Fellow book lovers, I’m sorry to report that I have nothing new to review today. Last week, my sister was in Las Vegas for a work related seminar.  Since she lives on Maui and doesn’t come to the ‘mainland’ very often so I decided to take a few days off and meet up with her.  Dreams of lazy days by the pool with an umbrella topped alcoholic beverage and reading for hours and hours while my poor sister was stuck in her seminar was all I could think about. Add to that the fact that she was booked at the Wynn Hotel–a snazzy, high-end resort style hotel that I could only ever dream of staying at if I won the lotto! Well you can imagine that I could not wait to get there.  And then this happened:

Now, I am in no way a delicate flower, but I live in Northern California and yes, it can hit 100 degrees once in a while–but this dry heat just about killed me. You’d think the pool would be refreshing, and maybe it was, but hell if I could even make it out there. People, plastic cups were melting!  Seriously, I kid you not. The heat was miserable.

When I got home and had to go back to work the very next day, my reading funk intensified. So I had to pull out some old favorites. My copies of these books are worn, with weakened spines and dog eared pages. These are my top 3 comfort reads and they never fail to recharge me and help get my reading mojo back.

Acheron by Sherrilyn Kenyon–if I could wish a book boyfriend off the page, Acheron would definitely be one of my first choices.  Kenyon’s Dark Hunter series is one of my all time favorites, though I do admit to being several books behind. The first time I read this book, I could not put it down.  I read it through the night until my husband made me go to bed at 4:00 a.m. because my daughter had a soccer game that same morning that was an away game. I had to drive her to it and he didn’t want me to be sleepy behind the wheel.  At the game, I sat away from all the parents and read straight through the game. At the end, I had no idea who won. That was the first of many reads and when carrying the hardback became a pain, I bought the Kindle version; which has been fun because I’ve bookmarked and highlighted my favorite passages so I can skip all over and just read the parts I love.  I re-read the whole thing at least once a year. I feel almost the same love for Styxx’s book…but Acheron will always be first.

Stranger by Megan Hart–thank goodness for the 40% off coupons that could be used at Borders Books.  Though they are no longer around, Borders was my go to before I found the ease of digital books and one-clicking it at Amazon. I love a new book. The crisp pages, the smell, everything about it. It could become an expensive hobby though, so those coupons sure came in handy. It’s how I found Megan Hart. Stranger is just one of several one-word titled books that were not technically a series, but if you read them, you’d see the subtle crossover of some characters.  In Stranger, Grace, our heroine, is a funeral director. She doesn’t have time for relationships, so she ‘dates’ through an escort service. It’s how she meets Jack-but interestingly, Jack is not the hero of this story. But I don’t care–Jack, OMG Jack made this book for me.  He was everything-sweet, vulnerable, and so damn sexy…I will never forgive Ms. Hart for not giving him his own story. I asked her once if Jack would get a book, she said she had no plans for it, but “I never say never.” Ha! It’s been almost 10 years, so I’m reading between the lines on that one.

Lover Eternal by J.R. Ward–while I hold the first 6 books of Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood in high regard (yes, even Phury’s book) Rhage is the brother I wanted for my very own. When he meets Mary in that hallway in the training center and pushes up against her cause he can sense her but he can’t see her-well hell, don’t you wish you were Mary? What about that super sexy scene behind the couch? C’mon, you know which one I’m talking about! Mary and Rhage are favorites of mine because I LOVE that Rhage is all kinds of beautiful, gorgeous and sexy but he fell for a woman who was kind of a plain Jane. Rhage sensed her inherent beauty and that made her whole self beautiful to him.   

So, there you have it! My top 3 comfort reads to help me get out of my reading funk! August is right around the corner; here are a few of the books I’m looking forward to reading:

Racked and Stacked by Lorelei James (8/7/18)

A Snowbound Scandal by Jessica Lemmon (8/7/18)

All The Way by Kristen Proby (8/21/18)

Maybe For You by Nicole McLaughlin (8/28/18)