Hello, and welcome back! Our weather this week so far is gorgeous--very conducive to sitting out with a book in the evenings, but I don't think it's going to stay that way, so I'm enjoying it when I can. Plus our baseball season has been extended for at least three more weeks, possibly longer, so I'm still working around games and practices. No one warned me Little League was such a time-sink. Ah well. At least I can read at practices or before games start.

What do you do when you get into a reading funk? When nothing seems good, even books by authors you normally love? What do you do? Take a break from reading altogether? Read a different genre for a while?

I've found I'm falling into this lately for the first time in ages and I hate it. I haven't stumbled on any great new authors, and some of my stand-bys seem only mediocre as well. If you're a regular reader here, you know I love erotic romance. In that vein, I picked up the latest anthology from a publisher I should own stock in, I have to many of their books. With one exception, I didn't like most of the book. Instead of their usual three or four novellas, there were six, which meant they were shorter stories. Which means less time for character and story development. And some of them just didn't appeal to me at all, even if they'd had more time to delve into the stories.

Even on my regular trips to the bookstore, I've had difficulty finding books that appeal to me, aside from the ones I buy simply because I love the authors. One of my buddies in the bookstore has been suggesting some fantasy novels, and I've been tempted to give them a go, while I hope that something really good in my favorite genre, romance, falls into my hands. But I haven't done it yet. Why? I can't quite make myself give up. Silly, maybe, but there it is. This is the genre I've loved for more years than I want to admit at this point, the genre I write in, and I just can't give up on it, no matter how much of a funk I'm in, reading-wise.

In the meantime, my review-TBR pile here is still pretty slim--perhaps it's a new trend, or simply the season?--but next time out, I'll have something new to share with you. And until then, happy reading to you all!