I think I’ve blogged before about friends who grabbed and shook when I said, somewhat ignorantly, that I didn’t read romance. I’m happy to report that I have good friends. I was corrected, firmly and often, until I saw the error of my ways. Now I don’t regularly read romance, because it’s not what I regularly want. But when it is what I want? Absolutely. Delighted to take recommendations. Gimme those good books.
What I didn’t get back then, and I what I do get now, is that sometimes we just need to know that it’s all going to be okay. For me, at least, if I can’t get that in the real world (don’t look around if you haven’t lately. Trust me.) then I need it in my distractions. So, romance. Or stuff I’ve read before, but I’ve been doing a lot of rereading. So. Romance.
Last week (or the week before, honestly it’s hard to keep track) I read my way through the Brothers Sinister by Courtney Milan. Also in that read-a-thon somewhere were the Langham Line books by Amanda Pahorst.
Romance is not, though, my favorite genre. There’s tons of good fantasy and SF I haven’t read! So I’ve been wanting to venture out of the safe haven of romance. I still want my happy endings! I just wanted…more of what I like. I was thinking of picking up the Murderbot series. Or finishing, at long last, Temeraire. Or the Wheel of Time!
–okay, not the Wheel of Time. I know that one, and it’s going to hurt.
Maybe the Vorkosigan saga? But my next unread book there is Cryoburn, and I’ve got a bad feeling about it…hmm…
From the first time I read a blurb for The Lies of Locke Lamora, I knew I wanted to read it. Pretty sure I acquired it shortly thereafter, in fact. But read? Nope.
Then there was the discussion of the sequel. Hell yes, I needed to read it! But first, the first! I did acquire the second book, because obviously.
Life, however, happened. It’s been a long time since I’ve had time to read regularly. Working full time, single mom to a special needs kid, writer of books, sleeper of sleeps–yeah. There just wasn’t a lot of time. For a long time.
Anyway, this weekend, this came across my sight. Possibly from my Twitter timeline? I don’t know. And I remembered that I needed to read those books. And that I owned the first two.
My to-do list this weekend was a mile long, so I attempted mitigation. I’d use my timer and work for twenty five minutes, take a break and read for five–and then a twenty-five minute reading session, a five minute break, then work…
Then somewhere several hundred pages in (yes, lots of work got done, why do you ask?) I was…ahem. Somewhat forcefully reminded why I’ve been sticking to romance for a while now. I had to stop. Then I went and looked up a spoiler-full synopsis, and checked that the ending would be close enough to what I needed it to be, and then I tried to go back and finish a book I was very much enjoying…but I can’t just now.
I’ll finish Locke Lamora eventually, and read the second and third books as well. I heartily recommend this author! But I think, for right now…I’ll go reread All Creatures Great and Small. And from Yorkshire maybe I’ll run off to…Narnia? Middle Earth? Or back to the Regency?
Highly recommend Locke Lamora. Just not right now, for me.
Ow.