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The importance and influence of books on me has been cumulative: the result of hearing and reading lots of stories about interesting people and places.

I always have a book that I use that somehow inspires my novels.

Books stay with me and have shaped me and made huge impacts on my life.

I'm obsessed with books. When a good book hits me, it's all I can think about and all I can do.

I read books like mad, but I am careful to to let anything I read influence me.

Other writers definitely influence my writing. What encourages me and inspires me is when I read a good book. It makes me want to be a better writer.

The book I always say that influenced me, subconsciously, because at the time I didn't know I wanted to be a writer, was William Goldman's 'Marathon Man.' That was the first adult thriller that I loved. I read it when I was 15 or so, when my father gave it to me.

Probably every book I read influenced me in some small way. Authors like Jan Westcott, Kathleen Winsor, Catherine Cookson, Georgette Heyer, and even Barbara Cartland taught me to write character-driven stories.

The biggest influence on my books was the fact that I had worked in a newspaper for so long. In a daily paper, you learn to write very quickly; there is no time to sit and brood about what you are going to say.

The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.