I've noticed something.

When I hear from readers who've read many of my books, very often their favorite is the first one they read. It doesn't matter what the book is. A quick glance at my email in the last few months illustrates this fact. The following books were all claimed as a favorite by different readers:The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes, Before the Storm, Cypress Point,  Keeper of the Light, Reflection, The Courage Tree and Her Mother's Shadow. In each case, the favored book was the first of mine she--or in one case, he--read. 

I find this very interesting! I think I've felt that way about certain authors as well. My favorite Jodi Picoult was The Pact, which was the first of hers I read. My favorite Anne Rivers Siddons will always be Peachtree Road, no matter how many others I've read. My favorite Alice Hoffman will forever be White Horses. (The exception is Barbara Kingsolver. I read Animal Dreams first, and while I loved it, The Poisonwood Bible is my favorite). So i'm curious to know if those of you who've read more than one of my books have a favorite, and if you do, is it the first that you read?

By the way, the bookshelf above is in my guestroom, and it contains copies of all my books. The copies on the left are all in English (except for a couple; as you can see I'm running out of room on the right). Some of the English books are the UK version or the Australian version. There's a Readers' Digest with an abridged version (shudder!) of one my books. And on the left hand side of the bottom shelf are some little handcrafted books I wrote when I was twelve. The books on the right are all foreign editions. They spill over onto another bookshelf. I try to keep one copy of each book in each language, but I'm running out of room!

Anyway, what's your favorite and was it your first?