We are happy to welcome Agatha-award winning author Robin Hathaway to our blog. I got to know Robin when I still lived in Pennsylvania and was a member of the Delaware Valley Sisters in Crime. Robin’s newest book is The Doctor Rocks the Boat, the most recent in the Dr. Fenimore series. She also writes another series about Jo Banks, a doctor who rides a *gasp* motorcycle. Welcome, Robin! Judy

A friend of mine believes that we all die from our addictions. If she is right, I will be killed by having a book fall on my head. All my life I have loved books. The feel of them, the smell of them. I even read them. I can never pass a bookstore without going in, and I can rarely leave one without buying a book. No wonder I own thousands of them.
But there is a limit, and I think I’ve reached it. Recently we had our library painted. (Library— as in a room with wall-to-wall shelves, a sofa and a reading lamp.) It was my job to move the books off the shelves before the painting, and back again afterward. They had to be moved in two days. Where to put them, was the question? I lined the halls, filled the closets, even the shower. (We disconnected the water in case someone forgot and turned it on.) The tower of books at the end of our bed was the tallest. At the end of two days, I went to bed, and fell asleep, totally exhausted.
At 3:00 AM my husband and I were awakened by this horrendous CRASH! It shook the house and set all the neighborhood dogs barking. I turned on the light and saw that the tower of books was gone. They were all over the floor. Fortunately, they fell away from the bed. Because there was nothing to do about it until morning, we lay there laughing like two fools, and went back to sleep. In the morning we had to pile up the books again before we could get out of the room.
Now all I have to do is put the books back on the shelves. My husband predicts this will take the rest of the year, because this time I have no deadline and I will be able to browse. He has made one request.
“Please move the books from the shower first. In this July weather I really can’t do without it.”