More booking adventures...

Most of you probably remember that 2 weeks ago, I bought an insanely big amount of books because it was the Customer Appreciation Day... well the evil, evil bookstores were distributing Twice as Nice cards... they still are actually.

So what's a Twice as Nice cards? Basically those are mystery cards that usually give you 5$ off... You could win more (10, 20, 100...) up to 2,500$ apparently... but of course, you have to be extremely lucky in order to win that much. If you look at the details on the back of the card, it's in fact almost impossible. Anyway, what's special about the Twice as Nice card is that you get to use it twice and the second time around, you get to save minimum 10$ instead of 5$. The catch, because there's always a catch? You have to purchase for a minimum of 50$.

So guess what? I got 2 of these cards... and I know it's stupid, because what are the chances that I win more than 5 or 10$ right? but there's always the what if chance. Long story short, I've been visiting the bookstores lately ^_^;

Quite frankly, I've been buying so much books lately that there's not many more books that I want. Worse is, December has very little releases that I'm looking forward to. However, I had a plan :) I've already used my Twice as Nice card once... so only 3 more times to go right? I was going to buy the new releases for December (as well as some others) and then, order books at a kiosk. See, although I can't use the card online, if I buy from a kiosk, it's okay... and there's been a couple of books that I was going to order online... So goodie :D

Thursday morning, I went to work late. Primary reason was my sister, she had to finish a paper. Then, that day, I was planning to go to the bookstore and figured it'd be better in the morning since I had the lab Christmas party in the evening (yes, weird... it was sooo early!). Here are the five books I was looking for more or less:

1) The Pagan Stone by Nora Roberts
2) Under the Mistletoe - anthology (it has the Bluebird Winter short story by Linda Howard)
3) Dead After Dark - anthology
4) Behind the Shadows by Patricia Potter
5) Simply the Best by Shirley Jump

There were two bookstores in downtown that was supposed to have them all (or almost). So I went to Coles first, because I figured it'd be easier to find the newest releases (no. 3, 4 and 5 are not supposed to be out yet)... So guess what? I found 1, 2 and 3... but not the two last ones. Ugh yeah, that's unfortunately not 50$... So I head to Indigo and crossed my fingers. I should have known better ^_^; Basically, it was chaos at Indigo! There were so many carts on which the books seemed to have been thrown on carelessly. Then, there were boxes in EVERY CORNER of the store!! I found 2 and 4 and that was it. You're read that right. I couldn't even find The Pagan Stone by the Queen of Romance!!! How wrong is that? When I asked for The Pagan Stone to the clerks - one said that she saw it in a box... but couldn't remember where the box was and was already busy with another customer. The other checked on the computer (there was >150+ copies of The Pagon Stone in the store, >800+ copies in Montreal. The clerk - an older man - was like: I didn't know there was that much people who read in Montreal... which would have been funny, if I wasn't so pissed), then on the shelves - as if I don't know how to do that. Basically, I was so annoyed and frustrated that I left. What pissed me off so much is that if I was able to combine what I've found in one store and the other, I would have reached the 50$ goal (well, I was still missing no. 5, but I could have easily replaced it with something else... Plus, Indigo has these very cute little book journal "What I read" which I think I'm going to stock up on)... and I didn't have the patience to order my books at the kiosk :(

Seriously, you know something is wrong with a bookstore when they don't put NR up as soon as they get it... and it was Thursday. The book officially came out Tuesday!!! I just couldn't believe. I really, really love the Indigo store. I like how big it is and the color schemes and the atmosphere... but please, oh please, hire more people!!! It's really sad when there's always boxes and carts full of books laying around :(

So what did I do in the end? I went to work, fumed a bit and re-designed a game plan. I went to Chapters, the third and last bookstore in downtown Montreal. I didn't go there in the first place, because I knew that didn't have Dead After Dark in-store yet. However, I was able to find 1, 2, 4 and 5!! Wowzer!!! That's the closest I came to 50$ in the whole day! Still, it wasn't enough... still had to find one or two books... and I thought, why not the new Eloisa James? I mean, I haven't read her books yet, but I have a couple at home and apparently, her newest is really, really good... Take a guess... Of course, Chapters didn't have When the Duke Returns in store! Seriously, I'm really starting to think that I'm cursed... and again, it was so frustrating, because I've seen When the Duke Returns both at Coles and Indigo! In the end, I found a book and add a book journal to my purchase to make it... then, I rushed to Coles before the Christmas party to get Dead After Dark, because I just couldn't wait to read Fury's story.

And that, my friends, is another of my booking adventures :P

My friend S thinks that I'm obsessed... and at this point, I think I agree with him ^_^;