Warning: Not for the squeamish!

Talk about different spectrums of this business. I had a blinder of a day today. Two of the loveliest gentlemen I had the pleasure of meeting. The kind of gents who remind me about the good things about this job.

And then….there’s  the oddest phone call I got this morning, just as my first client was turning up.

I received the call from a gentleman who had previously booked for this coming Friday afternoon. He called for two reasons; 1) to tell me that he’d read my blog and would like the Karin Slaughter novel I mentioned yesterday. That’s fine, no problem, I’ll make sure and bring it with me.

Then he says, a friend of his has been looking at my site. He has been looking at my diary page and has seen my regular availability every week. This bloke has asked his friend to ask me, get this, when do I menstruate?

No word of a lie. He’s asked his mate to ask me, a total stranger, when do I have my periods?? Umm, how about none of your business. I was incredulous as I told him to tell his mate as much. I mean, this isn’t the type of question you’d even ask your mother or your sister. Why on earth this guy thought it was okay to ask me about my menstrual cycle Lord only knows.  And not even having the kahonies (sp?), the balls, the nads, to ask me himself. He got his mate to do the dirty work for him.

Sorry mate; the words “socially” and “lacking” spring to mind here and I would rather you didn’t book an appointment with me if that’s what you were thinking. If you think it’s acceptable to ask a woman whose real name you don’t even know, somebody you’ve never even met, those kinds of personal questions, goodness knows what sort of things you think might be okay to say or do in a booking. I found the whole thing somewhat, well, eewww! Not to mention totally inappropriate.

If you felt uncomfortable reading this, imagine how I felt on the other end of the line.

Seriously….

I went into Croydon this morning to run some errands and I picked up a book at the Sussex Bookshop and Stationers that the manager had run around getting for me. I ordered it last week and was horrified to learn soon after that it was a book I already had and I didn’t have the heart to tell him today. It was my fault. The book is called Fractured, by Karin Slaughter. If you’re a fan like me you’ll know that her book titles are very similar sounding.

I paid my £4.99 and thanked him very much for all the running around he’d done on my behalf. So if anybody reads Karin Slaughter and hasn’t read Fractured yet, I’d be happy to let you have it. Brand new, still in the paper bag. The one I’m after is called Broken and as you can see below the covers are similar too. That’s my excuse anyway, and I’m sticking to it.

So if anybody out would like a brand new copy of Fractured by Karin Slaughter, do let me know. Otherwise it’ll go to my local charity shop.

If you haven’t already gents, for your summer reading, may I recommend the trilogy that starts with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Absolutely brilliant stuff. There’s not a book I haven’t been unable to put down for a while and the 2nd and 3rd in this trilogy have been unputdownable. They’re written by the late (great) Stieg Larsson and he was actually in the middle of writing a fourth novel when he passed away prematurely (I think he was only in his forties). The first novel did take some time for me to get into, but once in I was riveted. Highly recommended.

I also read Tess Gerritsen’s Keeper of the Bride (meh!) and her latest The Killing Place (much better). I’m now on David Baldacci’s True Blue and I have also bought Stephen King’s Under the Dome. I was a little reticent about buying it, I don’t feel he’s written a decent novel in years. But the guy in the bookshop assures me it’s as good as The Stand, which I feel was his finest work, so that sold me and the critique on the cover reads well. It’s a hefty book though, so that’ll take some time. And I still have Karin Slaughter’s latest novel to get too.

But if you’re stumped for something to read, read the Millenium trilogy by Stieg Larsson. Honest, you won’t be able to put them down. Btw, the 2nd and 3rd’s way better than the first.