What Did I Read As a Kid? Everything!

I was wildly imaginative as a kid - still am. I've been a voracious reader since the first day I figured out Dick and Jane saw Spot. So I read anything and everything I could get my hands on.

I read the Bobbsey Twins, Cherry Ames, Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew, the Dana Sisters, Tom Corbett Space Cadet, Tom Swift Jr., Rick Brant....also older series that were passed down from my grandparents, like The Dare Boys and some prime G. A. Henty adventure novels.

Comic books! I had literally thousands and we will NOT discuss what eventually happened to them when I got married and moved out of the house. Some wounds still hurt too much! But Magnus Robot Fighter and The Brothers of the Spear were two of my favorites series.


Robin Hood, the Three Musketeers, tales of King Arthur, Last Days of Pompeii, Little Women. The biography of The Swamp Fox.

I read ALL of it and much more before I was twelve and absorbed the elements I personally enjoy most - adventure, high stakes, brave/smart/valiant/honorable heroes and heroines,friendship, family, interesting settings, a happy ending and ROMANCE. That's required. I used to have to search long and hard to find it in the things I read as a kid but I can suss out any hint and add my own 'shipping' and re-imagining as required.

I've talked before about how Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis McGraw and Catseye by Shadow Hawk and Year of the Unicorn were also important to me, in terms of inspiring me to take all the elements boiling and fizzing in my subconscious and start writing stories that satisfied my cravings.

Andre Norton were two specific books that pushed me into eventually developing my own series in the ancient Egypt paranormal and the science fiction romance genres. Norton's

Obviously I kept reading after age twelve, and have many more favorite books and stories that influenced me along the way..but that sums up my early influences.