I appear to be continuing with my budding friendship with the man who does the early shift on the post office parcel collection point... he seemed quite pleased to see me yesterday morning when I went to pick up my books. Though it was more likely that it was due to the fact that because I wanted my books I was nice, polite and cheerful ... unlike the grumpy sod who was in front of me in the queue who had just shouted at him.
Anyway, since then I have worked, gone to quiz night (we won the best team name prize, but not the actual quiz) and today I went to work again, but finished at lunch time..... and between those things I appear to have read all three of the books I picked up. I did sleep, but apparently 5 hours is enough sleep ... or at least as much as I am getting anyway.
All this goes to highlight one of the problems I have discovered since I fell into reading M/M books about 6 months or so ago... they really are far too easy to read and don't really challenge me at all. The other big problem is that they are bloody expensive - particularly when you read fast and buy paperbacks!
The books themselves were the Common Powers trilogy (Soul Bonds, Rush in the Dark, Edward, Unconditionally).... I tend not to review books, but suffice to say I liked them, particularly the idea behind the powers themselves but felt that this was just a hook to get you into the series, it didn't really develop anything outside of the relationship between the MCs. To be honest, had I not been a major complete series freak (and believe me, having favourite authors in other genres whose works run to 18 (ish) (crime), 30 and going (fantasy) and even 64 plus fill ins by other authors (Children's/GO) then 3 is nothing!) had I just bought the first, I wouldn't have bothered with the others, which would have been a shame as I felt they progressively improved in terms of story line as they went along.
They also left me with another thought to toss around in my mind. I am hoping for NaNo to write a M/M contemporary story, and whereas usually I don't plan ahead what I will write - rather I just sit and type what appears between brain and fingers (which can mean I surprise myself - certainly did when I read back a chapter of something and discovered I'd killed one of my characters!). However, having only got 30 days and 50,000 words to try and get out (not to mention that the rest of my life won't stop whilst I try and do this) I've been planning and researching - which of course also involves reading the genre. Now the question that these three books threw at me is - what is the correct ratio of sex/storyline? I know that this is something that is very reader dependant - I found the 1st book in this set to be far too much sex and not enough story, the 2nd had morphed to lots of phone sex and little contact and a slightly improved storyline, the 3rd had the most involved of the story lines and the least sex (the dog helped my enjoyment level - though dogs in books, and werewolves can be a major issue for me if the writer knows nothing about basic anatomy, breed description or behaviour)
Now I'm not bothered if the sex side of things a full on graphic description or a fades to grey kind of moment, the thing is the scene has to fit, it's not just there because say, after 30 pages there must be sex because that's the type of book it is.
I shall have to ponder this one for a bit longer I think. It will keep me occupied whilst I drive tomorrow.
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