The last stop on my tour was the Borders in Stamford, CT, and since it was just four days before Valentine's Day, I stopped at the local bakery and bought heart shaped cookies and chocolate roses to bring along.

I arrived on Saturday at 1 PM, eager to meet new fans and sign a few books. The bookstore was crowded, but with mostly moms and dads with kids in tow.

Not exactly the right crowd to listen to me read a mystery with a dash of eroticism thrown in. This was really what I had been dreading all along. The no-show reading.

In retrospect, mid afternoon on a Saturday in a family neighborhood probably wasn't the best time for a reading of IN FIDELITY. But there I was. With candy and cookies and books and my lucky pen. But without a crowd.

The manager was delightful, the staff kind and considerate. Two of them bought my book and had me sign it, saying they'd read my last novel and loved it. But the fact was --- there I was with an hour to spend in the store and a very big plate of heart shaped butter cookies dipped in chocolate and two dozen long stem chocolate roses wrapped in red foil. (Which had cost me a chunk of change.)

The minutes were going slowly indeed. And it looked like it was going to be a very long hour.

I kept noticing how all the kids walking by were looking over at the plate of cookies as if they had radar and the chocolate hearts were emitting a beat of their own.

So I improvised. I took the cookies and the chocolate roses and went over to the children's section of the bookstore.

Ah, here was a crowd. Not my crowd. But a crowd, nonetheless.

Searching the shelves, I found one of my all time favorite books from when I was a little girl and pulled it off the shelf.

"Hey, does anyone want to listen to me read from Eloise?" I asked. "And I've got some cookies you can have if you want."

The reading began without delay.

So what if I wasn't reading from my own novel? I was reading --- and reading one of the most beguiling stories ever written.

I'd forgotten how much I loved Eloise in her mary janes and black pleated skirt. And that her turtle eats raisins and that Nanny's hair is always in a tight little bun. And I hadn't remembered just how much trouble one little girl can get into or how much havoc she can wreak in the halls of the Plaza Hotel on New York's elegant Fifth Avenue.

The kids couldn't resist either the cookies or the roses or the story, and I spent a delightful half-hour lost in Kay Thompson's world, laughing over Hilary Knight's drawings.

As readings go, this one was --- in Nanny's words --- "rawther" a change of pace.

When I was finished, there wasn't a cookie crumb left and I had an audience of more than a dozen kids on a sugar high. Not to mention that five of the moms had gone over and bought copies of my novel while I'd been entertaining their kids. Even one dad bought IN FIDELITY for his wife as a Valentine's present.

After five weeks and seven cities, the last thing I expected was to end my reading tour with Eloise's words instead of those of my main character --- Jordan Sloan.

But then again, Eloise was one of the characters who made me fall in love with books when I was a kid.

In a way, it was fitting to let the little imp have the last word.

So along with Skipperdee (who is her turtle), and Weenie (who is her pug dog), and with her constant companion Nanny nearby --- Eloise and I wish you happy reading.

Oooooooooooooooooo don't you absolutely love books.

--- M. J. Rose