reading away

At some point in most of the mega authors writing lives, they pen the 'breakout book' which propels them into super-stardom. This means that their backlist titles will eventually become republished now that their name equates big dollars for the publisher. I read two of Janet Evanovich's backlist titles last week. These light romances, "Thanksgiving" and "Naughty Neighbor" were first published by Loveswept in her pre-Plum days. Both were very fun reads and you can witness the creation of the 'voice' which reached full development in the Plum series and propelled Evanovich into a huge best selling author. Yes, they all started somewhere and an amazing amout of female authors started in what is called category romance.

Currently I'm reading a YA book, "The Geek Girl's Guide to Cheerleading." When I picked it out of the donation pile and read the back cover, I knew I'd come across this story before. I have a very strong suspicion that I judged an incarnation of this story while I was a contest coordinator with a RWA group in Memphis. Very fun for me to enjoy this novel now and to remember the first 30 pages that were submitted to the contest years ago. Wish I still had copies of the score sheets to confirm my suspicion and to see how I scored it! I think it was a finalist.

Rain in the forecast all week long. Lighter soccer week ahead as the friendly scrimmages planned for the evenings have now been called off due to TSSAA regulations. The oldest two need to complete their summer English work and the youngest has to finish his online math camp work. As for me, well, my to be read pile is finally almost cleared out, so I guess I will need to find something to keep myself entertained.