The Mark of Athena...

I got my hands on the first book of the "Heroes of Olympus" series : "The Lost Hero" early this year. I couldn't put it down till the end - it was SO amazing! I immediately went out and got the next book, "The Son of Neptune", which was just as amazing and intense!

As the book neared the end I had this great sense of dread that it would not end as I had planned for it to. The entire story of "The Son of Neptune" was basically building you up to a certain point, and I had expected that point to be met  by the end of the book... It was however NOT.

I was utterly devastated and on the verge of pulling out my hair! I knew this series could just NOT end, it would be completely lame to end so open ended and unfulfilled. So I went online and saw that there was to be another installment, "The Mark of Athena" - the only problem was that it was only coming out on the 2nd of October!

After some ranting and raving I eventually managed to calm down and accept the reality - I would just have to wait, there was nothing else that could be done. I distracted myself with other books and managed to get by...

THEN, sometime later, I get an email from my cousin telling me that the book is available on "Fishpond" AND it is at a much cheaper price than I can expect to get it at anywhere else. I want to be sure of this before just ordering the book, so Sahil and I check out numerous book retailers online - Fishbond is the cheapest (and they also don't charge a delivery fee). So I order the book. However, something my cousin did not know, is that they charge a conversion fee - to convert our rands to their dollars. (Yes Leri, I'm blaming you for this one, only a little though, just for the bad/incomplete info - actually buying the book from there is my own fault). Alas, it turns out that after this conversion fee, the book works out to the same price as some stores, and even more than others...

So you can imagine the pain I went through on learning of this, but as Sahil put it, the book was already ordered and the money already gone through, there was nothing that could be done... I just had to write it down as a lesson learnt and NEVER to order from "Fishpond" again!

Today, the day "The Mark of Athena" came out, the day I've been eagerly awaiting, I find out that I am only to get my book by the 16th of October! And that's at the least! I guess I should have taken into consideration the travel time and what not, but I had just assumed that they would most probably get their hands on the book and post it for it to arrive to me by the 2nd October! (I clearly was not thinking clearly).

Hence, I am now completely disappointed. I could have just waited and bought the book at Exclusive books today at a cheaper price AND earned points for it!