I’ve been struggling to read of late. It’s more about being spoilt for choice, and my mood. I can’t explain the latter, but put it down to the pressure of lockdown and how I have much more time to fill.
I’ve always hated having too much choice. I go to a supermarket knowing I want one particular thing. Suddenly, I’m presented with a lot of that ‘one just thing.‘ It’s hard. How to I choose? Especially when each package is vying for my attention crying, ‘Pick me, pick me!’ I’ve learnt not to ponder, just grab one and run!
A long time ago, I’d spend a good hour at the library or in a bookshop choosing what to read. These days there are hundreds of books all vying for attention with just one click to Amazon. I am spoilt for choice and now that choice is becoming a blur.
Eventually, when I repeatedly found myself book-less, I narrowed it down to a case of ‘what do I want to read?’ Well, shorter stories so I can blog about them; a cover that grabs me and a description to match. Oh, and it should be in Kindle Unlimited as I’ve spent enough money on books over the years.
Satisfied with the cover and description, and in KU, it then became frustrating to then find the book was three or four hundred pages long.
As time went on, and still nothing to read, I missed having that escape at hand and to disappear in the depths of the pages.
One day, I was aimlessly scrolling through Facebook and saw a picture of a dark haired girl. She reminded me of Bella from Twilight. Twilight? Oh, I how loved those stories. Snippets of them came back to me in a flash and it felt exciting.
It was £3.99 to buy. More than I would normally pay, but not as expensive as some I have seen from the big authors. It also had a different cover than I remembered. An apple. Not appealing at all. Finally the page count was well over four hundred. Far too big, but suddenly I didn’t care. I knew what I was getting. A friend once said, the size doesn’t matter when the story is good. In a matter of days, I have glided through 450 pages in the blink of an eye. I’m lost in the story and am loving it all over again.
I am not going to review it anywhere. I generally like to review to help our indie authors, and some use them in their own promotions. I doubt whether Stephanie Meyer will even register that her book is still selling after all these years.
Secondly, I just received an email from Bookbub.com to tell me of a new release by a favourite author. It’s a third book in the series, and one I literally have been waiting months to read. It is called Claimed by Seraphym by Denna Holm. It is book number three in the series. Having read and reviewed Claimed by Nicolai and Claimed by Rafa on this blog, this one I shall be reviewing.
So that is why the title of this blog piece is referring to my failure on my chosen criteria, although this one does have a great description, it is in KU, and not quite as big as Twilight at 353 pages. So it’s not a total failure.
Karen J. Mossman 
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