This is how it starts...

This morning I was enjoying my coffee and thinking about some friends that I have asked to guest blog for me.  A couple of them read heavily in genres that I don't usually read and I wanted to get some suggestions from them on their faves.  One friend of mine reads quite a bit of contemporary romance.  I never read contemporaries anymore and we had recently had an interesting discussion as to why that is.  I remember enjoying contemporary romances in middle school and high school. That was in the late 70s, early 80s before I abandoned romance reading in college. Most of the contemporaries I loved were from British authors (even then I liked to imagine myself in London) and they were pretty formulaic, but I can't really say why, even after I rediscovered historical romance, I have no interest in today's contemporaries.

So, I decided I should do a bit of research.  Look up some of the old writers that I used to read and enjoy, see if they were still writing and if so, would their stuff still interest me.  After ploughing through a bunch of book sites and Amazon, I found Charlotte Lamb.  I used to love Ms. Lamb's books. They were intelligent and sexy and crazy emotional. Her men were sort of dark and angsty as well and we have covered how much I love a dark and angsty hero. I wondered what I would think of her books now?  I decided to find a few and revisit my teen years. It turns out that some of Ms. Lamb's titles are sort of hard to get. Seems others appreciate her work as much as I, and since she unfortunately passed away in 2000, some of her better known stuff has become either hard to find or very expensive.  I tracked down a few on Paper Back Book Swap (a great online book swap site that you should join immediately if you are not already a member) and found a few more on EBAY. One specific title I was looking for was being offered at a crazy price and I had all but given up on acquiring it, when I realized that it was also being offered in a lot of 75 CL books that was up for auction. The bids were low and so I entered a bid, thinking that I would most likely be outbid eventually, but nothing ventured and all that.  Imagine my surprise to open my email tonight and find that I am the proud owner of 75 Charlotte Lamb books!!!

See folks, this is how it happens.  I start thinking about something I read 25 years ago while relaxing with a cup of coffee and then, BOOM, the next thing you know I am welcoming 75 more books into a house already overrun with the things.  It is the fate of a reader it seems.  Please tell me that you have done this.  There must be other crazy people out there who can't seem to stop buying books.