Useful skill – reading like the wind

The Patron Saint of the Quill Sisters is Julia Quinn.

All hail the Julia.

Honestly, she is the one who set us on this path. Good or bad, this is all her fault.

When a Julia book comes out, we’re like the crazy people at the bookstore, our faces pressed against the window, drumming our fingers against the glass until they let us in.

The Sum of All Kisses came out this week. I bought it immediately, even knowing I can’t read it until I finish the manuscript that is overdue and the book I’m currently reading. You can tell I love Ava because I gave her Ms. Quinn’s book to read on Monday evening – with the stipulation that she finish it by end of business Tuesday. Otherwise there is the potential the long holiday would commence, I would finish my manuscript AND my current book and risk the potential that I wouldn’t have Ms. Quinn’s book to read.

We’ve all lived through an episode of that horror show and none of us wants to do it again. It would probably be less terrible to live through a zombie apocalypse than that. Or being revisited by the plague. Or a nuclear war.

Seriously. It’s that awful.

Ava read while on the treadmill at work. She read while on boring conference calls. She read while she was doing everything in an effort to be done before the end of work. I left her alone because I was dying to read it.

“The brilliant Julia is baaaaa-aaaaaack,” she’d tease. Later she insisted, “Oh my God, listen to this line.”

My response was always, “Get back to reading, you!”

Well she did it! She did it! She read Ms. Quinn’s book all day and gave it to me at 5:45. I CAN’T WAIT.

Now, if I could just finish writing Chapter 23.

Hold on, Julia, I’m coming!