Romance Week: A New Favorite Author.

I'm usually pretty picky about the romance novels I read (though you might not be able to tell that fact by my to-read romance list), so finding a new favorite author is a great thing for me. She may not be new to you, but she is to me, one of my new favorite authors this year, is Lisa Kleypas.

A few of her books have been on my to-read shelf for a little while, and this year I found a Lisa Kleypas reading challenge that I liked, so I decided to join. I have to admit, I was a little wary at first with that first book. But once I really got into the story, I was hooked. I even went out right away and got the next book in the series (which I loved even more), because I loved the characters and the romance so much.
I chose to start with the Hathaways series. Not only did I really like the cover, the synopsis called to me while I was in the right mood to pick it up. I'll be posting reviews on the first two books later this morning, so I won't say much more on the books themselves, and rather just focus on the characters.
I truly like this family. After the hardships they've been through, they are still going on with their lives. Perhaps some members of the family moving on more strongly than others; not because they wanted to, but because they had to. And the ones having less trouble over the past, were able to recognize and to help the others go on and find their way again to normalcy. I think this definitely makes for a heartwarming read, but that wasn't the only good quality shown in the first story - even though I've only read the first two books so far, I can already tell that it carries through the rest of the series. I'm positive this will turn out to be one of the most sweetly humorous, and entertaining series' I have ever read. I really love all of the characters, and the author's writing that much.
But I don't want to wear out on that subject, so I will name one more of her other series I am dying to get started on: The Wallflowers. I've known about The Wallflowers series for a while now, but I never actually added it to my reading list until recently. I originally found the last book of the series (a holiday read) I was interested in, but once I found it was part of a series, I was put off by it. I used to avoid series books, I can't really explain why, they just never appealed to me. But I started adding more and more to my reading list, a gradual thing, and the number has climbed alarmingly and now I don't know what I was thinking when I used to avoid them.
Anyhoo! I finally added the first book last year, and after reading an excerpt and learning more about this fab sounding series, I can hardly wait to get to it! A series about (four) wallflowers of the ton, and you definitely know what happens: they end up making the matches of their dreams. I really can't wait to find out how it works out for them, reading the paths they take and knowing all of the details on how they got there. (That's the best part!) :)
So, Lisa Kleypas is my (first, actually) new favorite author this year, and those are the reads I am dying to get on with.