The Authors Which Inspire Us

We all have authors which inspire us. Those people whose books take us into the worlds that we love and inspire us to be better writers.

I have three particular authors that really inspired me as I wrote The Crimson Hunt and all my other NA  works.  I was fortunate enough to meet each one of them this year, and I wanted to share them and the work that drew me to them!

First Up:

Jennifer Echols

Jennifer's book, Love Story, was the very first New Adult book I ever read. I was at Barnes and Noble one day looking for a book about college students. This was the category I was trying to write and had never read not one novel about one.  I couldn't find a thing, but then my eyes stopped on this book. Why I don't know, but when I picked up the book and read the blurb I had to buy it because...it was about a college student! I was seriously on the verge of happy tears. 

I immediately read the book and loved it. It had fire, smexy, diversity, drama, and everything in between. She was writing exactly the age I was trying to write for! After I bought that book, I quickly the devoured the rest of her YA titles. I was so relieved to find her and was sad when I was done with her books. 

In a frenzy, I emailed her asking for recommendations, which leads me to my next author...

Simone Elkeles

OMG, this woman!!! Jennifer Echols told me if I liked her books, I should read Simone Elkeles because she writes very similarly. So I picked up her Perfect Chemistry series and quickly devoured. It has epic street fights, awesome smexy, and even more drama! Though her titles are YA, I still felt her characters had the maturity and spunk of a twenty-something character. The themes were deep and the content was slamming.

Her awesomeness for me raised even higher when I got to meet her at a writer's conference. I gave her a ton of books I needed signed for a giveaway and told her I was a blogger who reviewed books.  She thought it was cool that I was a blogger and asked me if I wanted a bunch of swag for my giveaway. I couldn't believe she was so nice and offered! We met up and she signed everything. I don't have enough good things to say about her :D

SC Stephens

When I first started writing, I knew I had to deal with the issue of sex.  I knew I wanted sexual content in my novels, but really didn't have a suitable source to look to because I couldn't find any novels that wrote smexy scenes the way I wanted to write them for my NA novels. YA either didn't have any or didn't explain them in the way I felt was best for the twenty-something characters in my books. So, when I found SC Stephens book, Thoughtless, I thought: "Eureka! I finally found what I'm trying to do!" Not only did she write 20-something characters, but she wrote sensual scenes in a way that I felt was appropriate for what I was trying to write myself. Not too light and not too hot = perfect for me!!!

She is also a self-published NA author who just got picked up by a big six for her Thoughtless series. As a self-published NA author myself, there's nothing more inspiring than that!

Now, I ask you: what books or what authors inspire what you write? How have they helped you become the writer that you are today?

Thanks for reading my inspirations and I can't wait to see yours!!!