New blog found!

In this era of technology, I feel the same kind of exhilaration when I find a new and noteworthy blog than when I was younger and came across a hard-to-find book. Where I grew up, the bookstores were scarce and only carried the most boring books, and the library was laughable (except for its collection of Enid Blyton's and Agatha Christie's), so I felt in paradise whenever I found a good book.
The same thing happened to me today when I stumbled accross this blog-library thing between friends, and I think it's not only because they have listed the spanish version of "Moonstruck Madness", a book I've been hunting down forever.
This blog is a jewel, for the spanish-speaking-romance reader. A group of friends uploaded their romance novels, and you can find all these books you once read but didn't keep and later had you banging your head against the wall. With the growing romance novel business, the publishing houses don't reissue their older novels - they're not classics, after all - unless they were written by a very famous writer who's still writing today (like Johanna Lindsey, Jude Deveraux and Catherine Coulter). And why would they, when there's a bunch of new writers waiting to be published, and a lot of famous ones who have been transformed into machines that produce 2-3 books a year?
But sadly, this leaves us without the opportunity to get our greedy hands again in that Laurie McBain, or Valerie Sherwood, or Meagan McKinney that at the time didn't seem so good but has one or two scenes that have haunted you since and you would sell your soul to read it again. Or, to read that sequel or prequel, or relationed book that you didn't (or couldn't, if you lived at the end of the world as I did) buy. Or even get the last book of the author to complete your collection (yes, it definitely sounds annal, but WTH).
Even with amazon, or iBooks, or - name your poison - you can't get this Very Hard to Find books, and you are reduced to haunt used bookstores, garage sales, thrift stores, even garbage cans, in the vain hope that someone would have left some copy lying around - fat chance. Every single copy has been hoaged by the romance connoiseurs.
It's at this point that the friendly blog comes to your help, giving you the chance to get reaquited with your old friends, or to meet new ones that you have been waiting for a long time. For some reason, this is more common in spanish speaking blogs (and in eastern european ones, which could motivate you to learn a new language) than in english ones.
After thinking a little about my own experiences in a spanish speaking country, I guess this could be caused by the way the publishing houses torture us with their releases.
I'll explain: For a couple of years, you will find a pretty decent amount of romance novels. Nothing like in the USA, where RN are responsible for about 50% of the books sale (or so I read someplace... but you can go to Barnes & Noble or Borders and you'll find a HUGE collection... at least as big as Mystery). No, in my country you could find books by 5-10 of the most famous of the romance authors (J. Lindsey, J. Deveraux, K. Robards, C. Coulter, K. Woodiwiss).
But after they got you hooked, there was a drought of RN. Not a single one to be found in miles. Even used bookstores, petty snobs that they are, wouldn't buy them, so you wouldn't find a single title between their decaying copies of The Odissey.
It was like being a drug addict forced on abstinence, and it was awful. The only thing you could think was how to get another one. The RNs you had were reread 10 times each, but even that wouldn't satisfy you. And when you read in internet how your romance readers fellows were enjoying themselves with the latest Judith Ivory - which you hadn't seen in your life - well, sometimes things could get pretty though.
And then, out of the blue, another publishing house appeared, and started to sell RN again. But wait! They didn't publish the authors you loved and were dying to read, but some new to you authors. Something is better than nothing, so there you go, reading what was available. Sometimes they were good, sometimes not.
One of the problems is that the publishing houses try to sell books that are famous in the USA, by well known and big bucks authors. And they don't care if they start in the middle or the end of a series. That's how my first Stephanie Laurens was like her 10th book in the Cynster series. Sometimes they'll publish the rest of the series, sometimes not. And nobody can predict in which ilogical order they're going to publish the books. Most of the times, they don't bother to finish a series, either, even if it's only a duet or trilogy. Speaking of respect and consideration for their costumers!
That's why I started to read in english, because this torture/ilogical publishing thing was driving me crazy. Not to mention that they didn't publish a lot of the books I was dying to read and that I knew thanks to AAR.
Since a lot of the other spanish speaking readers have gone through similar experiences, I guess they decided to upload romance books that aren't easily available to many of us. All of these are in spanish, which means that a lot of time these same girls do the translation.
I'm very thankful to them. In their archives I've found books I read when I was little and have been lost while moving house or in the deepths of the attic/basement, and books I've been dreaming to read and haven't been able to buy ... like "Moonstruck Madness".
I still prefer to read in english, and I still prefer slightly the paper books over the electronic ones (but that's only since my Sony eReader died), but it's very relaxing to know you can surf the web and find books you thought you were never seeing again.