Dear Adam (2 page)

@adamagelast Thank you! I will not
apologize. I drove almost 20 minutes just to get to the
signing.

He replied right back.

@bookbohemian 20 minutes? That must have
been exhausting. What is your preferred of the 3 so far?

@adamagelast The lengths I go through...My
fave is The Midnight Garden, an unforgettable introduction to
Grimondo. Yours?

@bookbohemian Without doubt Midnight as
well. Though the 4th is supposed to be operatic & eclipse the
former.

@adamagelast Eclipse Midnight? That would be
a feat. Nevertheless, my imagination is wild with how everything
will be tied together.

@bookbohemian And now I want to visit
Barcelona. The power of literature.

@adamagelast When I went to Barcelona, I
tried to envision Valiente's world but it was hard as some of the
areas are so touristy.

@bookbohemian I heard that. I have passed
through but this time I'll be hunting, book in hand, comme un
geek.

Not only did @adamagelast read, but travelled
as well. Eden tried to squelch the tiny stirring of excitement.

She was about to reply, but paused. This was
the most she had ever “talked” with anyone on Twitter. There were
other book bloggers with whom she would say hi in passing every
once in awhile or comment on one of their tweets. She was only on
Twitter minimally as an accompaniment to her blog. She did most of
her online socializing by visiting other book reviewers on their
blogs.

Her hesitation lasted briefly for
@adamagelast soon tweeted her again, not waiting for her reply. As
though he were prompting her. It dawned on her that this was an
actual conversation.

@bookbohemian I listened to the audio book
of Angel last week after reading. Grimondo was voiced in a British
accent. Quite bizarre.

@adamagelast Oh, no, that will not do. For
some reason, I imagine him looking and sounding like Roberto
Benigni in Life is Beautiful.

@bookbohemian That’s imaginable. Were you
satisfied with the ending of Angel?

@adamagelast Of course I wasn’t satisfied!
What will Lucien's fate be? He will attempt to avenge his mother's
death but at a heavy cost.

@adamagelast What ever befell Marquez, he's
obviously not dead. And that dastardly Cain Roquier - ooh, I hope
he gets what’s coming to him.

@adamagelast But nothing had better happen
to Grimondo in the next book or I will curse Valiente for ever
after. And you, what did you think?

For some reason, she could picture
@adamagelast, whoever he was, chuckling at her rapid succession of
Tweets, straining against the 140-character constraint. Nothing got
her quite so passionate as the topic of books.

@bookbohemian You really are a fan. I agree
with all you said, but don't worry about Grim, he'll be safe in the
palace of memories thinking up outlandish new schemes.

“
Umm,” Eden heard someone
say. She looked up in guilty haste, at the same time swiftly
closing the web browser. No one at work knew she was on Twitter,
much less had a blog. And she wanted to keep it that way. She tried
not to look annoyed at having been interrupted.

“
Hello.”

It was one of the newer police officers from
Santa Margarita. He had been taken on a tour of the District
Attorney’s office perhaps six months ago and given the lay of the
land. She didn’t recall his name, but remembered how young he
looked, freshly scrubbed, his navy uniform starched and pressed,
his badge shiny with ambition.

“
Uh, hi.” he now said,
shifting on one foot then the other as he looked at her. “Where do
I return my subpoena?” He held up a piece of paper.

“
Over there,” Eden pointed
to the basket right next to him which bore a large, yellow sign
that stated “SUBPOENA RETURNS.” She could have sworn he asked the
same question last week. And the week before that.

Santa Margarita’s in trouble if he was the
one guarding its streets.

“
Oh,” he smiled
apologetically as he dropped the subpoena in the basket. “Thank
you.”

“
You’re welcome,” Eden said
then turned around again to face her computer. She waited to hear
him leave her cubicle so she could get back on Twitter but he
stayed where he was.

“
Is that your brother?” She
turned. He was pointing to the pictures of Dante plastered all over
her cubicle wall. Dante hiking in their trip to Spain two years
ago. Dante in his basketball uniform. Dante with his baby
cousins.

“
No,” Eden smiled. “That’s
my seventeen-year-old,” she said slowly and
deliberately.

“
Your seven-,” he said
thunderstruck, eyes bulging. His head swiveled from Dante to her
then back again, face slightly reddening.

Eden felt embarrassed, for him and for
herself. She should be flattered every time she got mistaken for
Dante’s sister, even his girlfriend (to Dante’s horror). She wished
that she could come with a flashing sign saying, “I'm 35 years old
and have a son that's almost full grown.” It would make things
easier for everyone.

“
Hi, Beau!” Lisa popped her
head in, a big smile on her face. “Dropping off a subpoena?” Unlike
Eden, Lisa loved cops. And the cops loved her. She was blonde and
outgoing and everything else Eden was not.

“
Oh, hey, Lisa,” he
replied, his bewilderment vanishing. Everyone knew Lisa, even
newbies.

“
Are you going to Denali’s
tonight?” Lisa asked with a wink. Eden was always in awe of how
women like Lisa made even the most banal question sound like a
double entendre. Denali’s was the bar across the freeway where most
of the cops, some of the attorneys, and “badge bunnies” like Lisa
hung out after work.

“
Yeah, sure. Are you?” Lisa
and Beau headed out of her cubicle and continued their conversation
in the hallway, to Eden’s relief.

She immediately brought up her browser and
logged onto Twitter again. @adamagelast hadn’t tweeted her anything
else while she had been talking to the officer. She was surprised
to realize how much she’d enjoyed their little exchange and felt a
twinge of disappointment.

Curious, she clicked on @adamagelast’s
avatar, which brought up his profile. All his bio said was an
enigmatic “In the blue continent.” He was only following one
account - hers.

She scrolled down his history of tweets. The
first one he ever posted was this morning. To her.

Chapter
2

BOOK BOHEMIAN BLOG

POST TITLE: Beautifully Ravaged by Scarlett
James

DATE OF POST: August 1

Book Bohemian has not been taken
over by an alien - I am indeed reviewing a romance novel. Cassie at
The Library Eclectic has dared me, and I am not one to back away
from a challenge. If I can read Finnegan's Wake and survive
(barely), I can surely read anything you throw at me. Cassie, I can
hear your *evil laugh* all the way from Idaho. Keep it down, will
ya?

Cassie has been an evangelist
for
Beautifully Ravaged
, the first in the Beautiful series by Scarlett James, saying
that I "MUST READ IT!!!" With her
all-caps-and-triple-exclamation-marks endorsement as enticement, I
dove into
Beautifully Ravaged
with an open mind.

In sum, while considerably less
painful than reading James Joyce, I am torn about this book. On the
one hand, I can see why it is on top of the lists. The characters
of Jax and Devon are compelling, each one haunted by tragic pasts
and dark secrets. James does a creditable job fleshing them out and
making them relatable.

However, what I did not find
authentic was the insta-love relationship that developed.
Insta-lust, quite natural. The sexual chemistry between Jax and
Devon was hot enough to burn the pages of my book. The steamy
scenes made my ears red, to be frank. But pledging eternal love
after two weeks of nothing but sexual escapades is just not what I
define as romantic. For instance, one of the pivotal scenes in the
book occurs right after a romp at a truck stop. ("I'll just die if
you don't take your pants off this minute and stick it to me!"
"Ooh, baby I love you so fucking much!)

Perhaps I'm too old-fashioned. When
I think of romantic, I think of Jane Austen. I think of deep
conversations, the exchange of heartfelt letters, a meeting of
souls. What was lacking in this romance novel, for me, was quite
simply - the romance.

So Cassie, now that I've
read
Beautifully
Ravaged
, I am throwing the gauntlet. I
triple-dog dare you to read
Persuasion
by Jane
Austen.

COMMENTS:

Micha {Page Turner}: You read a
romance novel?! *falls in a dead faint*

Cassie {The Library Eclectic}:
Yipeeee!!! Haha, my plan for world domination is coming together.
I'll take your Persuasion and raise you a Pride and Prejudice. Care
to further your romance novel education??? Beautifully Obsessed is
beckoning...

Erin {Bibliology}: I’ll get the
smelling salts for Micha.

Alice {The Bluestocking}: Just
looked out the window. Yep, pigs are flying.

"Got Intrigue at Istanbul by Jonathan
Frasier in the mail. Yay!"

@bookbohemian Intrigue at Istanbul is a
decent book. Frasier reminds me of Le Carre, increasingly.

Eden smiled when she got an e-mail alert that
@adamagelast had replied to her morning tweet. Whoever
@adamagelast, she was more than happy to talk about literature with
him.

@adamagelast Decent only? Not so thrilled
now. I was lured by the Guler photo on the cover & the setting,
perfect for espionage.

@bookbohemian Gripping in parts. Slow in
parts. It depends what you compare it to in the same genre. It
stands on its own, more or less.

@bookbohemian Certainly more entertaining
& worthwhile than Beautifully Ravaged

Although she didn't read contemporary romance
novels as a rule, @adamagelast's comment hinted of a sexist
literary snobbishness that instantly got her hackles up. She
started sharpening her knives.

@adamagelast Oh? Have you something against
romance novels and the silly women who read them. Like me?

@bookbohemian You can probably be called
many things, but silly would not be one of them. Discriminating.
Venturesome. To name a few.

@bookbohemian I just happen to share your
view that romance means something infinitely more meaningful than a
truck stop dalliance.

Just as instantly, Eden's
hackles went down and she was disarmed. Besides, if she was going
to do battle with a stranger over a book, that book would not
be
Beautifully Ravaged
.

@bookbohemian Although I am not a romantic
at heart, but a cynic, so I am not well-versed on the subject.
Perhaps you could instruct me.

She was not only disarmed but blushing now.
She felt slightly unsure of herself. She could trade barbs across
any medium without hesitation, but overtly flirtatious exchanges
made her shy. She decided to ignore his last tweet.

@adamagelast I don't usually read spy
novels, so I'm very excited to start Intrigue.

@bookbohemian If venturing into that genre
for the first time, it should be Le Carre. Perhaps I'm being harsh,
but it didn't bowl me over.

@adamagelast It's that unremarkable?

@bookbohemian No, no, but I'm inebriated
with great novels I've recently consumed, so I'd say it's good, but
it doesn't make me feel bashful.

Eden chuckled. There was such brashness in
@adamagelast’s replies that she suspected bashfulness was a foreign
concept to him.

@adamagelast What great novels are these
that so intoxicated you?

@bookbohemian Angel’s Shadow, A Storm in
Madrid. Piano by Jean Echenoz, and Hemingway's Boat, albeit
nonfiction.

Ah, Hemingway. Of course. She was getting a
fuller picture of @adamagelast now. Bold, with very masculine
taste. A man of appetites?