In Death Series – Inspiring Series
Saturday is the perfect time to wander through the stacks (that’s librarian-speak for “bookshelves”) and talk about books and the people who write them. Pull up a comfy chair and settle in, because today I want to chat about a book series that made me want to be a professional author, the In Death series by Nora Roberts, writing as J.D. Robb.
I’ve mentioned Roberts before on this blog, when I did a short piece on the first book in her Dragon Heart Legacy series, The Awakening (if you’re interested in my thoughts on that book, you can read the blog post about it here) and again when I wrote about how Roberts herself inspired me on my authorial journey (you can read that post here). I mentioned then that she may very well be the most prolific and successful romance author of the modern era. She has published over two hundred and twenty five books, writes under a handful of pseudonyms, and was the first author to be inducted into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame.
When I was a young adult, I discovered her, quite by accident, by reading her In Death series, published under the name J.D. Robb. I was hungry for mystery and her character Eve Dallas appealed to me. In a world full of tough male private eyes and grizzled policemen, Eve was a breath of fresh air. She was badass without being cartoony, feminine without being a femme fatale. And the books themselves? The mysteries were always compelling, the writing top-notch — simply put, I couldn’t get enough of them.
What makes the In Death series so good, in my opinion, is that Eve Dallas may well be one of the most well-rounded characters I’ve come across in genre fiction ever. Roberts allows her to authentically experience the full range of human emotion and experiences without ever pulling her punches and it makes for some truly engaging and breathtaking reading. Reading this series as a young writer, I knew I wanted to one day craft a series like this one, with a character that was allowed to evolve, change, and confront everything that humanity had to offer.
So, fellow writers and readers: is there a book series out there that is just so good it made you want to put words to paper yourself? Or, conversely, is there a series of books that intimidated the hell out of you and made you afraid to write word one? Let’s chat about it in the comments below!
Robin Jeffrey 