Tom's Life Bits

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===== Sparks goes for action, but stays with romance =====

The bestselling N.C. author twists his plot, shooting to thrill in his latest, darker novel, 'Safe Haven.'\\
By Théoden Janes\\
Pop Culture Writer\\
Posted: Sunday, Sep. 12, 2010\\

North Carolina's Nicholas Sparks writes love stories, and the love stories he's written have sold 55 million copies.

But in a plot twist, Sparks has written a new novel - in bookstores Tuesday - that would not be out of place in the thriller section: "Safe Haven" marks a darker direction for the man Forbes magazine recently named the world's ninth-highest paid author, a writer who has dominated the love-story genre since his first novel in 1996, "The Notebook."

"It's different," Sparks, 44, says of the new book. "You've got a great love story, it's very romantic, it's got all the elements that (my fans) are looking for. It's just it begins to shift ... till it's something entirely different."

Sparks is, unquestionably, a man in a woman's world. As of Friday, Amazon.com's list of Top 100 "Bestsellers in Romance" included titles by only two other male authors: David Nicholls - who is far better known in England, as a screenwriter - and William Shakespeare. "Safe Haven" sat at No. 3.

In a sense, Sparks is a bit like Kathryn Bigelow. The Hollywood director won an Academy Award this year for the war drama "The Hurt Locker," and much was made of the fact that her film is geared mainly toward men. She's been making that type of film for decades, and has little competition.

Sparks hasn't had much, either, since he roared onto the scene with "The Notebook."

"It was one of those things where nobody else was in that market," says Penny Sansevieri, founder of Author Marketing Experts Inc. "Now he owns the market, and everybody that comes after him, it's sort of like, 'Well, you know, he writes romance, he's not as good as Nicholas Sparks...' He becomes the brand that everybody is compared to."

No overnight sensation

Sparks was born in Omaha, Neb., on Dec. 31, 1965, and spent time as a child living in Minnesota, Nebraska and California. He graduated from University of Notre Dame in 1988; a year later, he married his college sweetheart, Catherine, and they moved to Sacramento.

He spent the next few years in various jobs - appraising real estate, waiting tables, selling dental products, starting his own business - while trying to catch a break as a novelist.

In 1992, the couple moved to North Carolina. Two years later, at 28, he wrote "The Notebook," and two years after that, it became a runaway hit. Since then, Sparks has lived in New Bern - a small city on the Atlantic coastal plain - while writing roughly one novel per year.

He supports each new release with a book tour, and always launches it with the same four cities in the same order: New Bern on Tuesday, Greenville, S.C., on Wednesday, Charlotte on Thursday and Cary on Friday. In Charlotte, he always stops at Barnes & Noble at The Arboretum.

"He has a multigenerational following," says Whitney Schuner, the store's community relations manager. "We often will have a mother, a grandmother and a daughter all come to the signing together for the exact same book."

(Sparks, a father of five, writes clean books, avoiding the use of strong profanity and depictions of sex.)

And Sparks does his best to make sure fans walk away from his appearances happy.

"To this point in my career, I've been able to sign for everyone who's come in the door." Then, as if struck by the image of a million people in line Thursday, he quickly adds, with a laugh: "I mean, there comes a limit based on time"

It's not Shakespeare, but ...

Sparks has been tagged as cheesy and overly sentimental by critics. And yet, he clearly has talent, along with a rabid and enormous fan base.

Every one of his novels was a New York Times bestseller, and six have been turned into movies.

During the 12 months preceding June 1, 2010, Sparks earned $14 million, according to Forbes. Movies made from his books have grossed more than half a billion dollars worldwide and have featured major stars, including Kevin Costner ("Message in a Bottle"), Richard Gere ("Nights in Rodanthe") and Miley Cyrus ("The Last Song").

The secret to his success?

"I try to write the best books I can," says Sparks, "and I've been fortunate there are some people who like them."

As for the charge that his work is too syrupy, Antoinette Kuritz - literary publicist and founder of the La Jolla Writers Conference - defends him:

"The same people who accuse him of cheesy sentimentality would accuse ('Da Vinci Code' author) Dan Brown of being too commercial, and would eschew women's fiction in general - a genre which accounts, in its various forms, for about 50 percent of all book sales."

How will his fans react?

Like all of Sparks' novels, "Safe Haven" is set in Eastern North Carolina, in this case the city of Southport. As always, there's a love story at its core. This book, though, ventures further into thriller territory than his previous works, and has a significant villain, along with tense sections of action and violence.

The reviews for "Safe Haven" haven't come in, but Hollywood has already fallen in love with the story about a young woman with a mysterious past who reluctantly forms bonds of friendship (with a kindly neighbor) and romance (with a widowed father). Eight movie studios engaged in a bidding war for the film rights, which Relativity Media won.

"It's hard to create a love story and have a thriller co-exist in the same work, but Nicholas has also managed to pull that off here," says Tucker Tooley, president of worldwide production at Relativity.

As for his fans, a few - including Ashley Ellis, 29, of Huntersville - are skeptical: "I don't know that I like him diverting to a darker side," says Ellis, who has read all of Sparks' novels. "I will not know for sure until I read it."

But most interviewed for this story are champing at the bit to read "Safe Haven."

"He could write a cookbook and make it interesting," says Charlottean Glenna Watts, 64, who also has read every one of his books.

Don't expect Sparks to abandon love stories, though.

"I don't want to disappoint my readers," he says. "They read Nicholas Sparks novels for a reason, and I want to give them what they're expecting. I don't want to bait and switch. People work too hard for their money."
Théoden Janes: tjanes@charlotteobserver.com.

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