I couldn't sleep at all last night...

And surprisingly, it wasn't the heat.

I went a little crazy over the past few weeks and bought "the next in the series" of a pile of series I read. The thing is, I'm a geek, and I like to re-read all of the previous books in the series fresh right before I read the newest. (See, told ya. Geek.) So in the current list, I have:
Harry Potter #6 (I know, it's not out yet, but there's still books 1 - 5 to read.)
Stephanie Plum #10 (I keep hoping she’s gonna do something new...)
Merry Gentry #3
Plus a pile of other “new” books to read.

So this week I’ve been on Merry Gentry (Laurell K. Hamilton). And every night this week I’ve stayed up all night reading the entire book. I just couldn’t put them down. On Sunday, I read half of A Kiss of Shadows (468 pages) and all of Caress of Twilight (348 pages!). I’ve been trying to keep Seduced by Moonlight over at least a few more days, but I’m having trouble doing that. Part of it is that I hate finishing a book too quickly (I’m a really, really fast reader) because just as you start to lose yourself in the “world” the book is over and you have to leave, but the other is that I’ve realized that LKH doesn’t ever slow the action. All of her books are go, go, go, something new, something crazy, wow! hey! look at this, no, look over here! all. the. time. Now don’t get me wrong, I love a fast-paced, lots of action book. But sometimes you need to take a second to stop and smell the roses.

Even Susan Johnson, whose books are sex, sex and more sex, stops now and again for a history lesson. Or, as a fellow writer put it, a chance to have a smoke and a coffee. Now, I’ll admit a lot of LKH books is setting up the “rules” for her world, and since I don’t read a lot of faerie books, I’m not that familiar with it, but still, give me (and your characters) a chance to take a breath. Because I’m not able to find a logical place to put the book down. And I need that because when it’s 11:30 p.m. and my alarm goes off at 5:13 a.m., that’s just not enough sleep.