AUTHORS WANTED
I like to read. A lot. Well, when time allows.

When I was 18, my aunt sent me a copy of Strangers by Dean Koontz as a Christmas gift.

I was hooked.

Over the next two years, I purchased every Dean Koontz novel that I could (from the old Kroch’s and Brentano’s on Wabash in downtown Chicago). From there, I went to Stephen King and then to other sci-fi/ horror novelists.

Over the past sixteen years, my tastes have changed a bit. I’ve stopped reading Koontz save for a few exceptions (his Frankenstein trilogy has been very interesting). His writing can be either too melodramatic or reads as if he’s trying too hard to be funny. I still read King, but his fiction is starting to read the same. I can look at a King novel and anticipate the next plot turn pretty effectively.

(In fairness to Mr. King, I think some of his work is phenomenal and, considering his reputation for the strange and bizarre, surprisingly rich in character development. I recommend “All That You Love Will be Carried Away,” “The Jaunt,” “The Man in the Black Suit,” “Crouch End,” “Dolan’s Cadillac,” “The Man Who Loved Flowers,” “The Last Rung on the Ladder,” Hearts in Atlantis, The Long Walk, On Writing, and Bag of Bones (except for the last 50 pages))

My problem now is that I haven’t been able to find an author to follow. The last novel I read that really jazzed me was I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb. I’ve read Lamb’s other works, but he hasn’t published anything new lately.

Any suggestions for an author or novel???