Bargain Bin Rescue

When one works at a library from time to time, one tends not to purchase too many books.  One suggests to the acquisition librarian to buy them for you so everyone can share the joy.

Despite this, I do purchase the occasional book.  Sometimes I get my hands on them as soon as they are available (The Girl of Fire and Thorns, anyone?).  Most of the time, the books I buy, at my leisure, are because I personally know the author.

Once in a while, I'll pull one out of the Bargain Bin.  In Australia, books tend to be on the expensive side, so if you can nab 'em cheap, why not?

We've all seen them.  Those boxes or tables of unwanted, oversurplus, unsold books, the last stop before being donated to some charity shop (alas) or stripped of their covers and returned (alors!).

I had a conscious reason for browsing the Bargain Bin at a grocery store.  A daughter's friend was having a birthday party. I'd already bought several trinkets sure to please someone of that age, but why not a few more?

"She likes to read, doesn't she?" I asked the daughter.

"Yeah," she replied, less than enthusiastic.

I dug through the Bargain Bin.  Most books were too tedious or boring for a young teen.  But one caught my eye, one I would have devoured in a New York Minute at her age.

FALLEN by Tim Lebbon

Dontcha just love that cover?

Huh.  Never heard of him.  (Yeah, yeah. I've been living Down Under a rock.)  Pulled the book out, liked the cover, read the blurb, looked at the price, and tossed it in my basket without a second thought.

A week later, well after the party, I see the book on my desk. In a deliberate act of forgetfulness, the daughter did not give the book to her friend.  (I guess she knew best.)

So I crack open the cover and read the first few pages.   Nice mastery of the craft, but not as hooky as I needed in that moment.  (A later google showed this to be book 4 in a series.  D'oh!  I really wish they'd say these sorts of things on the cover, or inside, or, or... somewhere.  Toss me a frickin' bone, here, man!)

Still, I haven't lost complete interest in this book written by a New York Times Bestselling Horror Author.  (Again, why didn't I pick up on the name?)  Eventually, I'll read it.  Preferrably after I've read the first three.