This week’s learning point, readers, was to stick to my high standards. Just in case you were wondering, I’ve never had a problem with putting books down if I’m not enjoying them. I’m actually amazed that there are people who will persist with a book they actively dislike on the basis that if they start they have to finish. Life’s too short for that, imo.

So, I’ve started a lot of books recently and then trailed off because they didn’t grip me. They weren’t actively awful which would have enabled me to make the definite decision to stop reading, they were just a bit ‘meh’. I had a couple of hours to spend reading in the week and I spent ten minutes bouncing across four books feeling that I didn’t want to spend my reading time on any of them. Disconsolately, I scanned through my kindle to see if there was anything better. I didn’t have high hopes.

Well, I should have kept the faith. I found Witch’s Reign by Shannon Mayer, which had been lurking on my kindle for several weeks. I couldn’t quite remember why I’d picked it up (she’s a new author to me), but it seemed reasonably my thing – fantasy with a kickass female protagonist.

I opened it in the hopes that it would be better than the four stories I’d already discarded – and I was gripped from the very first sentence. I want to write first lines like that: world, and stakes and character and sass all in a dozen words, brilliant stuff. The rest of the book kept up the high standard of the opening scene and I swooped through it in a day.

Now, I need to find something equally good – but at least now I have faith that if I keep looking I’m going to find it!