No matter if these authors were new or solidly mid-list, they all had chilling stories about The Horrifying Cover To End All Covers, or they were convinced that a Career-Killing Cover was just around the corner. I’m talking about the cover with the broken-necked heroine whose hair – gorgeously coiffed despite the driving rainstorm surrounding her – swirls and flies as if it has its own character arc. The cover with the hero, looking mysteriously androgynous from the neck up, and shockingly male (though hairless) from the neck down, who is gripping the heroine in a hold that would be considered illegal in most Blue States. The cover where the hero and heroine are bold! They are impassioned! And they look nothing like the characters in the book! To add insult to injury, the title has been changed from “Forgotten Whispers” to “Tantalizing Tongue Tango in Telluride” (though the book only mentions Telluride once… in a two-minute phone call…) and the back cover blurb appears to have been written by a breathless fourteen-year-old whose idea of true love starts with “I never thought it would happen to me…” You know… That cover.

Which got me thinking: What DOES convince a buyer to make an impulse purchase of a book, particularly in today’s economy? Is it the cover art, the title, the blurb on the back? The genre? The author’s name? The publisher?

I had this experience myself, this week. I was in a bookstore to buy something specific, and the store didn’t have the book I wanted. So there I was, with a coupon burning a hole in my pocket, and nothing in particular to buy. Should I leave without buying a book? That’s really not a possibility in my world. However, I was in a hurry. So I made a new selection within about 30 seconds, and I was off to the counter. How did I do it? Let’s run through the options that could have impacted my purchase:

1.  The Author?

Never heard of her. Still can’t remember her name, though I have a feeling I will after I read her book.

2.  The Title?

It wasn’t brilliant, but it caught my attention as a cheeky title for a paranormal (or a mystery, I wasn’t sure at first)-and I thought it was cool that the book had a subtitle, indicating that this book was part of a series. Importantly, I was only marginally hesitant over the fact that I might be coming into a series midway. There was nothing to indicate that this was “Book 1″, “Book 2″ or “Book 16″, but I didn’t care. I was hooked.

3.  The Cover Art?

Oh, yeah. It was period and gorgeous and slyly humorous, and the blurb at the lower left indicated without a doubt that the book was a paranormal. So a historical paranormal with humor, and it had a good cover quote by a “New York Times Bestselling Author”. I’m a bit cynical about those, but I know of and like the author who was quoted, so that still was a bonus for me.

4.  Publisher?

Never checked prior to buying the book. But you can bet I will going forward, particularly if the book lives up to its promise.

5.  The Back Cover Blurb?

Yup. After the cover art, a quick (and I mean QUICK) scan of the blurb tripped my trigger – it validated the cover’s approach to the book, and deepened it. In addition, the clear sense of continuity the book offered (that it was part of a series) made me think this was a world I might want to spend some time with.

And that was it. I spent somewhere around $5 on the book, with my coupon, and was wholly satisfied. I’ll stay satisfied until I read the book, too, and then my opinion will be improved or damaged depending on the quality of the work. Importantly, this is not a book that I must read by midnight tonight – because, truly, only a Must Read Author gets that kind of treatment from me. But it’s definitely in my To Be Read pile, and I’m absolutely intrigued with it.

So, in short: Those authors lamenting their dismay over The Horrifying Cover To End All Covers? Well, they have a definite point. Consumers today are harried, overloaded, and short on time and attention. Money is tight, and trying out a new author in particular is always a gamble. A cover can make the difference – but it still depends on a great story in many cases: if you have a so-so story, then not only will you not live up to your packaging, but chances are you won’t have an amazing cover. If you have a BRILLIANT story, you have a much better shot at a brilliant cover… fabulous blurb copy… and a sale.

For me, choosing a book by an author new to me was made easier by a combination of art and back-cover blurb. A great author quote can’t hurt, even though I know that’s probably just spin. If I had to nail it down to JUST ONE THING, however, it’d take the cover blurb for me to make the decision – but in most cases, the art would still help get me to read that blurb.

What about you? Why do you pick up a book-and what convinces you to buy it, especially if you don’t recognize the author? Are there any covers that you can recall that stuck with you-for good or ill? (Speak in generalities only-remember, every cover out there DID seem like a good idea to someone at the time!)

But looking back into my very first romances, I thought of the heroes of those books who entranced me so: Tall, dark and almost brutally good looking, physically imposing whether they were heavily muscled or lean and strong, wickedly intelligent, elegant or a “man’s man” depending on what was needed at the moment (a gala or a fistfight)-and, of course, titled or worthy of a title. Ah, the passions of my youth.

And then I thought about the hero in “Angel”: tall, dark, brutally good looking…hmm… lean and elegant, physically imposing (circus rider and whip wielder, hello!)…intelligent (professor)… and, um, yes, titled: the long lost heir to the Russian throne. But that was a book written more than a decade ago, surely just a nostalgia point for me, right?

So I turned to my favorite heroes today, since I’m now an enlightened forty-year-old, former exec and current freelance business owner, a strong, single, self-sufficient female. And those heroes would be…ah… tall, dark, brutally good looking men whose strength often tends to muscled-but-lean, whose bodies are elegant, minds are sharp, and um… if they’re not titled, they’re worthy of a title. Probably the only thing that’s even remotely different is that they’re occasionally vampires these days, or possess paranormal powers of other sorts – the incarnation of the Tarot Magician.

Which made me realize that my taste in heroes hasn’t changed all that much… in the past thirty years!

Now my preferred heroines on the other hand… well, they’ve gotten older (heh). More complicated. With a few key exceptions for YA heroines with “old souls” or young twenty-something heroines who’ve been around the block so many times they’ve grooved the concrete, I tend to like a more mature heroine. But my hero? As long as he’s lived longer than twenty five years on this Earth (or, okay, any dimension), age is irrelevant to me. Basically, it’s the hero of my youth all over again – which is sort of intriguing, since my life is a whole lot different than it was when I was thirteen years old.

How about you? Have your tastes in heroes, heroines, or romance in general changed since you first started reading it to now? What’s new and different in your fictional preferences, and what remains a tried-and-true component of your ideal romance? I’m fascinated by heroes in general, so I welcome your thoughts!

To me the plot felt disjointed and the world-building flat. I never truly lost myself in the story. Well, duh. Imagine those poor, poor movie folks trying to magically charm J.K. Rowling’s 650-page novel into a 200-page screen play. Which brings me to my dilemma. As an aspiring novelist I study novels all the time. I analyze pacing, story structure, and character development. I dissect hooks and examine metaphors. Fun, huh? It’s a rare but glorious occasion when I simply lose myself in a good book.

Enter Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife, a frustratingly passionate love story between a patient but often confused artist and her dashing librarian husband who involuntarily travels through time. TTTW is complex and emotionally compelling. For 500+ pages I forgot to study my craft and went on an amazing story journey. I loved this book, but I’m wondering if Hollywood can do it justice, given the complexity of this tangled tale.

My questions for you: If you’re a TTTW fan, do you think this hefty piece of literature can make the leap from book to the big screen?  And have you ever seen a movie that was as good as or better than the book?

Well, based on a completely unscientific review of the top romance novels on the shelves today–regardless of sub-genre–my assessment was: if you had a hero sexy enough to melt your readers into a steaming puddle of goo, a hero compelling enough to make you remember HIM long after you’ve forgotten the plot of the story itself (or any other details of the book, for that matter), you were well on your way to a winner of a book.

Or, okay, at least it’s that way for me.

Think about it-when you consider the most beloved movies and books on your keeper shelves, what pulls you back to them time and time again? As a paranormal fan, I am well versed in the J.R. Ward oeuvre-but it’s Zsadist’s story in “Lover Awakened” that really knocked me out. Why? Because he was a compelling hero. He was tortured, he was passionate, he needed. In the classic battle of Han Solo vs. Luke Skywalker, I was a Han Solo girl all the way, and I so wasn’t buying that he wasn’t head over heels for the Princess (you can’t fool me, Han!). Of all of the many brilliant Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ novels, I love “Breathing Room” the most, because, well, Ren just has a way of jumping on all of my buttons.  And Jenny Crusie completely did me in with Phin, in her book “Welcome to Temptation”… truly one for the ages. These are the kind of men who beckon you back between the sheets-er, pages-time and again, just to remember the excitement they offer, and their unparalleled need for their heroines.

But that’s not the only reason why readers fall in love with books, or audiences with films. Sometimes, it’s the heroine who calls us back time and time again to a beloved story. Whether she’s spunky or intrepid, fierce or loving, it’s the heroine who gives the hero meaning and a sense of place in the story–and in our hearts. What would Zsadist be without Bella, for example? What would Jack Colton be without Joan Wilder in Romancing The Stone? Lost, that’s what. Still aimlessly wandering around South America. When I consider my favorite heroines, Sarah Connor from Terminator II comes to mind. Okay, okay, so she’s a little intense: but isn’t it the high stakes that makes her fight so worth watching?

For some fiction lovers, too, it’s the emotions that a story evokes–either through a knockout romance arc or a heartwrenching turn of events or a story of unending love. The chemistry between a hero and heroine can transcend a story and make it truly memorable. A recent case in point would be the just-released movie The Proposal, a harmless bit of summer fun with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. Each of these actors on their own do their jobs admirably, but put them together, and somehow the movie is far better than it has any right to be. Even afterwards, it’s not so much their relationship that makes you smile, but how they look at each other, the zing of possibility that exists when they’re both on screen.

And finally, it’s sometimes the story itself that’s greater than the sum of its parts. Take the Suzanne Brockmann Troubleshooters series as exhibit A. Even if you’re a die-hard Brockmann fan, there are some of those stories you’re going to like more than others, some that you think of whenever you hear her name, no matter how many books she writes. I recently rewatched one of my favorite movies from childhood, Highlander, and realized that it had some really rough sections in it in terms of dialogue and character building… not to mention 80’s vintage hair. Even after I’d just seen it, however, I found myself remembering the story the movie told, the spell it wove around me as I thought “hey, what if” — and that story will continue to bring me back to that movie, no matter how much time passes.

But when it comes to that one indefinable “something” that makes me fall in love with a book or a movie over all other things…  it’s still all about the hero.

So what about you? What is the most important element of fiction — the ”something” you remember about all of your favorite books and movies? All qualifying entries (posts that name an element and explain why it matters to you!) will be entered in a drawing for a $15 B&N gift certificate to help you fall in love with your next favorite book!