Used Bookstore

I went to my favourite used bookstore yesterday and found out that after 25 years they are closing.  What am I going to do??  This is the absolute best store in the city.  There are only a handful of other used bookstores around and they either do not have a good selection, of books, lack a romance section, or are poorly organized.  This place was perfect, they had almost a whole room devoted to romance novels, every book was on a shelf and in alphabetical order.  I could spend hours looking through the shelves for the perfect summer read.  It was here that I discovered Nora Roberts, Lisa Kleypas, and Sandra Brown.

The first time I went to this store I was about 13.  I can even remember one of the books I bought (and still have), it was Heather Graham's "A Pirate's Pleasure".  Over the years I would go sporadically, but in my early twenties I often went about once a week, especially during the summer break.  After a while I found that I gravitated to certain authors and would only go to the bookstore when a new book might have made it's way to the shelves.  I am hoping that another book lover will open a similar store with the attention to neatness.  For now, perhaps my summer will include trips to other local used bookstores to see if anything can come close in comparison.  On a positive note, I received over $50 in credit for the books I took to the store yesterday and the books they have left were 50% off the sticker price (which is already 50% of the selling price).

30 Days of Books - Days 26 and 27

A Book That Changed Your Opinion About Something

I tried, I really did, to come up with a book for day 26.  But I've got nothing, even though I procrastinated and waited a day before posting.  My luck, I will  immediately think of a book in another day or two.

The Most Surprising Plot Twist Or Ending

When I first started the 30 days of books, I looked over the list to try and plan what books I would talk about.  For today, Sandra Brown's Where There's Smoke immediately came to mind.  I first read this book when I was about twenty.  I remember being stunned (jaw-dropping and gasping) by two plot twists in this book.  I'm not sure if it was because I was just starting to get into contemporary romance and didn't see it coming, or if I was too naive.  But, over 15 years later I still enjoy reading this book and think it holds up well.  It has the feel of an epic novel because it does not just focus on the hero and heroine, but a cast of characters living in the same town.

No one knows why Dr. Lara Mallory came back home to Eden Pass, Texas to open up her medical practice after all these years. But everyone remembers her role in the well-publicized scandal that caused the downfall of White House hopeful Senator Clark Tackett. So when the iron-fisted matriarch of Tackett Oil uses every weapon in her arsenal to drive her out of town, Lara refuses to go quietly. Yet in this corruption-riddled town, nothing is as it seems. An explosive secret lurks beneath the surface, threatening Lara at every turn. Her unlikely ally: Key, the hell-raising youngest Tackett son. Thrown together, they're on a dangerous quest to expose the one secret that can destroy the Tackett empire-and anyone who dares to challenge its power.

If you love melodramatic books featuring family empires, secrets, and ill-fated love, you will love this book!  Spoiler alert - below I have written the two plot twists that completely took me by surprise.  Highlight the words to read them.

After Lara is accused to having an affair with Clark Tackett, she and her husband, Randall, are banished to the Carribean nation of Montesangre.  There, the ambassador Randal and their daughter are murdered.  A couple of years later, Lara ends up in Eden Pass with one mission - to get Key to fly her back to Montesangre for her daughter's body.  The first plot twist is that Randall is not dead but has been living in Montesangre all these years.  The second twist is that it wasn't Lara who was having an affair with Clark, but Randall.

Lethal - Sandra Brown

Sandra Brown has a new book coming out this September 20, 2011.  Her newest release is called Lethal, from the synopsis it sounds like Brown might be returning to a more traditional romantic suspense:


When her four year old daughter informs her a sick man is in their yard, Honor Gillette rushes out to help him. But that "sick" man turns out to be Lee Coburn, the man accused of murdering seven people the night before. Dangerous, desperate, and armed, he promises Honor that she and her daughter won't be hurt as long as she does everything he asks. She has no choice but to accept him at his word.

But Honor soon discovers that even those close to her can't be trusted. Coburn claims that her beloved late husband possessed something extremely valuable that places Honor and her daughter in grave danger. Coburn is there to retrieve it -- at any cost. From FBI offices in Washington, D.C., to a rundown shrimp boat in coastal Louisiana, Coburn and Honor run for their lives from the very people sworn to protect them, and unravel a web of corruption and depravity that threatens not only them, but the fabric of our society.