When
I first encountered the novel Disappear by Iain Edward Henn, the
blurb caught my attention immediately. A man had disappeared eighteen
years previously and his body suddenly appeared—looking exactly as
he had looked back then. That was a book I had to read! And read it,
I did, plus all of Mr. Henn’s subsequent books.
The
same happened when I came across Sendero by Max Tomlinson. In that
novel the main character is a woman called Nina caught up in a war in
Peru. She becomes an officer in Cuzco’s tourist police and goes in
search of her brother. But it wasn’t just the blurb that caught my
eye. It was also the Peruvian setting. I know very little about South
America as my own experiences take place in Mexico and Puerto Rico.
The troubles in Peru presented an alien world. And again I was hooked
and proceeded to read all the novels by Mr. Tomlinson, including the
ones not set in South America.
But
there are key words that hook me also such as “tropical island”.
That kind of setting will always catch my attention. But I have been
burned by just buying a book because it’s set on a tropical island.
Romantic suspense on a tropical island becomes a must read but it
does pay to read the book’s blurb and reviews first.
Other
key words that intrigue me are “time travel”. Years ago, I read
House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier and I was hooked for life
with that genre. My own time travel mystery-romances were inspired by
that novel (these are still works in progress although one short
story has been published). And, of course, I had to read the recent
novel by Marja McGraw--Choosing One Moment: A Time Travel Mystery.
Time travel and mystery in one book? What more could I want?
A
blurb, an intriguing setting and certain key words will grab my
attention and the result is that I will buy the book, whether I know
the author or not.
