AAR

[Allyson]

So has anyone ever been reading a few books at once, and found a really random link between them? Sort of a silly topic, but it happens to me all the time!

For instance I right now am reading Candace Camp's latest 'The Courtship Dance' and also Mary Balogh's "Simply Perfect." I am really loving them both! They also both feature heroines who are in their mid-thirties; not exactly the most common thing in historicals!

Then there was the time I read right in a row two books with heroines named Grace who were widows who felt they were unable to enjoy sex due to their experiences with their last husbands.

And once I was reading three books at once with heroes named Marcus. Am I the only one this weirdness happens to?

Silly topic I know, but it'd been on my mind!

[Amanda]

You have some remarkable reading habits! Two or three books at a time? I always have one I'm reading and one I'm listening to, but that's it.

I have also found I tend to find similar names and themes as I'm reading. I had a run when I first read Outlander where I came across Claire after Claire. It would either be the heroine, the daughter, the best friend or the villian, but there was a Claire in almost every book I read for awhile. I think, though, that it just goes to show that a parallel can be drawn from any two points as long as one's eyes are open.

[Manda]

This happens to me all the time. I don't read more than one book at once, but about six months ago I read about four books in a row that were set either wholly or partially in Alaska. And I hadn't known that before I read the books. They had different publication years--in fact two of them were about ten years apart.

Then I read two books that did come out within a month or so of one another and both had a scene where the hero and heroine were at a ball and went below stairs to either make love or make out in one of the servants rooms. (These were both Regency-set historicals.) Different publishers. Different authors.

[jebe]

I recently read most of What I Did For Love by SEP and put it aside to read the last book in The Givenchy Code series by Julie Kenner. After putting WIDFL aside for various reasons, I thought it was ironic that the setting for The Prada Paradox takes place in Hollywood with, you guessed it, actors! Both books feature two actors as the leads and in both books the heroine was a child star, well for the most part. Coincidence? Or Fate?

I'm still reading TPP, though, so I think something about WIDFL just didn't click w/me.
_________________
Why put off til tomorrow what you can put off until next week?

[Allyson]

Yeah, I'm really bad for reading multiple books at once! I'd say on average I have 3 books going. Generally I have 2 books by my bedside; one romance and one not, and a book in my purse for waiting for busses, if I end up taking a lunch break alone and so on. If the purse-book is extremely compelling I'll rotate it and finish it as a 'bedside' book.

Generally the non-romance book will take me longer to finish; I could be working on it for weeks at a time, as I'd say most of the time when I want to read it's something lighter like a romance.

And sometimes I'm reading even more than that because I'll leave a book somewhere and forget it for a couple weeks.

[Cora]

Regarding names, I had a run of Owens this summer/autumn. Two heroes and one villain as well as a TV show character all named Owen.

[Schola]

+IHS+

You guys probably aren't going to believe this, but there have been four different times that I set the book I was reading down on my lap so I could rest my eyes . . . and noticed that it matched my outfit to a T! :D

It must be a subliminal thing, aye?
_________________
"To be in a romance is to be in uncongenial surroundings. To be born into this earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings, hence to be born into a romance." (G.K. Chesterton)

[sandilib]

[sssspro]

I don't read more than one book at a time, but I HAVE run into weird coincidences while reading. I can't tell if its a subconscience thing on my part or just weirdness. Things like similar plots that are unusual or names of characters that are the same, but not usual. Once I read a book back to back with BOTH hero and heroine with the same names. I have very few TBR books, so that chances of that happening ar really quite small.

[Schola]

[sandilib]

[xina]

I usually have 2, sometimes 3 books going. I pick a historical setting, contemporary and a non romance book. Just recently, I was reading a historical where the hero had my son's name and the contemporary, my daughter's. I still have a slight problem with books where the hero or heroine have my children's names, but I get over it after a chapter or two. Very weird that both romances I was reading featured their names. I almost put one aside to read at another time.
_________________
"As you wish"
~The Princess Bride

[dick]

ROFL!

[sandilib]

[willaful]

ROFL = roll on floor laughing

I've been noticing coincidences like that since I was a kid. I would often find I'd come home from the library with several books on the same topic, even though I was just choosing fairly randomly, from older as well as newer books.

It probably has something to do with reading tastes and the fact that names/plots come in trends, but even so, it is odd.
_________________
"I say, don't read the classics -- try to discover your own classics; every life has its own." -- Rudolf Flesch, _How to Make Sense_