Nicholas Sparks is a really interesting author as he has had quite a varied life. He was a very talented runner is his youth which gained him a scholarship to university, and his jobs have ranged from pharmaceuticals through to real estate, as well as writing. Sparks was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1965 and wrote his first novel in 1985 while at university, but it was never published. His first major success came in 1994 when he wrote “The Notebook” which he amazingly wrote in a period of just six months and it made the New York Times bestseller list. Probably the most appropriate category for Spark’s writing would be romantic fiction, but his work varies outside the bounds of the genre. Spark’s is clearly an interesting character and a very talented author- here is a description of a few of his books that you might like to try.

The Notebook

The notebook begins with an old man named Noah recounting a story about his past to a woman in a nursing home. In the story, Noah is 31 and has just returned home from World War II but he bumps into Allie, a 29 year old woman with whom he shared a summer romance fourteen years ago. However, Allie is still engaged but the feelings that the two had for each other fourteen years ago have no been diluted with time, leaving Allie with an impossible decision.

The Choice

“The Choice” was published in 2007 and tells a story about a man with an ideal lifestyle, Travis Parker. He has a waterfront home, a great job and great friends and thoroughly enjoys his life, but when Gabby Holland moves in next door, she presents something of an enigma. His best efforts to seem neighbourly seem to be repulsed by Gabby, but his persistence soon kindles a connection between the two of them.

The Lucky One

US Marine Logan Thibault is on his third tour of duty in Iraq, when he finds a photo of a woman in the dirt. After taking it back to camp for someone to claim, no one claims ownership and he keeps it. With the photo in his pocket he seems to have outrageous luck and good fortune, winning poker games and saving deadly fire fights- is this photo his lucky charm? When he returns home, he cannot get the girl from the photo out of his head and sets off to try and find her- against all the odds he finds her and is smitten with her- but is keeping a secret about the photo a mistake?