Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Happy Birthday, Shelley Bradley! And, nice booksigning too!
Guests / January 23, 2006

Saturday afternoons are always busy in the Metroplex — this past one was no exception, but I, along with (K and S) managed to attend the booksigning for Shelley Bradley’s latest Berkley Sensation, Bound and Determined. It was a little different from most signings–there was CHOCOLATE CAKE!! The author, not sharing her age, is not just launching a new title but celebrating her birthday at the same time. Shelley says she likes writing contemporaries a little more than her past medievals and regencies because she can write the way she thinks instead of spending extra time trying to express, for instance, how someone would say “Bite me!” in historical time periods. When you think of it that way, it would have to be more comfortable to write in the current day. She also shared that Bound and Determined is the first book of a four part series. The next title, Strip Search (the story of Kerry’s brother), is due out in July. She also has a title coming out later this year in the Blaze line, but I apologize because I cannot remember what it will be called. Like most authors, she isn’t in control of the cover art of…

reading — new books by old favorites – Gregory and Krentz
Guests / January 14, 2006

Life has a way of compressing time and making resolutions hard to accomplish, well, at least I’m back to working out with a trainer, and so, I feel I’m getting one thing done right. But my reading has become mostly things I need to read, not always what I want to read. Doesn’t make sense, does it? When I spend time in the hospital with my husband — in for surgery, successful — I always read a vampire book. Isn’t that ridiculous? But hey, it got me through a few strokes and one heart attack, so I think of it as my “good-luck, all will be well” genre to read while waiting for results. Unfortunately, the one I picked this time, was okay, but didn’t capture my attention to the degree it needed. Or as my daughter is so fond of saying, lots of boring bits in the middle. I tried for two days to get past more than chapter five, but finally gave up after doing the skip, read, skim, skip, read, check out the last paragraph, go back and read some more. The sad part is the book is the beginning of a series, and yeah, I know,…

2005 tally
Guests / January 7, 2006

I read 117 books in 2005. That was down a few from what I read in 2004, but as I read quite a few e-books in ’04 and not nearly as many in’05 I think it was pretty equal. The one thing I’ve noticed is that I used to read a few historicals. Now I’m reading all contemporary. I still have a bunch of historicals to read, and have gone through my pile thinking should I dejunk these or not? I just can’t bring myself to do that as they’re by authors whose historicals I have read in past years, and enjoyed. It’s a good thing that books don’t require refrigeration, or spoil. They might age, but hopefully I’ll look at when they were written and be able to remember what was happening in that era and think yes this book is true to it’s birth year. Someone asked me to name my best read of ’05. That was hard. It’s much easier to tell what I truly didn’t enjoy. As I do a quick skim of my list I realize that there was nothing there that I would really have kept if I were a true book keeper. At…

The 2005 book tally for me is in
Guests / January 7, 2006

I had to go back through my review binder to get the total but here it is. And no I did not break it down by ratings or anything yet. I’ll do that later this week when I write my column for Fresh Fiction. I read a total of 76 books this year and that’s just ones I actually read. I also listened to a total of 41 books, since May 2005, which was when I first started keeping track. I seem to average 1 audio a week at least so I can tack on 16 more audio books, as a guesstimate. Not nearly as many books read as I would have thought my count would be, but it still is more than one book a week so that’s not too shabby! LOL How did everyone else do? Did you read as many as you expected, or less? For people who track every year, how does that compare to 2004? Any goals to meet or beat your 2005 totals? Kelley Visit FreshFiction.com to learn more about books and authors.