Discussion Time!

Over at the better, smarter, funnier website, they have incited a discussion about Books You Would Like to Rediscover. You know, the ones that were so good you wish there could be some sort of strategic, Sydney-Bristow-like precision memory erasing so that you could pick it up and be thrilled, amused, heart-broken, and overheated all over again, in the way only a first-reading can accomplish.

So that got me thinking, what would my first choice for that be? To be sure, every Kresley Cole EVER with the exception of maybe two. I still remember the first time I picked up her first books. I have no idea what made me do it (Amazon rec, author quote on the book...?), but I knew by the time I had finished Captain of All Pleasures (no snickering!) that I had discovered a new "favorite author." A lot of writers take a while to hit their stride (Hi, Linda Howard and Sandra Brown. What's going on?), but once they get there, they nail it (pun... yep, pun intended). Kresley Cole had it down on the first go, which speaks volumes about the quality of her work since and in the future.

Oh look, I've digressed! ALL of that aside, when I talk about a book I wish I could un-remember for the joy of reading it *again for the first time*, Guardian Angel by Julie Garwood is the only correct answer.

As a heroine, Jade rocks my world, what with all the lying and the stealing and the incredible ability to fool anyone she has ever come across, with the sole exception of the Marquess of Cainewood (or so he would really, really like to think). The story progesses merrily along, and you think you know "the answer" because everyone in the whole book is so sure of it themselves-- Jade's brother Nathan is the notorious Pirate Pagan who killed Caine's brother (although there is definitely A Misunderstanding there) and Caine has to decide how he's going to keep Jade even after he kills her brother.

And then Uncle Harry shows up.

Look, I'm not going to get into the glorious 100+ page sequence in which Nathan strolls into Cainewood to find Caine threatening his sister, in which Sterns hides the silver under the bed, in which Harry carries Caine's stepmother out of the house with the sure knowledge that "Caine would want me to have her!" but it needs to be said that nothing can make me smile harder, laugh louder, or jump up and down in my seat quite like Guardian Angel. And that's after at least 10 readings.

I remember distinctly the moment that scene reached its pivotal moment... because a neighbor came over to insist that I come swimming. I went to the pool, but never got in. There was no way I was putting that book down.

So Wendy... you're up ;)