Crescendo, Charlotte Lamb
I am happiest when I am reading. I read all sorts of books, every genre.
I was thirteen/ fourteen when I found out that I like reading. There was a little corner in our house in Manila just above the stairs next to our veranda where books were filed high.I would sit reading by the window where it was cool. My favourite was a thick book about Nursery Rhymes and Poetry. I was absolutely fascinated with the mouse that run up the clock. LOL I know I was thirteen but the Philippines then was a different world. We do not normally read books for hobbies. We read Komicks, the illustrated stories.
Anyway when I was seventeen, we had a book report project in high school. I chose a Mills & Boons book as it was thin. But when I finished the book, I was hooked. I started reading with so much impunity that I read three Mills & Boons a day.
I used to read them under the cover of my blanket with a little torch when the lights were out for the night.
There were stories that I remember to these days. My favourite and my most hated books were coincidentally written by the same author, Charlotte Lamb. I read Crescendo a few times because I like the story. While I had to exchange A Man Apart because I really hated the story. My mother and sister got addicted with Mills & Boons too. We would regularly go to Claro M Recto to buy new ones and exchange books that we’ve read. We did have a large collection of Mills & Boons that we can’t be parted from, usually works by Carole Mortimer, Anne Mather, Margaret Way and Margaret Mayo.
I still read a lot but I now read works by P J Tracy, Kathy Reick, Karin Slaughter, James Patterson, etc. Our local vicar here in London once told me that Mills & Boons readers usually progress to reading serial killer books. hahaha
I also read a lot of non-fiction. I like books on religions, biographies, computers, health.
There are still days when I feel like reading a Mills & Boons but not too often anymore, I guess I don’t really like them as much, for one thing they are now too racy. They make me blush!!!