Book Bonanza

I love long lazy holiday weekends where you don't HAVE to do anything.

This was one such weekend and I spent it reading - and buying more books.

Friday I read Jessica Trapp's Master of Desire. Saturday I read Rachel Gibson's It Must Be Love. Yesterday I read Claire Cross' Third Time Lucky. And today, I read Julia Quinn's Romancing Mister Bridgerton.

As for buying books, I mentioned over at The Cupcake Police that although I'd resisted some recommended books, I couldn't resist when I saw someone had read something by a new favorite of mine...Erica Spindler. So, in four to twenty-one business days I should be receiving Erica Spindler's Killer Takes All, Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic and Sister, Jennifer Crusie's Faking It, and Janet Evanovich's Three to Get Deadly (yes, I know I'm way behind ;-) ).

That doesn't include the many books I have bids on in Brenda Novak's auction.

No, I don't have a problem. Not at all. LOL

Coming Soon....

In my currently reading section of my blog is a copy of Sandra K Moore's newest book cover - Dead Reckoning. It's what is next on my "to be read" list.

Here's the deal - it won't be released until July 2006. BUT, Sandra and I are both members of the Houston Bay Area Chapter of RWA and they recently instituted a program whereby a published writer (that would be Sandra) is paired with an unpublished writer (raising hand - that would be me!). We each have roles and responsibilities in this partnership.

For my part, I have to read all of her books before they are released (I know, tough job but somebody has to do it ;-) ) and then write a review of it. That review will go in/to the following places: 1) the HBARWA newsletter; 2) on the HBARWA webpage; 3) amazon.com; and 4) barnes & noble.com. For me THAT is the hard part. I want to do the book justice.

You see, I'm already worried about not saying enough good / nice things about this book. Thing is, I just got the ARC at last night's chapter meeting and all I've read is the excerpt that is posted on her webpage (which, by the way, you really should check out because it's good and will leave you wanting more - but I digress). So how do I know it's so good? Well, first of all, I read her first book and couldn't put it down and I have no reason to thing this one will be of any lesser quality.

Which brings up a question for me. I have the utmost respect for Sandra, as a writer and as a person. She was the first person I ever communicated with when I was looking into joining RWA and she's never been anything but supportive - not just to me but to all of our chaptermates. Sandra's the kind of person I want to be when I grow up.

But that's not really the question. The question is, are you influenced by someone's writing based on how you feel about that person personally? I'm wondering this because many moons ago (read two years ago - give or take) I "encountered" another published author. This author writes in at least two different genres.

Well, let's just say my first impression of her was not good. In fact it was quite bad. But okay, maybe she was having a bad day.

And, it's possible she was having another bad day the next time we met. And the time after that. And the time after that. And the time.....and so on.

Now, despite all the "rough" (I'm really being kind here) encounters we've had, I thought I would read a book of hers. I couldn't get through the first chapter. I made excuses and said the timing was off for me and I've planned (but never actually done it) to go back and try to read that book again.

Then I find that this author has a book out that was a Rita finalist. It's in a different genre than the first book I tried to read (and let me just say here, I'm a fan of both genres so that wasn't the problem) so I thought I'd give her another try - despite that I don't care for her as a person.

So, I finished the book but I didn't think it was that good. I'm wondering if I'm letting my personal opinion influence my "reading" opinion. Which leads me to my question...would your personal opinion of someone influence your opinion of their writing work? Could it if the author truly was a good writer but just a snot to deal with?

In any event, I'm really excited to be getting a sneak read of Sandra's book before it's available to the general public and I know it will be great - and that has nothing to do with the fact that she's just a great person. :-)

So keep your eyes out for the book in July - you won't want to miss it. :-)

Are you for sale?

Yesterday, as I was surfing the net (work avoidance thing) I went to the MSN homepage a number of times. Something that caught my eye was a picture of a man. Underneath the picture, in bold letters were the words Mr. Right. And below that, the tag line that read "World's Most Eligible Billionaires".

Now, I never actually opened the article to find out what it said because I was too annoyed at the message I was getting from the visuals.

Let's back up a few years. I'm a lot younger and only recently separated from my now ex-husband. I went out with a friend of mine to a Pub she frequented a lot. Enough to know the regulars. Non-alcoholic drinks were free (which was good because I was poor), and we could play pool and darts (both also free) to our hearts content.

Well, this man came up and put his arm around me. I'd never met him so I was immediately put off by that. He was drunk and openly undressing me with his eyes. It gave me the creeps. Anyway, he asked me how old I was so I told him sixteen. He didn't care, he tried groping me anyway. I told him I was jailbait, he needed to back off and it didn't even slow him down. We moved over to the bar and he followed us, forcing his way between me and my friend. I said rude, mean things to get him to back off but he didn't.

Now I should point out that my friend and I met in a sign language class so we both knew sign (her better than me because she was the deaf instructor's interpretor - but that's beside the point). She was behind this man, signing over his shoulder to me, telling me to be nice, he was a millionaire! Like that somehow excused his behavior and made it okay for him to be a total ass.

Eventually the owner of the Pub asked the man to leave. He did and we waited a while before we left - only to find that this man had waited for us outside. He became more aggressive towards me, trying to break out the car windows once we made it to the car. The owner of the Pub came and held him back so we could leave, all the while my friend was telling me I was stupid for not going for it with this guy - and it was HER car windows he was trying to bust out.

So fast forward to yesterday when I'm seeing that image. Why would anyone be attracted to a person simply because of the size of their bank account? Yes, money is nice - it's even necessary in life. But just because you have it doesn't mean you're a decent person, worthy of my attention.

It may be that you can fall in love with a rich man as easily as a poor man but honey, if that's all you have to attract me, you're dead in the water with me.

A picture's worth a thousand words...

When my mother passed away several years ago, the elderly single women in my step-father's community descended on him with a vengence. Seriously, he told me some stories and those women were aggressive!

Anyway, we were having a conversation about something that had happened and he told me this story about another man who had a similar situation....

It wasn't that the man wanted to live alone the rest of his life but he wanted the women to back off a bit. So he worked with his two hound dogs for a week or so to "perform" for him on cue. Then he invited one of the more aggressive women over for a home cooked meal.

He set the table and set out the food and they had a lovely dinner. Nice conversation - very pleasant evening.

At the end of the meal the lady stood up and started to pick up her dishes to carry over to the sink. "You don't have to do that," the man said. "I've got it covered." Then he whistled and called the dogs over.

The dogs promptly propped their front paws on the table and licked the dinner plates clean. The man then picked up the plates and put them in the cabinet.

She never bothered him again.

(Side note: My step-father said it took him a week to train the dogs to do that and six MONTHS to untrain them. ;-) )

So, when someone sent me this picture, it reminded me of that story.