Daily Archives: July 12, 2009
Book Log #45: When Gods Die, by C.S. Harris
| July 12, 2009 | Posted by annathepiper under Book Log |
|
The second Sebastian St. Cyr mystery is a decent episode in the series, following up on Book 1 by giving us a nice juicy politically motivated murder–and a side helping of expounding upon the background of Sebastian, revealing all sorts of intriguing secrets about his mother. It seems that the lady did not in fact die when Sebastian was eleven, as he’d been told, and that furthermore, a certain necklace that’s cropped up in the case he’s trying to solve ties back to her. Meanwhile, we learn more of why Kat, the actress Sebastian loves, steadfastly refuses to marry him: she has political intrigue in her own background, a life she’s desperately trying to abandon.
All in all the murder’s fun enough, set up intriguingly and giving an interesting portrait of Englad at the time, and in particular the popular opinion of the Prince Regent. But what really drove the plot for me here more is the background on Sebastian’s mother as well as the background with Kat. I’ll be very interested to see how this progresses with Book 3. Four stars.
Book Log #44: The Loch, by Steve Alten
| July 12, 2009 | Posted by annathepiper under Book Log |
|
Steve Alten’s The Loch was a grocery store impulse buy for me, and I have to admit I was drawn in by the promise in the blurb of a scientist guy haunted by a drowning experience in his childhood and being driven back to Loch Ness in Scotland to investigate whether the monster is really real. Sounds like fun, I said to myself.
Problem is, as grocery store impulse buys often do, the book just didn’t work for me over all. Our hero’s father is one big reason; the man’s an abusive prat, and constantly maligns his son’s manhood, calling him “lass” and randomly chosen feminine names practically every time he addresses him. And yet this is apparently all for the altruistic purpose of making Zach face his childhood fears. Um, what? Really? I gritted my teeth practically every time the character opened his mouth, and when Zach actually finally called his dad on his abusive asshattery, it really was too little too late for proper emotional satisfaction, even if it does shut dear old Daddy up.
Also, although this is less the fault of this book in particular and more the fault of being a general trope: I am generally crankier these days about romance plots that equate strong lust with actual love at first sight. I did sympathize with our hero getting dumped by his annoying fiancee after his initial accident, but wound up losing a good bit of that sympathy as his romance with his Actual Love Interest played out. Too many overused romance cliches, there.
Now, all this said, I did at least like the book well enough that I kept reading to the end, and it was doing interesting things with tying in the history of the Loch Ness monster to a centuries-old Jesuit conspiracy and a secret order. And it did have at least a bit of decent suspense. So overall, I’ll give it two stars.
Faerie Blood around the net
| July 12, 2009 | Posted by annathepiper under Faerie Blood |
|
The magic Google Alert gnomes have informed me that Faerie Blood is for sale on at least three different Mobipocket partner sites: The Plot Thickens (where I am apparently one of the books of the month), CyberRead, and a site in the Netherlands!
This is really kind of cool. Sort of the online equivalent of seeing my work on the shelf in a brick-and-mortar bookstore!
And yet, there’s no sign of me on Amazon yet. Gah!
Hey, Lament beta readers?
| July 12, 2009 | Posted by annathepiper under Valor of the Healer |
|
I haven’t heard anything out of anyone besides , so if any of you all have anything to say to me about the novel, do please let me know tonight if possible. If you don’t have anything you think is a shipstopper, I want to get the thing sent off to Ms. Fox tomorrow!
Thanks again for all your help, folks. It is very, very much appreciated!
Recent Comments