Nicholas Sparks stated that he has no contemporaries. No one else does what he does. He writes unpredictable love stories, not trashy run-of-the-mill romance novels like Shakespeare.
Thank you for posting that. While I have several of his books in my classroom library, I barely made it through The Notebook, and only because I promised my then 14 year old daughter that I would. He is, however, the one with the big pile of money.