January 2010

I’m sure that people with more archaeology clues than me could find all sorts of issues with Nora Roberts’ Birthright, wherein much of the plot is driven by finding a several-thousand-year-old burial site near the small town of Woodsboro. But really, this is all background to the main plot of this story: Callie Dunbrook discovering that the parents who raised her are not really her parents, and that in reality, she was born to different parents entirely and kidnapped from them when she was a baby.

Callie’s investigations into her background are joined by her ex-husband Jacob, her long-lost brother Douglas, and the lawyer Lana. As is pretty much expected with Nora, the romance that re-kindles between Callie and Jacob as well as the new romance between Douglas and Lana are the driving forces of this book. And, as is pretty much expected with Nora, they’re all reasonably engaging people who have to figure each other out in the process of discovering the truth behind Callie’s abduction–and whether the perpetrator committed the same crime with other children. Meanwhile, Callie must learn how to cope with having a whole extra set of parents, and there’s a lot of emotional interaction involved with that that happily never descends into hostility between her birth mother and the one who raised her.

All in all, nothing truly outstanding but a good solid read nonetheless. Three stars.

I was pointed at Meredith Duran’s Written on Your Skin by way of a link posted to Smart Bitches Trashy Books, and I’ve got to say that I was pleased at the pointing. Certainly for most of this book, I was treated to some delightfully caustic chemistry between the heroine and hero. Our heroine Mina is a young woman of delicate beauty who has been unabashedly letting everyone think she’s an airhead to disguise the fact that she’s diabolically clever; our hero Phineas, an English nobleman and spy.

The book’s opening sequence, where Mina must save Phineas’ life, is great fun. It is however only a prologue for the main body of the action, which takes place a few years later, when Phin must come to Mina’s aid. For me as a reader, though, the mechanics of the plot that actually brought Mina and Phineas back together took a massive backseat to the dynamics of their relationship, and I don’t think I did those mechanics justice, since I kept skimming to look for new scenes of interaction between them. I shall have to re-read this one to go back and get the rest of the details I missed.

Overall though the book read pretty well for me, even accounting for the skimming. My only beef that I came away with was the feeling that the happy ending came a bit too abruptly. When I get back to re-reading this one, I’ll see if I maintain that opinion. For now, three stars.

And Only to Deceive, first of the “Lady Emily” series by Tasha Alexander, is one of the “lady of the nobility solves mysteries” milieu, and it’s a decent addition overall. This time around the noble lady in question is Lady Emily Ashton, recent widow of Lord Philip Ashton, who must come to grips with the alarming idea that not only might her husband have been dealing in illicitly obtained antiquities–but he might have been murdered.

I’ll say right out that the big appeal of this for me was Emily taking a sadly belated interest in her husband’s work in ancient Greek artifacts, by way of trying to cope with the fact that she never really knew him before he died. This gives her an opportunity to develop her own intellectual pursuits, and I’m always a fan of a plot that lets a woman pursue education just because she likes it, and never mind that it’s in defiance of the expectations of society. There’s some fun here with Emily’s studies bringing her all too close to fruitlessly falling in love with the husband she might have had, too, which causes her no end of consternation. Especially when the possibility is raised that he might actually still be alive.

But of course, this wouldn’t be a period mystery without a primary love interest, and the gentleman filling this role is Philip’s best friend Colin Hargreaves. Colin and Emily have fairly standard but nonetheless engaging chemistry, with the obligatory sparks when Emily spends some time infatuated with another man as well.

Good fun all around, and I’m definitely looking forward to reading Book 2. Four stars.

I deemed this book Relevant to My Interests when I saw a blurb of it invoking the name of Barbara Michaels. And for the most part, that’s a not unreasonable name to invoke here. There’s a certain old-school feel to this book in both sides of its plot, the haunted house story and the heavy side helping of romance. By “old school”, I mean a return to what (at least in the books I’ve read lately) has been a vanishing art: encouraging the reader’s imagination as much by what’s not on the page as what’s on it. I miss this, both in things that are supposed to creep me out and romances I’m supposed to be cheering on.

On the other hand, speaking as an ardent fan of Michaels’ older books, I didn’t find this one quite up to par with those–although to be fair, I have no substantive reason for this. Mostly, it’s a question of the overall flavor of the writing, which I found more akin to the later Elizabeth Peters works (the last few Amelia Peabodies and the final Vicky Bliss). If you liked the style that Michaels/Peters took with those books, you will probably like the style of this one all right.

And all this said, the plot is rather fun. Our heroine, Claire, is the new kid in a real estate office, and she’s given the daunting task of finding a buyer for a local mansion where a gruesome quadruple murder took place. When she gets there, she discovers to her shock that she can actually hear the ghost of a young girl who was murdered there–and who can point her at the true identity of her killer, who is still at large. Meanwhile, Claire has a rivalry going on with Avery, the office sexpot, a character who takes a little while to get her feet under her. And both women aim for Ben Grant, the owner of the house Claire’s trying to sell.

Overall, a bit on the fluffy side but not bad. Three stars.

I have been buying a BOATLOAD of ebooks lately, so I decided today that since the redoutable Third Place Books is having a sale (20 percent off EVERYTHING), I should go show the print books some love. And here’s what I walked out of the store with!

• Heart of Veridon, by Tim Akers; fantasy
• Acacia, by David Anthony Durham; fantasy
• The First, Third, Fourth, and Sixth Books of Outremer, by none other than (somewhere I’ll have to find books Two and Five); fantasy
• An Autumn War, by Daniel Abraham; fantasy
• Dragon in Chains, by Daniel Fox; fantasy (which should also please !)

So fear not, print-side authors, I’ll still love you too even if I get a lot of ebooks these days!

Books thus far purchased in 2010: 8

As 2009 leaves us I wanted to get in one last gasp of ebooky goodness on the Fictionwise sale, so I’ve done a slew of buying tonight off of Fictionwise! And for the sake of thoroughness, I shall also count the books I’ve picked up courtesy of the shiny gift card that gave me for Christmas:

• Pandemonium, by Daryl Gregory; fantasy
• The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie, by Jennifer Ashley; romance
• The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, by Lauren Willig; mystery
• The Magicians and Mrs. Quent, by Galen Beckett; fantasy
• Fall of Light, by Nina Kiriki Hoffman; fantasy
• Consequences of Sin, by Clare Langley-Hawthorne; mystery, re-buy
• Wicked Game, by Jeri Smith-Ready; urban fantasy, re-buy
• Bad to the Bone, by Jeri Smith-Ready; urban fantasy
• The Silver Wolf, by Alice Borchardt; fantasy, re-buy
• Code of Conduct, by Kristine Smith; SF, re-buy
• Skinwalker, by Faith Hunter; urban fantasy
• Matters of the Blood, by Maria Lima; urban fantasy
• Amazon Ink, by Lori Devoti; urban fantasy
• Madhouse, by Rob Thurman; urban fantasy
• Unleashed, by John Levitt; urban fantasy
• The Family Tree, by Sheri S. Tepper; urban fantasy
• Deathwish, by Rob Thurman; urban fantasy
• Ghost Whisperer: Revenge, by Doranna Durgin; fantasy, media tie-in

The official final grand tally of books purchased by me in 2009 is therefore 210!

And for the record, the official tally of books READ by me in 2009 is 108. I am not caught up on book reviews but I will be writing the rest of them over this weekend and getting those posted for you all before I start the 2010 book log.

Hee, and adds that the official tally of books PUBLISHED by me is two! Here’s to 2010 adding to that tally. It’s been a great year for books, folks. Here’s to me beating all of these records in 2010.