The Advantages of Repeat Season

I love TV. Well actually, let me qualify that. I love good TV. Good to me, being the one hour dramas with great casting, storylines that keep me riveted to the screen and often times characters, especially female, who kick some ass. My brother and sister loved to torment me because I refused to miss an episode of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer. But now that Alias, The West Wing, Grey’s Anatomy, Lost, and all my other favorite shows are off the air for the summer I have all this free time on my hands.

Last year, I told myself the television was staying off and I would spend my evenings doing something other than planting my butt on the couch for several hours an evening. This lasted about two weeks before I somehow allowed myself to get sucked back in. I’m not sure what it was that did it, and I can’t even tell you what it was I watched over those few months. I have no recollection. A fact that speaks volumes for the quality of television programming in the summer time.

So this summer I told myself I wasn’t going to get sucked back in. I would use my free time more wisely. I’ve limited my TV viewing to two shows a week – one on Monday, one on Friday. As for the days in between? Well I suddenly have no excuse not to get my workouts in. And finally—FINALLY—the books in my TBR pile are beginning to shrink, slowly but surely. Well, okay, they shrunk for a few days until I went to the secondhand bookstore on Tuesday night and bought 5 new ones with my store credit. I think I have some deep-seeded fear that someday the world is going to run out of books, so I need to ensure my stash of unreads never dips below 100.

Anyway, my neurosis aside, I’m having a blast reading a lot of great books. I had stopped reading Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series a little while back when I got stuck on Romancing Mr. Bridgerton. I’m not sure why I got stuck on this one. Julia Quinn is one of my favorite authors, but for some reason I was having trouble getting through it. I set it aside, bought her next ones that came out and added them to my TBR pile. A few days ago I picked up To Sir Phillip, With Love (Eloise’s story). I couldn’t put it down. I finished it in a couple of days. Last night, I picked up When He Was Wicked (Francesca’s story). The tub water was bordering on frigid before I roused myself long enough to dry off and move into the bedroom to keep on reading. By the time I looked up, it was bedtime and I was nearly halfway through the book. Needless to say, I’ll be going back to finish Romancing Mr. Bridgerton, but I may read It’s In His Kiss (Hyacinth’s story) first. We’ll see.

I also picked up Karyn Monk’s, The Wedding Escape and read that in a few days as well. I loved it, although the head-hopping within scenes was a little hard to track at times. I thought I was in one character’s POV only to realize I was in another’s. But the story was wonderful and I loved the characters. Most of who have their own stories. So I stocked up with my store credit and picked up three more – The Prisoner, Every Whispered Word, and My Favorite Thief. I also found two more Marsha Canham books that I didn’t have. Then there are the Victoria Alexander ones burning a whole through the wicker basket next to my bed demanding to be read. I have a few Jo Beverley’s left to get at before she comes to visit our chapter in September, and too many others still waiting on the list. And of course Julianne MacLean’s new book, Love According to Lily comes out the first of August and I’m impatiently counting the days.

At this rate, I may need to curb my television viewing come fall just to get through all of the books sure to accumulate over the summer. Although…I hear Showcase is going to start showing Deadwood this September and I have just been dying to see that show…