Read 'Til You Drop

When I was in seventh grade, I discovered Katherine Kurtz.  I inhaled her first Deryni series (at the time, her *only* Deryni series), and Alaric Anthony Morgan became my dream man.  I read the books so many times that I had large portions of them memorized, and I spent long evenings on the phone with my then-best-friend debating minor points about Catholicism and magic.

When I finished writing the Trunked Novel (the one that first got me an agent, but which never sold, and boy aren't all of you grateful for that!), I rented a motel room on the Outer Banks, drove down with the manuscript pages, my coffee maker (for making pots of tea - I never made coffee with the thing), and that same trilogy.  I alternated editing, walks on the beach, and more Morgan/Kelson/Duncan adventures, and I hated my manuscript because I knew that it would never work as well as Kurtz's series.

I read the Camber of Culdi series, and then the new Kelson series, and then the new Camber series, and I became depressed and despairing, as it became clear - in KING JAVAN'S YEAR - that every single person in the Kurtz-world was destined for unbearable heartache and loss.  I read the Adam Sinclair non-Deryni series, and I loved the notion of a fantasy series working like a mystery series - open-ended adventures, without a concrete "trilogy" plot - even though Sinclair himself didn't completely grip me.  I read LAMMAS NIGHT and was intrigued by the Nazi/magic intersection, but I loaned my copy to the then-best-friend, who I have now not seen in more than 15 years, alas.

And then I read ST PATRICK'S GARGOYLE - a slight novel.  A disappointing novel.  A novel without the character depth and setting detail and plot construction that I had loved in so many others.  I decided that I had outgrown Katherine Kurtz.

Several months ago, I was working in San Francisco, and I visited with my now-best-friend, another Kurtz reader.  She had IN THE KING'S SERVICE and CHILDE MORGAN, which I borrowed from her.  I picked up KING'S SERVICE earlier this week, and I'm having a wonderful time.

I love meeting characters who are ancient in the Kelson books.  I love meeting characters who I can tell are parents or grandparents of characters in the Kelson books.  I love being reminded of the simple stolidity of Deryni powers, the confidence with which Kurtz defines who can do what.  I love the jolting familiarity of setting - of *course* there's a Transfer Portal in Rhemuth Cathedral; I know it well.

Yeah, there's a little too much focus on dynasties and succession law.  Yeah, the plot skips huge chunks of time.  Yeah, there isn't a "through-line" with a single character (or even multiple POV characters) building the plot.

But I am truly enjoying this return to my youth, to my writing roots, to my first total-escape fantasy world.

What about you?  What are your guilty return reads?

Mindy, dashing off to read a few more pages before work