Is there anything better than starting a book and the romance/mystery/thrill/atmosphere is set up well? That can’t always 
happen in the first chapter because you have to be concerned with character introduction and plot hints. But using a prologue, the author can spend all of his/her time engaging the reader with emotion in what follows. You know me—I’m all for engaging!
According to Quora, some great prologues can be found in these books (and in others, of course):
- Harry Potter (Book 1)
- Water for Elephants
- The Piano Tuner
- The Alchemist
- Shutter Island
Kristen Lamb has some reasons for not using prologues.
- If it’s nothing more than an information dump
- If the sole purpose is to hook the reader (don’t do this! Too many people skip prologues.)
- If the prologue is too long
- If it has nothing to do with the story (Now, why would anyone do that??)
And more.
It would be interesting to compare the “good” prologues to the “bad” 
examples and see where the author might have gone wrong. As for me, I never skip prologues. I might not read the rest of the book if the prologue is terrible, but at least I’ll have a good reason for it.
Read the next blog in the blog hop by going here.
Naval Maneuvers: When a woman requires an earth-shattering crush of pleasure to carry her away, she can’t do better than to call on the US Navy. Sorry, Marines!