The X Factor (Soul for $ale!)

I am reading a good book. I daresay even a very good book. But I can put it down. I set it aside for hours or days without any desperate longing to know what happens next. I do not feel like I should be staying up all night or calling in sick to finish this puppy. There are very few authors who have that effect on me, the I can do nothing but read this book until it is done and then I will cry because it did not last longer effect. I know when I pick up a book by these authors (I can count them on both hands, but I am slavish in my devotion) that I will need to dedicate a full five or six hours to reading them. These are the single sitting novels. The ones that dig their hooks in nice and deep and don’t let go. I know they are fantastic and addicting. But I don’t know why!

What is it that makes these books so extraordinary? What separates a Julia Quinn or Jennifer Crusie from the delightful, but far less demanding, experience of a Loretta Chase or Christie Ridgway? What is the mysterious X-factor that keeps me up at night devouring Stephanie Rowe when I am perfectly capable of sleeping with the ending of the latest Julie Kenner unknown? All six of these women are goddesses. They are all brilliant wordsmiths. But why are some of them single sitting addictions while others are rip-roaring good reads that I can actually set aside. Why?

Of course I want to write something that will be someone’s X-factor. The page-turner that keeps you up at night. But the quality that makes them so addicting is illusive. I cannot pin it down, so I cannot replicate it.

I wish I had some great revelation to impart. Some brilliant analysis of what makes the great ones so great. Unfortunately, I’ve only managed to come up with one theory: They’ve sold their souls for this power. Which is not helpful, unless they can tell me where I need to go to auction mine off. Soul for sale! For the low, low bargain price of literary genius!

So if you see a suspicious character with literary brilliance in his back pocket and soul purchasing on his mind, point him in my direction, will you?