Coup de Ville In a Cracker Jacks Box

I confess I rarely shop in bookstores these days. My little suburb doesn't have a mom and pop bookstore, or rather, the mom and pop bookstore that we did have couldn't compete with the Barnes & Noble and Borders a mere mile and a half down an easy road, so it packed up and moved out. It's a crime, really. My little downtown boasts, like, a gazillion restaurants of a dizzying variety of ethnicities, but we can't keep in business one decent-sized bookstore? For shame.

Anyway, since I can't support the local guy with my book-buying dollars and would be giving them to the Big Bad National Chains anyway, I do the majority of my book buying on-line. I'm nearly always guaranteed I'll find what I want at Amazon.com. And I usually have no problem reaching the $25 limit that qualifies me for free shipping. Yeah, I have to wait a few days for my stuff to arrive, but I usually don't mind.

Another reason I don't shop in bookstores is because I rarely am child-free, which is the only way I enjoy going to bookstores. My kids don't allow me leisurely browsing rights, so it's quick in, pick up what I need, quick out when they're tagging along. I remember the glory days when hubby and I would spend hours before or after a nice dinner out, perusing the aisles of the Lincoln Park Barnes & Noble on Diversy. Bliss. Now we consider that a big treat when the kids are away at grandma and grandpa's house.

So Thursday afternoon (which looks like today based on the date of this post, but is really yesterday since I intended for this post to go live on Friday but can't figure out how to hold it until then) I found myself with some unexpected free time, so I cruised on down to B&N. I really wanted to get the second and third titles in Pamela Aiden's Fitzwilliam Darcy series (Duty and Desire and These Three Remain) and thought maybe I could find them locally rather than wait the week or so for an Amazon delivery. Plus, I was reluctant to place an Amazon order since next Tuesday Lover Eternal by J.R. Ward is due to come out. The wisest course of action would be to place one order, get my free shipping, and be done with it. But that would mean waiting an extra week for my Darcy books. You all already know that I'm not a patient person.

So off to B&N I go, happy happy happy when I find the third title in the Darcy trilogy. Sadly, the second title is not there. But that's okay. I found two other books I didn't know I desperately needed and headed off to the Borders a mere 1/10th of a mile up the road.

Borders didn't have Duty and Desire either. But...

But!!! I decided to peruse the romance section, to see if maybe DaD might be shelved there instead of in literature. And what do you suppose I found? A whole five days early??

Lover Eternal!!!

Gak! Yes, this is worthy of multitudes of exclamation points. I snatched that baby up like a Snickers bar at a fat farm.

Now, I have no idea if Borders made some kind of error and put the book on the shelf before they were supposed to. I know if this were of Harry Potter status, there's no way I would have seen a peak of this book until its official March 7 release date. All I know is that I wanted to run around the store and kiss someone, because I got this book a full two weeks earlier than I'd expected to have it (when you add in the shipping time).

So, yes, I've already jumped in head first. I won't say a word about it until end of next week, to keep the sanctity of the release date pure. No spoilers from me. Nope. No way. Do you think I'd risk pissing off the good karma that sent me stumbling blindly down the path that lead to this unexpected treasure?

Woo Hoo!!