Joanne Fluke

Today, the author I appreciate the most is Joanne Fluke the author of the Hannah Swensen mystery series. The reason that I think that Joanne should be appreciated is because of the type of characters she manages to create. In my opinion she creates the type of character that every author strives to create. The kind that have so much personality and seem so much like a real person that sometimes while I’m reading I forget that they aren’t real. One of the things that makes her characters seem so real is that she isn’t afraid to give them a few flaws and she isn’t shy about letting you know what they are. If a character is over weight then Joanne lets you know it. However, if the character is fairly happy with her weight and only wants to change it to occasionally, like for example when she needs to fit into a smaller dress size, she lets you know about that too. Also, she’d not afraid to create pasts for each character. She makes the reader believe that each character existed long before she ever started writing about them. It’s almost as if in each book she’s relaying a story that a friend told her. Additionally, she also adds to the depth of the characters by creating believable character interactions. For example in the Hannah Swensen series she doesn’t try to make the relationships between characters perfect. Joanne isn’t scared to throw in a cheating boyfriend, two sisters getting to know each other, or a mother who is constantly trying to control her daughters’ lives. These are only some of the reasons why I think that Joanne Fluke and her writing needs to be appreciated.

-Aaron