There’s a simple reason some people enjoy reading particular
books, authors or genres. Though they might not realize it, they’ve experienced
an emotional impact.
I am currently reading The
Forgetting Time by Sharon Guskin.
It is a heart-wrenching story, difficult to read at times and yet I can’t put
it down. From the very first page, I was sucked in by the enormous emotional
impact.
Noah is a four-year-old who has always been terrified of
water and who knows things that can’t be explained, like the identification of
lizards, how to score a baseball game or every scene in Harry Potter. His
mother chalks it off to an active imagination or even that he’s a liar. But
when his stories of being held underwater threaten to involve social services,
she has no choice but to find out what’s wrong with him. She goes into debt,
her business sidelined and the medical bills mounting yet test after test
reveals nothing wrong. Until finally, she is forced to consider the impossible.
What if Noah is the reincarnation of another boy that was
killed at the age of eight? A boy that simply disappeared, a boy whose mother
is convinced he is still alive and one day he will come home to her? And what
if Noah remembers exactly who shot him, exactly who tried to drown him, and
exactly where his body is buried?
As an author, I am confronted with the emotional impact with
every book I write. I write for my readers and sometimes that means they want
to fall in love. Sometimes they want to be whisked away to an exotic location.
Sometimes they want to be pulled back in time, perhaps looking for a simpler
place, a simpler time only to discover a different set of obstacles. Sometimes
the emotional impact comes in the form of having to know what is going to
happen next, of solving the puzzle, of learning the answer. Sometimes it’s a
heart-thumping read and at other times a breathtaking vista.
When I wrote Clans
and Castles, the first book in my new Checkmate
series, the emotional impact was even greater for me because I was writing
about my ancestor, William Neely. There is something about envisioning an
ancestor as a young man filled with hopes and dreams and desires… Knowing he
loved deeply and lost intensely… Knowing he left everything he had ever known
to forge a new future in a foreign land amidst odd customs, different dialects
and warring factions. In a world that is divided today by religion, the divide
between the haves and the have nots, power struggles and political alliances
and upheavals… and then moving back in time to discover this has occurred for
almost as long as man has lived on this earth. Some would flourish despite the
odds; others would falter and still others would die far too early in their
lives. It is the emotional journey that kept me writing and, like every author,
it is the emotional journey that I hope keeps the reader reading…
p.m.terrell is the
author of more than 21 books, including her bestselling book, Songbirds areFree, the true story of Mary Neely’s capture by Shawnee warriors; her
award-winning River Passage, the true story of the Neely family’s journey
westward with John Donelson; the award-winning Black Swamp Mysteries Series and
award-winning Ryan O’Clery Mysteries. Discover book trailers, download free
excerpts and read more about her books at www.pmterrell.com.
