Impromptu Bookclub

My friend Amy and I have created our own little book club. Since we both have a love of books that are extremely similar (if not the same in most cases), we've traded reading suggestions for the last few years. Needless to say, she's opened me up to a lot more worlds such as the A Song Of Ice And Fire saga by George R. R. Martin, The Black Jewels Trilogy as well as the prequel and an anthology and the Tir Alainn Trilogy and the Ephemera duology, Sebastian and Belladonna by Anne Bishop. I've also read The Dragon Prince trilogy by Melanie Rawn and the Sovereign Stone trilogy by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman.

I've introduced her into the world of Jamie and Claire Fraser in the time-travel, historical romance series Outlander. It was sort of a mutual agreement to start reading the Dark Hunter series by Sherrilyn Kenyon (I suggested it months before she realized what the books might be after another friend suggested) and subsequent series books by Sherri's pseudonym, Kinley MacGregor. I've pretty much opened her up to the 'romance' genre period. Paranormal, time-travel or historical.

With all the books that I want to read and that she wants to read, and with lack of funds between both houses, lately it has gotten to the point where it has gotten harder for us to talk about books. We each like the same stuff but outside of the series that we've already mutually read together, we don't have a lot of books in common anymore. I want to tell her about my books and she wants to tell me about hers but without really reading them and knowing the characters, scenes or sayings that may seem humorous for one tend to be a little lost to the other of us. Examples of this would be my love for Anita Blake books (and subsequent current love of all things vampire) and her love for a historical romance duology by Marsha Canham.

So, after much... deliberation... we decided that we were going to start reading the series we both seemed interested in, together. We've picked The Highlander Series by Karen Marie Moning as our guinea pig series. We break down the book, set up days in which to have our 'reading assignment' done, and then discuss what we have read so far. What you might not know about me is that I absolutely abhor spoilers. Now, you might consider spoilers as telling the 'whodunit' of the book but for me, *anything* mentioned about the book is a spoiler. I don't even read the backs of books too much anymore to prevent myself from knowing anything. I like to be completely surprised. This irritating quality of mine is pretty much the catalyst for our book club. I don't allow Amy to tell me anything about a book that I might want to read. I know it is frustrating for her not to be able to talk and share stuff about books we're both reading, (or that she's finished before me)because I just plain don't want to know. I like to be surprised. Our book club allows us to read at our own speeds but to ensure that neither gets ahead of the other and both can talk about what we think about what's going on with story, characters, plot ect.

So, with the Highlander series we have broken it down to reading chapters 1-11, 12-23, 24-end. We've gotten through 2 books already and starting a third in less than 2 weeks and it's working out GREAT. We both can discuss the books and there's no gnashing of frustrated Amy teeth at worrying about what to say and what not to say to spoil anything. It's a literary marriage made in heaven. Not to mention the books are pretty damn good. Who can't love sexy, sensuous, warrior Scots? A stronger woman than I, perhaps.

In our 'downtime' (when we've reached our stopping point with the book) we're free to read other books that we enjoy that aren't necessarily ones we mean to share or to catch up on books that the other has read. For example, when I reach my stopping point, I turn to "A Breath Of Snow And Ashes" by Diana Gabaldon which Amy has read, and she turns to the books in the Immortals After Dark series by Kresley Cole which I've already read. It works. I hope that after the Highlander Series, we'll be able to continue the bookclub with other series we've both showed an interest in reading, such as The Hallows series by Kim Harrison and the Wyndham Werewolves series by MaryJanice Davidson.

Ok, speaking of sexy Scots, I'm very disappointed to know that Lionsgate doesn't plan on distributing Gerry's movie "Shattered" nationwide. It opens in Miami tomorrow but plans for it to be showing elsewhere are yet to be announced, if at all. If you are interested, the trailer to the movie is really good. Click the link, show support for Gerry, and maybe with enough hits to the site, Lionsgate will realize that this is a good movie to promote and distribute. (Go see the trailer! Go now! Go!)

Ok this entry is longer than I anticipated so I will close for now. Up next... When good yarn goes bad...