I was pottering about on twitter yesterday, as you do, when I saw someone mention the new Sweet Valley High book, Sweet Valley Confidential
. It took me back. For a little while, as a teen, I obediently read the teen shelves in our little local library. Then I got bored, and wandered off in science fiction and fantasy, but I read a lot of Sweet Valley books in the meantime. And I quite fancy reading this new one, just for old time’s sake.
Is that terrible? I don’t think so, not really. Amusing though, when I think how I’ve ranted about Big reading Rainbow Fairies 😀
So I decided I’d hold a little giveaway, in aid of the build a library #100books thing. I’m really grateful to the ppl who’ve supported it so far, either by donating direct, or by using an amazon link in one of #100book reviews to shop. Those click throughs have generated nearly £10 which I’m going to pay in to the fundraising. On top of that, I’m giving away £10 Amazon voucher to someone who comments on here to tell me their literary #guiltysecret.
Come on, ‘fess up. What do you still read that you suspect you shouldn’t? Who is your favourite trashy author, or comfort read when nobody is looking? What don’t you want to admit to in public from your teen years?
I’m supplying the amazon voucher out of my own purse, and the second thing I’d really love for you to do is to spread the word about my fundraising. Tweet this post (there’s a handy button just there) or one of the many #100book reviews, stick it on fb or mention it on your blog. I’m not requiring you to do this as a condition of entry, but I’m asking you to help out. I’ve still a long way to go to raise the money for the library, and every little helps.
Am happy to convert the voucher to some other currency if the winner is not UK based, so as long as there is an Amazon (or indeed other internet bookseller) that I can buy a voucher from to give you, you can enter. Check that bit out for yourself though. Giveaway runs until midnight 22nd April, winner to be drawn randomly from commenters on this post, my decision is final. Amazon links in #100book reviews and this post are affiliate links, and any money made from them will be contributed through to the charity fund.
Comments
25 responses to “What's your literary #guiltysecret? Could be worth a tenner…”
I read Regency Romance novels. And I *love* them.
Even if it is reeeeally embarrassing to admit it.
I read a lot of Sweet Valley High when I was young!!! My #secret now is the Artemis Fowl books!!! I know that they are for kids but I think they are really well written!!! xx
Mine would be how much i love the Gruffulo – which is really a book for my kids! I have tweeted too @ashlallan
When I was a child I once spent all my birthday money on boxed sets of Enid Blyton school stories – Mallory Towers and St Clares. They were awful nonsense but I loved them. In my hazy memory I went from those to Noel Streatfeild to Alice Walker – all in a couple of years – so it can’t have been too damaging!
I read Barbara Cartland as a young teen (my parents worked in a psychiatric hosp and these were always around when I spent school hols at work with them) I got hooked on them and devoured them – I don’t think I really imagined life would be like that but I loved them! My eldest is sadly named after one of her characters! Luckily the name also has more positive history so that’s what I tend to cite when asked where her name came from! I also loved Malory Towers but am carbides ashamed of that.
I don’t know how the word carbides ended up in my comment! I think it was supposed to be less. ..
Killy Cooper novels! Am itching to buy the new one. 😀
I confess my secret love affair is with Romance novels, regency for preference, but any that comes under the ‘Historical’ banner or to make me really happy….historical and supernatural.
My nan got me started as a teen and after is read out the childrens/young adult section of the local library I read all the romances as well! 🙂
Am now in the midst of writing my own romance so I suppose it won’t be my guilty pleasure for much longer!
I am a book tart and will read ANYTHING.. though do like a bit of trash every so often to lighten things up.
Oh and I couldn’t read properly until I was about 7 – as I used to memories stuff when my family “read school books” with me at home and no one realised for ages….
Maggy
That would be “memorise”… not “memories”… also can’t spell as a result!
Maggy
ha, I had so many when I was younger. Loved the Sweet Valley High books, and the Virginia Andrews – flowers in the Attic ones. And Point Horror – remember those? Terrible – but I still loved them.
These days…okay, so I have actually read the twilight saga, twice. and probably will again in the future. I think that’s it. Unless you are one of those people that considers liking Stephen King and John Grisham to be a guilty secret…
Hmm…hard to say. I certainly enjoy a bit of brain candy once in a while – like Heather says those mass market paperback writers like Grisham. I studied women’s autobiographical writing and occasionally delved into some juicy sort of confession-memoir type books through that – all for my studies of course.
The one read from my teens that I know wonder what I possibly enjoyed in was the One Last Wish series by Lurlene McDaniel – smarmy melodramatic stories about dying teens. Oh they were bad. But I can remember actually saving money to buy them!
I could name lots and lots! The Twilight Saga, Harry Potter, lots of chick lit (sick of them now) and bedtime reading for the kids is books I like…Narnia, the Alan Garner books etc
I’m sure some people’s guilty secrets are other people’s perfectly normal reads but I feel guilty that I read hellomagazine.com every day – not exactly a *literary* guilty secret, but definitely something I feel bad about!!
Hey Zoe,
During my teens I was hooked on Jilly Cooper. Especially ‘Riders’ with the delectable Rupert Campbell-Black & the dark gypsy Jake Lovell. Haven’t read them since though. Pleasure, definitely. Guilty? never…but please don’t tell anyone!
AndreaR is so my long-lost twin. Regency romance — any historical romance — is my secret love. That and vampire stuff. Ooooooooh if someone wrote regency or British historical vampire romance, I’d be in trashy book heaven!!!
My current YA fave are Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and following series. I pretend I’m pre-reading for my 12yo but not really.
Ok I have read all of the Virginia Andrews books…I mean all of them. I’m a proud twilight fan, however my guilty secret is a new series by Lauren Kate Fallen, Tormented and awaiting Passion. Totally for teens and badly written but I really need to know what happens next! BTW the stories are about a fallen Angel and his true love and their fight to be together (see told you! )
Oh and point horror books were fab!
While pregnant with #3, I read several Philippa Gregory novels in succession, and I’m sure I gained some historical ‘knowledge’…
I’m also tempted by the new SV High, though think I will let my sister buy it, and then borrow…
i’m addicted to Liz Jone’s column in the Mail on Sunday You magazine *blush*
oh, and the kids’ Agent Angel series by Annie Dalton – but I can’t be too ashamed of that because they are sooooo good, and I read easily as much kids fiction as I do adults, if not more!
I finished The Hare with the Amber Eyes this morning and while it was a great book, what it really made me want to do is reread all the early Chalet School books with a new understanding of what all that early “Austrian Pride” was about and what they really ran from in “Exile…”
I’ve been tweeting about the SVH books too! I may actually have pre-ordered said book & be half way through it now 😉
I have quite a lot of guilty pleasure books. I have been known to re-read Babysitter Club books (even at 30) but I suppose it would have to be Jackie Collins. So easy, so fun but oh so embarrassing!
I loved all the Enid Blyton books, moved onto Arthur Ransome, then HG Wells. Was always a prolific reader, but never read Romantic fiction..erotic maybe….. 😉
I have also tweeted as @tiddles12
I was a Secret Seven and Famous Five fan in my younger years, my mum said I was reading long before I went to school, I loved it so much.
Now I have been known to read Martina Cole when no-one is looking 😉
Tweeted too @ellielucky
I once spent a whole holiday reading Mills and Boon books having found them in a holiday cottage. Nobody knows this!