The Books That Made Me: The Autobookography of an Author

A question I get a lot is what books shaped me the most as an author. And since I love to talk about books and I could do that all day, I’m happy to answer this question!

As a kid, I grew up reading a ton of imaginative fiction and kid detective stories. I don’t remember when I read my first Nancy Drew, but it was early on, and I devoured all of them again and again. I even filled notebooks with Nancy Drew fanfic (before I knew that writing your own stories using established characters was called fanfic). I read Christopher Pike in my middle grade years and tons and tons of science fiction. High fantasy was not my thing, generally, but I adored the Lord of the Rings trilogy and some Anne McCaffrey.

In junior high and high school, along with science fiction I read mountains of mysteries, from cozies to private detective and police procedurals. In particular, I adored Lillian Jackson Braun’s “The Cat Who…” books and similar series. I read almost every book by the insanely prolific Ed McBain, author of the 87th Precinct novels (which remain to this day pretty much the epitome of American police procedurals, at least to me). I read everything by Stephen King and Dean Koontz too.

In the meantime, I was still reading SF by the truckload, from hard SF to space opera and everything in between. I discovered Dune, of course, along with Friday and Stranger in a Strange Land, and even read William Shatner’s TekWar books. I think I was something of a legend at the city public library for the sheer volume of books I read. I left once a week with two sacks of books and returned them the next week to fill my bags again.

I also discovered the subgenre of female PIs, which would end up having a huge influence on what I write now. In particular I enjoyed the books of Sara Paretsky, who created the marvelous V. I. Warshawski (which became a movie starring Kathleen Turner), and the great Sue Grafton. Grafton’s famous alphabet mysteries, featuring hardboiled female PI Kinsey Milhone, set in the fictional city of Santa Teresa, California, became my oxygen.

My own fiction became centered around female detectives, either homicide detectives or private investigators. But still I always envisioned myself writing science fiction, and did write some (pretty terrible) SF novels in high school. I also wrote a couple of mysteries featuring female detectives—one a homicide detective, and the other an amateur sleuth who investigates who murdered her cheating ex at her family reunion.

These reading habits continued through college, from my undergraduate years through grad school, though I had far less time for reading for fun than ever before during grad school. I discovered twisty, twisted, dark-as-night Scandinavian police procedurals and psychological thrillers by authors like Jussi Adler-Olsen, Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson, Lars Kepler, and Jo Nesbo. In addition to endless nightmares, those books showed me the dark depths of human evil. What is it about those long dark Scandinavian winters that inspires stories of such depravity?

I earned a B.A. in English as an undergrad, but I also studied forensic criminology and seriously considered a career as a profiler or behavioral analyst working for the FBI. (I have some fun stories about the courses I took.) I obviously didn’t choose that route for my professional career, but my fascination with solving mysteries and exploring criminal psychology remains strong. I devour true crime series and what I call my “murder shows” on Discovery+ and British TV (via BritBox, Acorn, etc.).

Around 2011 or so, about midway through my PhD studies, I had what turned out to be a watershed moment—though I had no idea how important it was at the time. I still remember the day. I was wandering through a Barnes & Noble in Austin, Texas, where I lived at the time, and browsing the Science Fiction & Fantasy section when I spotted an intriguing book cover by an author I hadn’t heard of:

I picked it up, read the back, and thought the premise sounded fascinating. A witch bounty hunter with a pixie sidekick and a vampire BFF? I’d never read anything like it, but it had the elements of genres I loved, so I grabbed Dead Witch Walking and Book 2 of the series, The Good, the Bad, and the Undead, and headed to the counter.

That was the day I discovered urban fantasy. Kim Harrison was my gateway drug. In the years since, I’ve chatted with a lot of people who had the same experience: they picked up DWW and the rest, as they say, was history. It’s easy to fall in love with a genre when you discover it via Kim Harrison.

Now obsessed with UF, I devoured every UF series I could get my hands on. One of my besties was already a fan of the genre, so she pointed me to her favorites: Patricia Briggs, Faith Hunter, Ilona Andrews, Jim Butcher, Laurell K. Hamilton, et al. And then I discovered many more on my own. Most of them were awesome, some good, some so-so. (Author list of my faves at the end of the post.)

In 2014, with my PhD finished and a job as a professor, I decided it was time to stop saying I’d be a writer someday and make it happen. And I thought to myself, could I write one of these urban fantasy series? As I mentioned earlier, I’d always imagined myself writing science fiction someday, but I was thoroughly enamored by UF, with its magic and danger and adventure.

One sunny afternoon, as I was sitting on my front porch drinking coffee, enjoying the weather, and letting my mind wander, a single sentence dropped into my head:

“The first time Moses Murphy’s granddaughter killed on his orders, she was six years old.”

At that moment, I had no idea who Moses Murphy was. Maybe a gangster. Some kind of evil man, obviously. And who was his granddaughter, who was so deadly dangerous at a young age and had grown up his prisoner and weapon?

Her name was Alice, I decided. I named her after Alice in Wonderland and after my mother, whose middle name was Alice. But Alice wasn’t her real name, because she’d escaped from her evil grandfather, stolen someone else’s identity, and become a private investigator in a small city in California (in honor of Kinsey Milhone), on the opposite side of the country from her grandfather’s lair. (More about how I “met” Alice in a future post.)

Alice has quite a lot of me in her, because in another life I would have made a good detective or PI, and like Alice I’m nosy and stubborn as hell and I don’t take orders well. But when I think back over my lifetime reading habits, I can see how she’s influenced by all the books I’ve ever read—most especially Kinsey Milhone, beloved hardboiled PI. I can even see elements in her of the character Friday from Robert A. Heinlein’s novel of the same name, and maybe a dash of Harry Dresden and Rachel Morgan.

So, what drew me to UF in the first place, besides the fun cover and blurb of Dead Witch Walking?

Powerful female heroes. Isn’t that a big part of the fantasy? To have power, to use it to protect oneself and others? To right wrongs, deal out justice, get oneself out of a jam? To have weapons, training, magic? This can be a tough world for women. Who wouldn’t want to be a bad-ass–a self-rescuing princess who can beat the villain and win the day without needing a big male hero to do it for her.

Speaking of which…oh, the delicious men of urban fantasy. Powerful, like the women, and sexy as hell. Not just because of their physiques or looks–though they’re hardly lacking that department–but because most are looking for a partner as bad-ass as themselves. Another key part of the fantasy is a man with that kind of strength who wants a partner for adventures, mayhem, and five-alarm sexytimes.

And don’t forget the sidekicks! Ghosts, pixies, vampires, witches…loyal, knowledgeable, resourceful. Often comic relief, always ready to come in off the bench to save the day or give the heroine the pep talk she needs.

The villains, the adventures, the danger, the magic…the list of reasons to love UF goes on and on. Is it any wonder so many of us read that one first book and then couldn’t get enough after that? It’s certainly no mystery why I ended up writing UF. It’s really the amalgamation of all the genres I’ve loved the most.

The Authors Who Made Me Urban Fantasy List Anne Bishop Annie Bellet Charlaine Harris Chloe Neill Christina Henry Chuck Wendig Dannika Dark Darynda Jones Deborah Blake Deborah Harkness Deborah Wilde Debra Dunbar Devon Monk Diana Pharoah Francis Diana Rowland Donna Grant Eileen Wilks Elizabeth Hunter Erin Morgenstern Faith Hunter Gail Carriger Greg Rucka Hailey Edwards Ian Tregellis Ilona Andrews Jaye Wells Jeaniene Frost Jenn Bennett Jennifer Estep Jim Butcher JR Ward Karen Chance Karen Marie Moning Kat Richardson Kelley Armstrong Keri Arthur Kimberly Frost Kim Harrison Kristen Painter Laurell K. Hamilton Lilith Saintcrow Lyndsay Sands Mandy M. Roth Melissa F. Olsen Nalini Singh Patricia Briggs Richard Kadrey Richelle Mead Seanan McGuire Shannon Mayer Shelly Laurenston Sherrilyn Kenyon Tad Williams Yasmine Galenorn