Day 117: My new best friend

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 117: My new best friend

I have a new best friend and now that we’ve met, I can’t believe it took me this long to make his acquaintance. I’ve been reading for decades, the bookstore being my home away from home, and yet I never paid him the slightest of attention. His name, James Patterson.

Those who are familiar with his work will probably gasp “You never read a James Patterson novel!” and to my shame, I must admit that I never did. I thought his books were not my cup of tea. I saw the movie “Along Came a Spider” of course, with Morgan Freeman portraying Alex Cross, but I had no interest in his other stories.

That all changed last Friday. I found myself in downtown Toronto with nothing to read. The nearest bookstore would have taken me a good 20-minute walk and I just didn’t have the time or the energy to go that far. So I popped into the nearest Drug Market and browsed book section.

There wasn’t much choice: the usual romance novels, fantasy and science-fiction, children’s books and some murder mystery stories. One of them was ‘The Store’ by James Patterson. I picked it up, flipped it over to read the synopsis and … hm, this sounded interesting. So I paid for it and walked out with it.

And OMG the story was so gripping that I couldn’t put the book down. If it had been possible I would have read the story cover to cover in one sitting. The further I got the more enthralled I became and near the end the building could have collapsed around me, the steak could have burned on the pan, I had to know how this ended.

The second story in the book was called ‘The End’ with Owen Taylor as the main character. At first, I didn’t like this story. It was a war story and not only do I have zero interest in war stories, it’s set in the middle east, which interests me even less. But I had paid for the book so I might as well read it.

It didn’t take long for me to get absorbed in the story and once again I found myself reaching for the book every chance I got. Near the end, I literally couldn’t put the book aside and so I stayed up until 2:45 a.m. to know how Owen Taylor fixed his problem. And I was not disappointed. The ending was superb, and so much so that I found myself cheering for this man.

All too often I buy a book and like the story, but near the end, it seems the author got fed up with writing and rushes the conclusion or the ending is completely unsatisfactory. That was not the case with ‘The Store’ or ‘The End’. Patterson wrapped both of them up nicely leaving the reader hungry for more.

And hungry for more I was. As soon as the book was finished I wanted to read another one of James Patterson's works. Having arrived at the bookstore (a proper bookstore this time) I was in for a surprise though … there were no less than five shelves of James Patterson books. Oh dear oh dear oh dear, now what was I gonna do? How would I make a choice? So I did the only thing I could do … eeny meeny miny moe and I picked the book where my finger came to a rest. The book turned out to be ‘Guilty Wives’. I’m only a few chapters in the book but I can already tell, this is another excellent story.

I guess it’s safe to say that James Patterson and I will have a long and happy relationship. 

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