a pause in the poetry parade

…to point out something I have been observing all my life, and that is: reading is a feast-or-famine business.

Right now I have six or maybe seven books I want to be reading, all of them immediately. This is in addition to the TBR pile — some of which needs to be read, but doesn’t excite me.

Here are a few of the books I would like to inhale:

Nick Stone’s Mr. Clarinet grabbed me by the throat and I’m having trouble walking away from it. It’s the first in a series about an ex-cop ex-con called Max Mingus. I feel another series coming on that will stand up there next to Jack Reacher and Elvis Cole and Bob Lee Swagger. Not to mention Patrick Kenzie, if he’d ever come out of retirement. Stone is an American and the main character is native to Miami (although most of it takes place in Haiti) — but for some reason this book came out in England first. I have an English copy, but the American edition is out soon.

Loretta Chase’s new novel is out, it’s called Not Quite a Lady. She is one of my all time favorite romance authors, and there’s a new book out. I haven’t read even a page because then I’ll be lost. And the cover is beautiful. At least the outside cover is: very subdued, very classy. Of course the inside cover is a traditional romance grope, but I just taped the outside cover down on top of the inside one and voila, nothing Fabio like here.

And I just got a box from a good friend who has got some kind of radar for finding out of print books that really appeal to me. I now have my own copies of: Virginia Coffman’s Mistress Devon, Maureen O’Donoghue’s Jedder’s Land, and Celia Rivenbark’s We’re Just like You, Only Prettier. This last one is still in print but somehow I missed it, despite my prowling the new releases lists for such novels about the south. The subtitle of this one: Confessions of a tarnished Southern Belle.

There are a couple others but I’ll keep those under wraps because I might do short reviews of them.

Writing is coming along nicely, if you were wondering. Curiosity especially has been very chatty.

More poetry tomorrow.