Another Long Night Reading

Sometimes I feel guilty staying up so late to read. My other has a flexible work day, but he still has to be in sometime before 10. I on the other hand, can sleep late and simply make up my work later in the evening. It's nice and I absolutely love it because it means that I really don't have to worry about those late night reading binges leaving me exhausted the next day at work! But I think that Mike would rather my light be out so that he can sleep. I notice that he tosses and turns more when it's on late. Hmm.

Anyway, the reason I was up so late last night was that I slacked off all day (on my reading). I finished up Linda Barnes's latest, Lie Down with the Devil. It was great! I've been a longtime reader of the series, in fact, I discovered her pretty early on in my bookseller career. She already had a ton of books out in the series, and fortunately for me they had just reprinted Trouble of Fools. See, I had found about 5 of her mid-series titles lurking on my grandmother's shelves.

Style and subject wise, I have found that Barnes appeals to just about anyone who likes Sue Grafton and Janet Evanovich. In fact, I sort-of did a test while working at the bookstore and discovered that most people who read one of these ladies, like all three. If you're not familiar with Barnes and her heroine, Carlotta Carlyle, here's the scoop:

Carlotta is a six-foot redhead, ex-cop turned PI who drives a cab to supplement her income. She's got an off and on relationship with a mob boss's son, and her "little sister" (big brothers/big sisters little sister) is the daughter of a Columbian drug lord. Catchy, right? I love it. Barnes has never failed to to deliver a wholly entertaining and gripping mystery. I zipped through Devil in no time and will anxiously await the next book as usual.

And here's a bit about Lie Down With the Devil (it shouldn't give anything away about the rest of the series, I was very careful!):

It was supposed to be a simple tail and surveillance case, something nice and easy to ease Carlotta back into work and help her to get her mind off of her own problems for one night. Jessica Franklin fears that her soon-to-be-husband is having an affair. She hires Carlotta to follow him for one evening and make a note of the places he visits and specifically where he stays for the evening. Unfortunately for Carlotta, this is by no means the easy case she thought it would be. Soon she's stuck in the middle of a murder investigation - as the prime suspect.

So that was productive. Then I did some laundry, and watched Tori and Dean on OnDemand. It's my new obsession. They're cute and they seem to be really down to earth people. Normally I don't get sucked into reality shows unless there's cooking involved or it's one of Bravo's contest shows. I caught and episode of this one last week, though, and I spent yesterday catching up.

And then I started reading Twilight. Bad idea late at night. I reluctantly set the book down at 4am. I know I've only got about an hour's worth of reading left, but even I had to admit that 4am was a bit ridiculous.

Anyway, going to finish it up today. Unfortunately, I won't be receiving New Moon before the end of this week, so it won't be a total Twilight marathon for me. I guess it's a good thing, though, cause I do have other things I need to do this week!