This Wednesday swung around faster than I can believe! I'm exhausted right now. I just returned from a most delightful book reading and signing and one of you will be the recipient of a lovely, signed, debut novel at some time in the near future.
Waiting on Wednesday is the creation of Jill over at Breaking the Spine and what a great creation it was. It gives us a chance to learn about great new stories we may not have otherwise.
This week, I have a confession to make. See the book noted above? (Come closer please so I can whisper this in your ear...) I'm not really waiting on it. I've read it. But this is certainly a book YOU should be waiting for. I happened to discover it when Simon and Schuster sent me an e-galley of the story. I finished it in short order. I'm a romance kinda girl and romance in some form, makes up a large part of what I read. I don't think I would have picked this book up ordinarily and I would have been the loser.
It's a timely story too. With the tragic shooting of the congresswoman and those unfortunate souls in Arizona, their story floated through my mind as I read Angry Young Man. It's the tale of the complex relationship of two brothers: Robert, the eldest and Alexander (Xan) the youngest--and the weirdest. Check out a bit of the excerpt from the first chapter:
THE SWEEPER AND THE STRIKER
I want you to understand my brother. I don't need you to, so don't get all worked up over it or anything. Ultimately you can do what you like. But I would like for you to understand him.As far as that goes, I'd like to understand him myself.
"What are you doing with those on?" I ask him when I walk into the room. He is just standing there, unoccupied as he often seems to be, in the small bedroom we still share. It's about three years after we should have stopped sharing a room, or much of anything else, but this is beyond our control. The those I am talking about are tinted glasses, kind of dark amber, which make him look something like a 1970s pimp. "They make you look like a pimp."
"Don't talk to me like that. You know I don't like that kind of talk. Anyway, they are glasses. I wear glasses, to be able to see, and you know that."
I do know that. "I didn't know that you wear pimp glasses, though. You wear them to see hookers, is that it? Can I have a shot?"
"Did I ask you to stop talking to me like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like . . . stop it, Robert. I'm serious."
He is. He is very serious. My brother has a number of problems, one of them being me. I am a pain in his ass, and I know it. He is also very fortunate to have me, and he knows it.
