I love books and I read a lot of them. Probably a hundred a year.

Fiction, non-fiction, history, biography? It doesn’t matter, I’m in. So Goodreads immediately felt like my kind of place: a comfortable, informative community that I definitely wanted to be a member of. And reviewing books is a big part of that.

When I first joined years ago, I felt as though in order to be truthful, I needed to review every book I read. Both the good and the not-so-good. And I kind of hated doing that. I know better than most just how difficult it is to write a book. The long hours, the draconian effort, and the inevitable insecurities. I really didn’t want to be the person who wrote a review saying, “This one just didn’t work for me.”

So I stopped doing that and went away. I took several years off. But I missed this wonderful group of readers and writers. And I really wanted to be part of it again. Happily for me, I’m back. I’m writing, conversing, and reviewing again. This time a little differently.

I won’t review everything I read. Some books I’ll never mention at all. But if a book knocks my socks off—as many do—Goodreads will be the first place I come to talk about it, and hopefully to give its author a small boost, at least in confidence if not sales.

Thank you for allowing me the time to figure that out, and for not forgetting about my books while I was gone. I hope to have a lot of fun getting to know everyone again.

Laurien