If you give me a book by Jody Hedlund …

If you give me a book by Jody Hedlund, I will want to start reading it right away.

If I start reading it right away, I will let the children play anywhere in the house.

If I let the children play anywhere in the house, the house will get messy.

I will feel guilty and want to clean.

I will help them pick up,

Make them dinner,

And put them in bed as early as possible so I can get back to my book.

If the kids are in bed and the house is quiet, I will keep reading.

I will stay up too late.

In the morning, I will need extra coffee to start my day.

If I’m drinking coffee, I will need a book to read.

So I’ll continue reading the new  Jody Hedlund book.

One cup of coffee will turn to two.

And soon it’s midmorning and I haven’t washed a dish or folded a piece of laundry.

I will Tweet the author to tell her my house is being ignored because her book is so good.

Dear @jodyhedlund, the dishes need washing, the laundry needs folded, and I need to bake bread. Instead I am finishing A Noble Groom. 🙂

— Lisa Bartelt (@lmbartelt) March 23, 2013

She will have no sympathy and tell me I can clean later.

I will turn on cartoons so the kids will leave me alone to finish the book.

I will set the book down a dozen times near the end to wait on them.

When I read the last word, I will close the book,

And sigh.

I will plunge my hands in the dishwater and feel a sense of loss.

Because if I finish a Jody Hedlund book,

chances are,

I’ll want to read another one.

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I received a copy of A Noble Groom from the author in exchange for my review, which you can find here on Goodreads or here on Amazon.

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Post written with admiration for Laura Numeroff’s brilliant “If You Give a …” series of books.