Did you ever real those “choose your own adventure” books when you were in middle school? Usually, as I remember, they were mystical fantasy adventure books, and you had to choose which door the valiant prince would open or which planet they were going to attack. I loved those books because I was a reader. I read the back of the cereal box at breakfast. I read all the shampoo bottles in the bathroom before I learned to keep a book in there.
Anyway, because I loved to read, it wasn’t enough to choose my own adventure, I had to finish the book and then start it over again, choosing the opposite direction to go when I got to the first fork in the proverbial book road. Then I’d read it again but switch up which adventure I chose at the second fork. Kept me busy for hours on long car trips to the beach, back when the Kent Narrows bridge on the Eastern Shore was still a drawbridge and we drove to Bethany Beach, Delaware, every weekend.
I don’t know if anybody wrote “choose your own romantic adventure” books because I’d moved on to Stephen King and VC Andrews by the time I cared about boys. But as I was working on Book Five in the Gem of the Golden Isles Series, I was wishing I had a way to write it so that my readers could tell me what they want my characters to do. Some of my readers have emailed me to ask, “What happened to Isabelle?” “What ever happened to Cheryl at Sea Island?,” and mostly to request, “please, don’t kill off Aunt Etah.” It’s that sort of feedback that makes me think it would be fun to do a choose-your-own-adventure novella with the same characters.
Don’t misunderstand – I know what’s happening in my characters’ lives. But in the next book I’m about to release, it would have been fun to poll readers on when a certain young wedding planner should kick a rude hot guy to the curb, even though he’s a really good kisser. The book could go either way – she could be single and strong and find a much better match for herself. Or she could stay in the relationship with the rude hot guy and hope he becomes a better person and that would give me tons of material to write, too. Don’t worry, I figured all of that out on my own and In the Shadows on Jekyll, Gem of the Golden Isles Series Book Four will be available on December 6th. It’s available online for pre-orders now.
I just wonder if adults would get a kick out of that kind of choose your own adventure story or not? Vella would have been a good way to do it, but they’re shutting that platform down. Perhaps on social media, but how to get the kind of continuity you’d need to pull it off? And where? Facebook, where lots of my followers know me, or TikTok, where tons of randoms I don’t know see everything I post.
It’s something to think about. I know that those books were a lot of fun for me as a kid. As an adult, I don’t think I’d have the time to read and reread them. But it might be fun to do write it online with my readers.
Food for thought.
Until next time, happy reading! And dear God, please let the Ohio State Buckeyes beat the crap out of Indiana tomorrow. I really need that.
Xoxo,
Sandy