Sunday 27 January 2013

Hooked on Stephanie Plum


 
I’m visiting Carla Caruso today to tell everyone how I got hooked on Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, and why I liked it so much that I insisted all my friends read it. Guess what? They’re all hooked too. J
 
I picked up my first Janet Evanovich book quite by accident, whilst holidaying in the seaside town of Moonta Bay, South Australia. The rented holiday shack had a huge bookshelf and reading room, so I meandered through the titles and found four Stephanie Plum books. It wasn’t just the bright covers and fun titles (Janet uses the book numbers in them) that attracted me. They were well worn, so I knew they’d been loved. I picked one at random and settled onto the couch.
 
Shazam! As with every book from this series, it started with a bang and the pace didn’t let up. I was gripped by the interesting plots, but that wasn’t the only thing that made this series stand out to me. It was the characters. They were down-to-earth flawed individuals with redeeming qualities that made me care about them. Janet skilfully takes a personality trait we can all picture in a friend, and magnifies it until it is just shy of ridiculous. The result? Utter hilarity.
 
My family was concerned I’d finally tipped over the edge of sanity when I constantly sniggered to myself, interspersed with sporadic side-splitting laughter. The crazy and mundane are used to create hysterical situations, woven artfully into complex plots. Janet imbues these stories with loads of details from the local area and observing people, so the reader can picture it well and feel intimately involved.
 
Naturally, there are plenty of bad guys, some mildly kooky and some genuinely scary, but my absolute favourite thread of the books is the frustrating love triangle between Stephanie, the sexy and laidback cop, Morelli, and the mysterious tough guy, Ranger. I believe there are two camps in the Stephanie Plum readers club, some avid Morelli fans and other (like me) who love the sizzlingly dark and mysterious Ranger. Is it getting hot in here?
 
In case you haven’t noticed yet, I’m a Stephanie Plum fan. I read all nineteen books in the series (so far) in five weeks and eagerly await the next one. The beauty of this series is that it isn’t critical to read each book in the correct order, because each one has a satisfying conclusion, so take a chance and sample Stephanie Plum. I’m sure you’ll soon be a convert.