It’s time to reveal another secret about me. I’ve never read Pride and Prejudice or any of the other works of Jane Austen. I feel somewhat embarrassed about this, as my younger son had to read it as a high school assignment when he was a junior. He would never admit it, but I think he liked it more than he wants people to believe. This makes me think I really need to move it up in my TBR pile for sure. Ok…so I’m obviously not much into classics, but what about new contemporary romances? I recently checked out the RITA finalists and discovered that out of 12 categories and approximately 100 titles I’ve read Dirty Sexy Knitting, Lakeshore Christmas, Fireside, and Promises in Death. Several titles such as Red’s Hot Honky Tonk Bar and The Lost Recipe for Happiness are in my TBR and will eventually get read, but when is a really good question. Is there a classic, a romance, a mystery or some other genre that has a specific title that people are surprised that you haven’t read? What is it? Do you have plans to read it or just let it remain forever unread? Until next…

Can you remember the first “adult” novel you read? I don’t fully recall, but believe that the first “adult” novel I read was The Promise by Danielle Steel. As we may have discussed previously because of that I’ve always felt a loyalty to Steel, and even though she is extremely prolific I have found myself veering away from her over the years. When I discovered audios I found that my library offered several of her titles as downloads, and so decided that audio reading would be a way to be loyal without having to do visual reading. It was amazing, because I discovered that some of what had begun to annoy me when I used my eyes to read was missing when I used my ears to read. Therefore I went back to my library and downloaded more of her audios, and have been slowly working my way through. I recently listened to and really enjoyed A Good Woman, and that made me decide to see if her newest release was available. It wasn’t, but I thought ok…I’ll put it on hold in book form. That means that I’m spending time this weekend reading Danielle Steel’s Big Girl. Unfortunately it…

As promised in January it’s my monthly update about what I read this month. I managed ten (10) print books, and five (5) audio books. I read one new author for sure, and possibly a second, but I would have to check my reading logs from years past to be sure. I succeeded in reading the challenge word from one of my yahoo groups which for the month of February was red. I read Seeing Red by Susan Crandall. It’s a romantic suspense one that started out making me wish I had even more time to read that day than I did. With the conclusion of Seeing Red I’m keeping my goal of reading a book a month for this group’s word challenge. However, the same group is also doing a TBR challenge. Last month I read two titles from my tbr and was so excited! This month I got to pick new titles because you have to always have three titles to choose from. I unfortunately only read one of my TBR challenge books. I read It Happened One Night by Lisa Dale who was a new to me author. Wish I could say I was just wowed and…

When I originally thought about this week’s blog I thought I would write about how far a reader would travel to “meet” a favorite author. I was thinking about that because I was going to attend a function in Ft. Worth in which Robyn Carr was going to be the phone in author. However, fate decided to give me a sick husband and I had to cancel. (We won’t even discuss how disappointed I was about that!) I’m lucky in that I live in a large area that has many interconnected highways, so if the traffic fates are smiling upon me nicely the commute between sites is smooth, and good for listening to a great audio book. If the traffic fates are conspiring against me well, I get a longer commute, and more audio book time! I don’t travel to Ft. Worth often because it seems far away to me, but in reality it might be only about a sixty (60) minute drive…I guess that translates into about sixty (60) miles. Is that too far to go for a favorite author? What about having to go out of state to meet an author? How far are you willing to go?…

Before we begin I want to wish everyone a happy healthy new year. Now, that the niceties are out of the way it’s time to review 2009, and look ahead to 2010. In 2009 I resolved to read a book by each author that was invited to the DFW Tea Readers book club dinners. I started out great, but failed to follow through for the year. I also wanted to complete a challenge from one of my Yahoo groups that was to read a book with a certain word in the title. Again, I started out great, and again failed to follow through for the year. To read more of LOOK BOTH WAYS….REVIEWING 2009 and PLOTTING 2010 please click here. Visit FreshFiction.com to learn more about books and authors.

This week I have been reading Rainwater by Sandra Brown. By Wikipedia’s definition historical romance is anything set before World War II. As I’ve read Rainwater I couldn’t help but feel that I was not reading a historical book, but one that could just as easily happen today. I almost passed on reading Rainwater because of the historical label that it has…I don’t mind historicals, and have in fact read a few in my day, but no longer read them as a part of my regular reading pattern. Had I passed on this title I would have missed a book that I have been enjoying. To read more of WHAT DO YOU THINK MAKES A BOOK A HISTORICAL and to leave a comment please click here. Visit FreshFiction.com to learn more about books and authors.

This week I’ve decided that I want to know something about your reading preferences. I feel as though since I’ve been contributing to this blog that I’ve told you something of my preferences, and now it’s time to find out a bit about you. Some of the things I want to know about you are ideas that I’ve gotten from my various yahoo groups…so much thanks to those! Are you an end peeker? Do you have to know that the story will end the way you want before you read it? I used to peek at the end of the story, not to determine whether or not I would read the book, but just for the heck of it. For the most part I’ve given that up, but if I find my interest in a book waning I will peek ahead to try to find the motivation to keep on reading, or perhaps read faster to get to that part. To read the rest of The Survey Says….Part One please click here. Visit FreshFiction.com to learn more about books and authors.

This weekend I pretended to be the good wife, and took my husand’s car to have the oil changed. While I sat in the waiting room I not only typed this blog, but observed the other people waiting with me. One man was smarter than I and able to figure out the wireless connection the dealer offered and get online, two men had some sort of conversation about their cars, and the rest just sat their twiddling their thumbs. I’m sure like me they were thinking about the zillion of chores awaiting them at home, but that’s just a depressing thought isn’t it? Then they were watching some sort of news debate about the state of the economy, another really depressing thought…where were the books? Not a soul brought a book. To read more about Sandi’s waiting experience and to comment for a chance to win a prize please click here. Visit FreshFiction.com to learn more about books and authors.

Wednesday night the DFWTea Readers met at my house for our annual Halloween dinner. I know that I’ve blogged about the group and the fun we’ve had before, but I thought it was time to do it again. The dish (and I just don’t mean the edible kind) is almost always delicious, and I use that qualifier because as my friends know I’m far from a cook, so I question when I host the dinner whether or not the food is good, but I think that this was the third year of my hosting and cooking and I’ve yet to kill anyone. While I’ve yet to scare any one off with my culinary skills my husband does his best to scare people with his decorations. This year he had to scale back, because as hard and fast as he was decorating our puppy, Travis decided things needed to be undecorated. Unfortunately, a few items were lost, but fortunately nothing of a real monetary value. To read more about Sandi’s thoughts on the Halloween dinner and to comment for a chance to win please click here. Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR. Visit FreshFiction.com to learn more about books and authors.

This week I had trouble coming up with a topic for discussion. Then I finally thought of something, and realized I couldn’t’ post it because of some technical difficulties…such as I wrote it at work, and forgot to put it on my memory stick so I could bring it home, and get it edited and posted. OOPS! Look for that idea next week. So, I had to start fresh and as I was chatting with an online friend she told me about the great books she was pre-ordering. That chat sent me to Amazon to see what I thought would be a good title to pre-order or to place on my wish list. I was amazed at the plethora of titles that I had no clue were coming! I’m now blaming this friend for my wish list exploding, and in the future my bank balance going out faster than it’s coming in! To see what is on Sandi’s wishlist and to comment for a chance to win please click here. Visit FreshFiction.com to learn more about books and authors.