Ah, the joys of books!

I wanted to share with you a piece that I contributed to Lee A. Verday's Guest Blog found here. Full of fun and pizzaz, I'm about to embark on some fun blogging adventures, complete with book reviews, music likes and dislikes, movies and television show raving and pillaging, among much more. So come with me for one of the first of many to come.

I want to start off by thanking Lee for this wonderful opportunity. I have been following Lee's progress and I am just amazed at how much he does to help his wonderful wife, Jessica. I am very highly looking forward to reading The Hollow, as September 1st cannot come fast enough!

Books are food for the soul, without them, dreams can't come true.

Just like Mitali, I have been reading since I was little. I have also been writing. And crafting. I have always been creative and I've always loved diving head-first into new worlds and exploring everything books had to offer. I am currently writing my first novel and I hope maybe one day I'll be able to inspire someone the way I have been inspired. When I was little, I remember how much I loved Dr. Seuss books that graduated to R.L. Stein's Goosebumps books, and then I stumbled on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. I couldn't understand why so many kids in school couldn't understand his fluid, poetic words. They were like music to my ears.

I naturally had an affinity for "scary stories" and the paranormal, I always have. I remember one stormy summer afternoon when I was about 7 or 8 years old. My mother let my brother and I watch a movie called "It", adapted from a book of the same name written by renound author, Stephen King. I was floored. I was scared out of my mind at the clown. Mr. Curry still creeps me out when I imagine him in character as Pennywise the Clown. It marked me. To this day I am still afraid of clowns, thanks to Mr. King's brilliant mind! From that movie, I finally graduated to reading his books. I have a blog post in my MySpace account, found here, that explains just one of the few things that makes Mr. King so great at what he does. But, reader beware, it is graphical, as it is not a young adult book.

My absolute favorite book of Mr. King's is called Lisey's Story. It's about a widow dealing with the aftermath of her late husband's death. He was a brilliant writer (writing books much like what Mr. King writes), and it turns out that he had a little gift of his own, that he had once shown her. Now, that gift all but forgotten, she is faced with a crazed man who wants to get his hands on her late husband's writings, and she must turn to the gifted memories locked away in her head to save her. Good stuff!

This summer alone I have read countless books. I've read the Twilight series so many times I've lost count, as sort of a guilty pleasure. I've read the Sookie Stackhouse series so much I could read it through and play it like one long movie in the back of my mind. I also recently read another series, my first Harlequins! It was good, as it was a paranormal romance series, called Primal Edge by Rhyannon Byrd, but that's not what I'm going to talk about here today.

I've read The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe. I followed that book as if I was living in Connie's shoes. It was amazing the amount of history I learned from that one book alone, about the infamouse happenings of the Salem Witch Trials. The concept of "what if" is a very strong one. Think about it. What if there were real witches in and around Salem? This is exactly what Ms. Howe did. She took this world and brought out a true witch, one with powers that are passed down to their daughters over generations. It really makes a person wonder. And that right there is why I loved this book so much.

Right now I'm reading the first book in the Jaz Parks series called Once Bitten, Twice Shy by Jennifer Rardin. I've laughed so many times I think my husband thinks I've about fallen off my rocker! It's a story about a girl working as an undercover government assasin, with the best witty and wry sense of humor I have ever encountered. Her boss is a very old, very yummy vampire named Vayl. I'm only about halfway through the first book but I believe it's going to be counted in the Sookie and Twilight books as one of the most read series' on my bookshelf.

UPDATE: I have finished Once Bitten, Twice Shy the first of the Jaz Parks series, and I'm working my way through Another One Bites the Dust. I've just gotten through the part where Vayl kisses Jaz for the first time just because she was aggravating him. He says, "That will teach you for pushing a vampire to his limit." Here's one thing I have to say about that: "Aggravate away Jaz! Provoke that deadly yet delicious vampire till dawn." -But that's just me. I'm going to outline all those books that I've mentioned above. I won't give away any spoilers unless I warn you at the beginning of the post. Until next time, boys and ghouls. Stay sharp out there!