Jamie's Book Blog

Okay first of all let’s just get one thing out of the way.  I’m a guy   It’s just between the name and my love for romance books I get mistaken for a female online all the time.  It doesn’t help that so many romance books have covers of half naked men on them. How about some half naked women?  Show us guys some lovin too   I just wanted to get that out of the way. Now onto the fun stuff.

I just love to read, I love the way books make me feel and I love the connection I get from the characters and all of the emotions that go along with them.  Romance – especially New Adult just happens to be very good at pulling all of those emotional strings in me but I love most genres and read a bit of everything.

Some of my earliest childhood memories are of vising the library with my mom who shared her love of reading with me.  She can still out-read any day of the week and she’s always encouraged me to read and it’s been a huge source of joy in my life so I just want to say thank you mom.

I have always had my nose buried in a book.  I used to mainly read fantasy and supernatural or horror type novels but have since grown to love nearly all genre’s.  If it has a good story and great characters then chances are I’ll read it.

I rarely watch TV, I just prefer a good book.  Reading has helped me through so many hard times in my life. There were days where the thought of that next great story kept me going when nothing else could and while my life is finally in a good place and I have finally learned to appreciate the little things in life, my love of reading has stayed the same.

Even before I knew how to read I was sneaking off with my brothers comics, looking at the pictures and making my own stories up (something I still do to this day only now with novels).  Some of the first books I ever read were The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King and The Dragonlance series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.  One day in the library at high school I ran across three beautiful book covers that instantly drew me to them.  They turned out to be The Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula K. Leguin and my love of reading really took off.  Since then I have read constantly, sometimes up to a book or two a day.

It wasn’t until a year ago when I received a Kindle for Christmas that I really started reviewing books.  At first I mainly did it as a way to keep track of the books I had read on my kindle but it wasn’t long before I discovered self published authors.  Of course the price of the books initially attracted me to them but then I began to find some really great independent authors, one of which became my favorite author of all time.  In fact it was this author who is responsible for my love of romance books since they wrote their first one not too long ago and even though I didn’t really read romance I gave it a try because I loved all their other books so much and I’ve been hooked ever since.

I learned there was this great big community out here.  A tight knit community, much like one big family of authors, readers and bloggers who helped each other by spreading the word of great books and the authors who wrote them and I decided I wanted to get in on the fun so here I am.

Books have a special kind of magic I think.  They can transport us to other worlds, we can travel to distant galaxies and even visit new dimensions.  We get to make new friends and family, go on great adventures, face evil, find love and conquer our darkest fears all from the comfort of our living rooms.  We can cry, laugh, feel fear and joy yet never once do we have to worry about holding our emotions in check.  Books can give us the freedom to do so many things that are normally impossible for us to do but even beyond that  is the real effect they can have on us and our lives.  They can inspire us to greatness or humble us.  They can lift us up when we’re down and can be our constant companions through this great adventure that we call life.    They can bring us comfort and healing and each one read has the potential to change our lives in some way.  No two people will ever come away from a book with the exact same experience. It’s different for each and every one of us which is just part of the beauty of it all.

If you love to read then you know exactly what I’m talking about.  And if not then what are you waiting for?  Pick up a book today and allow that magic into your life.

Yeah I know I must have just now used the word read about a gazillion times :/
It’s very hard to describe reading without actually saying the word read :/  I can only imagine how authors must feel trying not to use the same words or phrases over and over again.

Just a Personal Note:  It’s barely been a little over a year but what a difference a year can make.  A year ago I did’t even have a Facebook account and never would have believed in my wildest dreams that I would be blogging much less interacting with actual people in real life (hey it’s much easier online than it is in real life) on a daily basis.  I’ve suffered from Depression and Social Anxiety for a very long time now and it was through the very magic of reading that I discussed earlier that I started to finally make my way back to the land of the living.  This whole journey started with one author.  An author who’s books I loved so much that I had to get on Facebook to tell them so (You know who you are and I just want to say Thank You for everything).  And from that day on I began to slowly interact more with people once again.  I began to look up old friends and began to hold my head up high in public.  I was no longer content to keep me eyes on the ground and decided I would rather look to the sky and the stars and found that happiness can exist in each and every one of us if we’re willing to just look for it.

This is just my way of trying to share some of that magic with you all.  I hope you enjoy.  Keep your heads up high and always be yourself and  allow magic into your lives, whenever and wherever you may find it.