The Books I Read

My name is Maxine "Max" Felicity, and I love books.

I enjoy anything with a good plot and good characters, but I'll settle for skillful use of language or interesting descriptions of geographical locations or historical periods. I read all sorts of genres, and I don't mind whether it's a memoir or novels of almost any type, though I haven't got into zombies, vampires or romance.

I'm bigger on commercial fiction than literary fiction. Literary fiction is slower-paced and emphasizes things like sophisticated language, often with symbolism and metaphor, and detailed description of location and the internal workings of the characters' minds. Commercial fiction emphasizes plot and uses fast-paced language to keep things moving along at a rapid clip.

Both types of writing require great skill, so most writers who do one type probably won't be successful at the other. Rarest of all is the author like Leo Tolstoy who can blend the two.

To really get my interest, I want to see characters in the novel grow and become better people. Mystery novels or thrillers with serial characters who don't develop much need to have a really good story to keep my interest.

A bleak novel with a downer ending leaves me feeling depressed, and I'm sure it makes a lot of other people feel the same. There are great novels which do this, but something like Catcher In The Rye is probably only well-known because it's taught so widely in classrooms, and because there are so many people, especially adolescent boys and college students, who can relate to protagonist Holden Caulfield's cynicism and bitterness, and don't mind wallowing in that feeling.

The Books I Write

I'm not a fan of bleak literary novels, but the truth is I'm slightly disappointed with all the novels I read, and perhaps that's why I write my own.

If you read one of my books, then first and foremost I want you to be entertained. I do my best to deliver a story which is fresh and unpredictable, but the more believable it is, the better.

Next, I want you to be a better person than when you started, rather than just escaping temporarily to a fictional world. That means more joyful, more full of wonder and getting more enjoyment from the real-world people and environment around you.

Like Holden Caulfield we all get stuck and unable to change. We find ourselves powerless to change our family relationships and our work situations, let alone the big local, national and global issues which loom over us.

To make a real difference, a novel must offer something more than a conventional solution to life's problems. I believe it when they say that love changes everything, I just don't believe that finding the right romantic relationship is the solution to all of life's problems.

We all only have one life, so don't waste it. The French talk about joie de vivre, the Joy Of Life, and the way to live fully is to find a way to love yourself, love others and, most of all, fall in love with Life itself.

This isn't easy, but it can be done. Let me show you just enough of what it means to get a sense of it for yourself.

And take the time to check out the books I'm working on!