“Nothing between nine and five mattered today, anyway. Today was all about this evening: when life was going to take one of those small turns, a change of direction that led onto a wide, new road.”

It’s Not me It’s You
By Mhairi McFarlane

Delia leads a pretty comfortable life but she’s ready to shake things up by proposing to her long term boyfriend. Dressed in one of her special vintage outfits she meets Paul for dinner and proposes. It’s obvious he was not expecting the proposal but she figures he’s in shock and that’s why he’s not reacting as she hoped but they can still have a lovely evening.

Paul heads to the bar for their drinks to celebrate and meanwhile Delia waits and dreams about what type of wedding they’ll have. She’s blissfully happy until she gets a text with the message “C. Something’s happened with D and I don’t want you to hear it from anyone else. She’s proposed. Don’t know what to do. Meet tomorrow? PXx.” Clearly Delia wasn’t the intended recipient and Delia is wondering what has just happened.

When she confronts Paul she learns that he’s been having an affair and her world comes crashing. Feeling betrayed and hurt Delia decides she needs a break from her current life to figure out what to do. She moves to London with her best friend and between a new job, a shady boss, and new beginnings she learns that she can start over. Sure it would be easy to go back to Paul who keeps asking her to forgive him and she’s tempted but maybe she was due a change of pace. Maybe she can meet a great guy, make new friends and still do something exciting with her life.

For those of you who enjoy romance but no simpering females give this a try. Delia is smart but also human. She’s hurt, she’s confused but she knows that it’s not the end of the world even if it sort of feels like it at times. This book had humor, likeable characters (with a few exceptions of course), and was an overall feel good romantic comedy. I really enjoyed this and look forward to reading more by this author.

Source: Personal Copy

I was all excited to attend the Texas Book Festival this weekend but after traffic to get to downtown, search for available parking and finally a long line to get through security to get into the auditorium, all seats were taken and the doors closed to see Margaret Atwood. I was so bummed out. I walked a bit through the vendor tents but didn’t buy anything. Shocking I know. I think I was just bummed out after being turned away from the Atwood reading.

I did get to see a talk by Jonathan Lethem and Adrian Tomine and that was really fun. Both talked about comics, upcoming books and the sense of place that is very important in their works. I’ve not read anything by Jonathan Lethem but would like to now and I’m looking forward to Adrian Tomine’s new book, Killing and Dying.

I couldn’t spend all day at the festival because I had some stuff going on at home but I’m thinking maybe next year I will just camp out on the Capitol grounds and that way I make it to my sessions! Ha.
One exciting thing that did happen this weekend is that I got my Mixbook. This is the first time I send my vacation pictures to turn into a book and I am quite happy with the end result.

The photos are true to color and the paper thickness is quite nice too. I did see one page spread that had the photo alignment a bit off but to be honest that could have been my fault. I am not sure if I overlooked that before I sent it. Still it’s not too terribly noticeable so I’m okay with it. I would definitely use this again for another photo book.

So how was your weekend? I know some of you did the Read-A-Thon so I hope you enjoyed that. I did not read very much at all this weekend. Today I could have but ended up taking a nap instead and that felt very nice. I will try to catch up a bit on my reading tonight though because I’m not done with my book group book and I better hurry.