My Top Ten Gateway Books/Authors

It's time for Top Ten Tuesday!  This is a weekly link up with The Broke and The Bookish.  Today's subject is our top ten "gateway" books or authors.

1.  Houses of Stone by Barbara Michaels - this is the first "grown up" book I remember reading.  Someone had given it to my mother and she had left it laying around and I was so interested in the story that I started reading it and couldn't put it down.  Since then I've read everything she's ever written and she's my go-to author for a reread if I'm in a reading slump.

2.  Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie - this was the first Christie that really hooked me.  I think I was in high school at the time and Poirot had never really grabbed me but when I started reading the adventures of Tommy and Tuppence I was hooked and went on to read everything she's ever written multiple times..

3.  Devil's Bride by Stephanie Laurens - this is the first romance novel I ever read.  A good friend was a romance reader but I had been resisting reading the genre.  Then for whatever reason I picked this up at Target and finished it one sitting (this was obviously pre-kids!) and was hooked on the genre.  The funny thing is I reread this last summer and thought it was awful but it's the book that got me started on romance.

4.  Tears of the Moon by Nora Roberts - my first contemporary romance and first Nora Roberts.  I think I've read just about everything she's ever written except for some early ones that are too awful to start.  This one has stood the test of time better than the Laurens and I've reread it recently and enjoyed it.

5.  The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - I didn't expect much from this book when I read it in high school but it started me on my love of this author, his contemporaries and the time period in general.  I can't even begin to count all the books I've read that were inspired by this book.

6.  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling - I was really late getting to this book.  I know the majority of the books had come out and at least the first 3 movies were out when I finally got around to reading this one.  This was probably my first children's/ya book that I read as an adult and my first taste of anything supernatural other than ghosts.

7.  Christina's Ghost by Betty Ren Wright - I vividly remember discovering this book in my 4th grade teacher's classroom and becoming completely lost in it and then getting in trouble and having it get taken away.  Luckily my dad was pretty understanding and took me to the library to find it where not only did I find it but I proceeded to read and reread it until the library's copy about fell apart.  This was the first ghost story type book I'd ever read and I absolutely loved it.

8.  Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery - If I'm being 100% honest it wasn't exactly this book that got me obsessed with Montgomery it was the movie.  You know the one with Megan Follows?  I'd had this book forever and had never read it but then watched the movie at a friends when I was maybe 8 or 9 and came home and devoured the book, got the rest of the series and finished it in a weekend.

9.  Nancy Drew by Carolyn Keen - all of them and any of them.  I think I read everything available with the name Carolyn Keen on it.  This included the newer more modern books which I loved and thought were so grown up with the romance.  Come to think of it this was probably my first introduction to romance as well as mystery.

10. The Babysitter's Club by Ann M. Martin - no book list from anyone born in the 80s would be complete without a mention of The Babysitter's Club.  I started with number 1 and read them all up into the mid-40s by which time I had outgrown them.  I still have fond memories about them - especially any of them involving ghosts.  The specials were always great and once I figured out that chapter 2 was the same in every single book I skipped the boring part.  My girls actually read my old copies when they were around 8 or 9 so apparently the series has aged well.