Of Authors and Reading by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

The other day, I started thinking about a story I knew I had, but couldn’t remember the title, and I wanted to re-read it. About all I could remember was that I had it on my reader, and of course, it was a romance. Really helpful considering the long list of romance novels I have. At least I had it limited to just my reader.

Well, I also had it limited to not Brenda Minton, Linda Goodnight, or LDS romance, which did shorten the list, but still not helpful.

I ended up going through my list of romance novels, scanning each one and opening any I couldn’t remember what they were about to see if they were the one I wanted.

The problem is that I skimmed past the title of “Jenna’s Cowboy” several times because Brenda Minton has a book (a really good book, by the way) about a young lady named Jenna and her own cowboy. Whose title I have clearly forgotten, but I do know the story.

Anyway, about the third or fourth time I skimmed past this title, it dawned on me that my Brenda Minton “Jenna” story was not on my reader, but rather in my bookcase.

That’s right, some of my Brenda Minton books are in hard copy.

So, I finally really looked at the icon for “Jenna’s Cowboy” and lo and behold, the author of this novel is Sharon Gillenwater! And when I open the novel, guess what? It’s the story for which I was searching!

But what really got to me was that I stopped in the middle of reading a novel by Linda Goodnight, which had characters by the name of Ace and Chance, to read Sharon Gillenwater’s novel, which had characters by the name of Ace and Chance.

In other words, I have several stories by several different authors using the same character names, which isn’t a problem, except when I read them really close together.

But it did point out why I started thinking about Gillenwater’s story while I was reading Goodnight’s story.

Their themes are completely different. Their characters are completely different, too, but I kept thinking this is wrong. For some reason, I felt I should be reading the novel about the ex-military cowboy with PTSD rather than the recovering alcoholic trying to make amends.

Like I said, completely different themes. Both really good stories, but I found it hard to concentrate on the recovering alcoholic when I was thinking about the PTSD victim, even though the recovering alcoholic is the second book of a series I have started re-reading.

So, basically, I was into the second book of a series when I stopped to re-read a book by an entirely different author, but with some characters of the same name.

Yeah, very confusing.

But I was right, I did have the PTSD story. And it’s excellent and beautifully written. I have no personal experience of PTSD, but I think Gillenwater represented the facts and the experiences of the problem vividly enough for me to understand its implications for the sufferers.

And frankly, I now need to look up whether she has any other books, maybe even see if “Jenna’s Cowboy” is the first in a series. It reads like it might be. And if so, I have another author I like a lot.

Though I also discovered that I have several books on my reader that I don’t think I’ve actually read because nothing about them sounded familiar, so I’m going to have to go back and read them, but after I finish this Linda Goodnight series, I’m on.

And I’m honestly considering digging out that Brenda Minton series, which includes her character named Jenna, who, by the way, is ex-military in her story too, injured even.

All of which has me thinking about, of all things, those cleaning and organizing gurus who insist that once you’ve read a book, you should get rid of it. That you shouldn’t have all those books “cluttering” your house!

My response is, but what if I want to re-read it? What if it’s a book with information I may need again, you know, like a dictionary, thesaurus, or a self-help, all of which I do have. Or maybe a classic, you know, like Shakespeare Unabridged, which I also have among several other classics, including some Agatha Christy and the first nineteen novels of The Boxcar Children.

Does anyone really expect me to get rid of these wonderful books? My apartment would be pretty bare without all these bookcases. Then again, my bookcases also hold Nativities, but those gurus also say to get rid of or cut down on such collections. I won’t be doing that either.

Anyway, happy writing, everyone!