Went to a birthday party for our daughter-in-law last night. Lots of Filipino food and good company. A "disco ball" and some karaoke" rounded out the evening. Always fun to spend time with the family.

We got home early enough for me to finish Philippa Gregory's "Zelda's Cut." I've always enjoyed her novels and they have always been about history with some fictional characters thrown in to make an interesting story. I didn't realize that she had written any other kind of novel until this one. I truly feel as though I finished a Danielle Steel novel and that I haven't done in forever. The main character is an author who has spent her life in academia and writing novels of repute. Publishing consistently but about every 2 to 3 years. Her books are award winners but as time has gone by she has lessened in popularity and is now only bringing in 20,000 pounds (set in England) per book. Comfortable living if her husband had not been ill for the last 10 years and dependent on her taking care of him financially. His demands for a better life style for his physicals well being leads her to make a drastic change. Never one to write "smut" she is forced to take on a different project and write "out of her box" to make the big money and transform herself into a different type of author. This leads to a secret life that only her agent knows about and is very involved in. The money is so much better for this kind of writing. Her first book is launched with a reward to her of 350,000 pounds. It doesn't bring her the reward she hoped for. I could tell from the early stages what was going to happen to her character. Wasn't hard to figure out. I kind of feel that the author took herself "out of the box" with this kind of novel and I like it better when she stays with her old standard style.

It is interesting when you order books that have been out of print for a while and you find them on places like Amazon.com. Since I prefer a hardback book you can get them from vendors who go through Amazon to sell their books and, of course, they want you to rate their transaction so that they can get 5 stars and be the vendor that you pick over another. You can post your comments on Amazon and/or to the vendor directly. The condition of the book when it arrives may not necessarily be what was disclosed by the seller so they don't get a good review. That happened yesterday when I answered a request for feedback from a vendor who had mailed a book to me in less than the "like new" condition that was promised. There was damage to the book jacket which I remove and store anyway, but if you don't have it the value of your book is greatly reduced. There were two areas of damage to the actual book. A little glue fixed one area and the other wasn't real drastic. I wrote that to the vendor and almost instantly received an email back asking if she thought the post office had done the damage since she was actually selling her own library which had been carefully handled and only read once. I had not seen damage to the package and didn't think that the broken binding came from shipping and told her so. Another email came flying back and in it a "life story" and an offer for a partial refund. I guess the bond between book lovers makes for instant friendships out of complete strangers.