SHARE THE BOOK LOVE

I saw a post on Facebook yesterday called #ShareTheBookLove The point being that as February is the month of love, we should use it to share the books we love. Great idea, so I thought I’d do just that with this weeks update. But where to start? It’s impossible to draw up a short list, or even a long list, of all the books I love. There are so many that have special meanings and feelings attached. So here are just a few of my favourites and the reasons why I love them.

1. The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller.

If you love romance, you have to love this book. It’s my all time favourite love story. The perfect romance. As a novel it’s short, under 200 pages, but it manages to say and convey a wealth of raw emotions. I read it several times of the years and am always moved to tears.

BLURB: A man. A woman. The heat of an Iowa summer. And the brief encounter whose passion will last a lifetime. 'The Bridges of Madison County' is the story of Robert Kincaid, world-class photographer, and Francesca Johnson, an Iowa farm wife. Given to nomadic ways, Kincaid is a strange, almost mystical traveller, a man who feels displaced and out of harmony with his time. Francesca Johnson, once a young war bride from Italy, lives with the flickering memories of her girlhood dreams. Each of them is content, yet when Kincaid drives through the heat and dust of an Iowa summer and turns into her farm lane looking for directions, their illusions fall away, and they are joined in an experience of uncommon and stunning beauty, an experience that will haunt them forever.

This book means so much to me. The very first real date I went on with my husband was to see the movie version with Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood. And when we got married in 2006 we had the following passage from the book read at the ceremony.

“It seems to me now that I have been moving toward you and you toward me for a long time. Though neither of us were aware of the other before we met, there was a kind of mindless certainty humming along beneath our ignorance that ensured we would come together. Like two solitary birds flying the great prairies by celestial reckoning, all of these years and lifetimes we have been moving toward one another.”

Beautiful. I can’t recommend this highly enough.

 2. Devil’s Paw by Dale Chase

This is a recent read. I’ve been a friend and fan of Dale Chase for years. We used to bash out porn stories for the glossy gay mags of the 1990s and 2000s. Dale ‘s speciality is the gay western and nobody writes then better. Dusty, dirty and off the scale hot. Devil’s Paw is one of her best. Pure filth.

BLURB: Lloyd Lasky is a seasoned operative for the Whitlock Detective Agency in Denver that often infiltrates outlaw gangs in order to thwart stagecoach robberies. When he’s assigned to infiltrate the Bonner Gang based in Devil’s Paw, Arizona Territory, he’s unprepared for the personal ambush his heart suffers over gang member Frank Metty.

Taking up sex with Frank, Lloyd convinces himself that doing so is part of his job in solidifying his place in the gang and learning of their plans. But as time passes, Lloyd not only starts to care for the younger man, but jealousy also rears its ugly head when it becomes clear the gang leader, Merle Bonner, also has a sexual claim on Frank.

When the line between self-indulgence and detective work blurs to the point where Lloyd considers not only breaking agency rules but breaking the law, will he be able to ignore his ever-growing sexual desires and successfully complete his dangerous mission?


3. Dangerous Kiss by Jackie Collins

This is the book I’m reading right now. Well, re-reading to be exact. Dangerous Kiss is the fifth book in Jackie’s Santangelo series. I’m working my way through all the books again. If I’m honest, this is probably the weakest of the series, but that’s not to say it’s bad. An average Jackie Collins novel is 100% better than other writer’s best efforts. There’s so much to enjoy here: sex, murder, revenge, drug addiction, forced marriage, more revenge, illegitimate kids, models, movie stars and gangsters. This books packs it all in.

BLURB: In Chances, Lucky grew up in a top crime family; in Lucky, she was married three times; in Lady Boss, she took on Hollywood and bought Panther Studios; and in Vendetta, she fought off a lifelong enemy to keep the studio, and her husband. Now, in Dangerous Kiss, when a member of her family is brutally gunned down in a random holdup, her fury knows no bounds. While she is tracking the killer, her relationship with her husband, charismatic writer and director Lennie Golden, is put to the test. Then, suddenly, into her life comes a man from her past - a man with a dangerous kiss. Dangerous Kiss is a story of raw anger, love, lust, murder, and revenge, and at its white-hot center is Lucky Santangelo, a strong, exciting woman who dares to take chances - and always wins.

#ShareTheBookLove

Thom X