books a week (which is about my usual rate), I’ve bought enough to keep me out of trouble for probably the next 20 years and beyond. Not to mention the ones I’ve picked up at book festivals or have been sent by publishers.

Reading is all about personal taste, same with music, film and TV. It’s very subjective.  Just because I loved a novel doesn’t mean that the next person will. Put it like this, me and my other half have very differing tastes – he reads fantasy novels whereas I’m a crime fiction fan. That’s why asking what makes a brilliant book is an extremely hard question to answer. But what I can tell you is what makes a brilliant book for me, what initially makes me click on a thumbnail or pick up a book, what makes me give my hard earned cash to a retailer and what makes me read to the end.

Let’s start with the cover. You have to admit, unless it’s a favourite author, the cover is the first thing to catch your eye. I personally wouldn’t read the blurb without the book having #coverappeal. Frequently on social media, there can be a bit of a frenzy when a publisher releases a cover and it’s an instant hit. I’ve recently been involved in a couple of cover reveals for publishers and they have both been books I’ve thought “ooooooh I wonder what that’s about”.

The cover has got my attention. Next stop the blurb! Now I know this can be the hardest part to create for many self-published authors as they do it themselves. You don’t want to give too much of the story away but you want to say enough to get the sale. For me, it can’t be too wordy as I know I’ll switch off and move on. It has to grab my attention instantly to make me buy.

So the cover and blurb have made me buy the book. Now it’s make or break time, what is going to make me read the book right to the end. There used to be a time that I would never ever give up on a book. If I was enjoying it, I would fly through the pages, not wanting to put the book down; but if I wasn’t, I would struggle through to the end. But I had the lightbulb moment – if I wasn’t enjoying a film or a TV programme, would I keep watching? No, I’d switch off or put something else on. So why was I doing it with reading which is my passion?! I’ve learnt not to feel the guilt of not finishing a book I’m not enjoying. But saying that, you might enjoy the book I’ve not so for you that book might be brilliant but for me not so!

I adore crime fiction so a good crime thriller needs to have intrigue, a twist or two, keep me guessing….saying every so often, you know who the culprit is early and suddenly the book becomes more about the chase, the game of cat and mouse! Will the protagonist get their suspect before it’s too late?!  With a psychological thriller, I love the heebie jeebies feel, goose bumps as I read.  A book like that needs to mess with my head, getting me to a place I think I know what’s going on and then BOOM, there’s a plot twist that I really didn’t see coming but in the grand scheme of the book once it’s over, makes total and utter sense!

For me, the story needs to be believable.  The author has to have me thinking about what is going on is real and could happen to anyone (within reason). Obviously, I personally wouldn’t expect to be investigating a brutal murder, however, I need to be able to believe that’s what could happen as part of the investigation. All that being said, I have come across cracking reads that if I suspend a bit of reality (for me) and entered into the paranormal realm, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading something a little different.

Love or loathe them, I need to connect with the characters. I need that emotional feel for a character. Do I know someone in my life just like that? Are the relationships between the characters like those I have with friends, family, work colleagues or acquaintances? If the relationships don’t work, it removes some of the believability of the story. In most cases, you spend hours with these characters and you invest time in them; for me, I need to be able to believe they are real.

The writing needs to ignite my imagination, transport me to somewhere else that isn’t my sofa or my bed, an escape to someone else’s life, someone else’s world! If I struggle to imagine the world in which the story is set or the characters I’m reading about, it makes reading the book that little bit harder. However, I don’t know about you but I prefer the descriptions to be subtle.

I know one author’s piece of advice to aspiring writers is “show, don’t tell” which I get. Do you want to read paragraphs of descriptive narrative telling you what your main character looks like or would you prefer the subtlety of the description to go unnoticed but subconsciously dripping into your imagination as the character goes about their business, interacting with others?  I know which I prefer.

So that for me is what makes a brilliant book. I know it looks a lot but when you start to think about what will make you read to the end and actually enjoy what you’ve read, an author’s job is blooming hard! I am in awe of what they can create for the diverse taste of the reading (and non-reading) population!

I have been extremely lucky with the books I’ve read for my blog, A Knight’s Reads (https://aknightsreads.wordpress.com/). So far this year, I’ve started 63 books and only given up on 2 which both were a surprise to me.  I loved the cover and the blurb for both and one of them was written by an author whose previous books I’ve loved. Blogging for me is about sharing the #booklove so I only review the brilliant books I’ve read.

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Claire Knight is a self-confessed book addict.  She’s loved reading for as long as she can remember devouring Enid Blyton, Carolyn Keene and the like before moving onto more grown up reads of true crime and authors like Ellis Peters.   She lives just outside Leeds with her two sons and hubby.  She works in the rather enthralling world of pensions and to calm herself down from all that excitement, she spends her evenings reading crime fiction with the odd bit of something else thrown in for good measure. She’s been blogging since the beginning of February 2018 and before that she was guest reviewer on the fantastic Crimebookjunkie Book Blog.  She’s made a lot of friends through the blogging community and many of them are friends for life.

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/AKnightsReads/
Twitter @ClaireKreads
Blog https://aknightsreads.wordpress.com/
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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing