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Book Reports
Yes, I know, I'm posting like mad. I'm in serious pain, my chiro's out of town, even Critzing hasn't helped much, and I hit the Locum List tomorrow. Make that mood crabby! Can't think enough for writing, so here goes:
Recent reading:
Our Own Snug Fireside: Images of the New England Home 1760-1860 by Jane C. Nylander
She has the credentials to write this book, having been at various times the director of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, curator of the New Hampshire Historical Society, senior curator at Old Sturbridge Village, and director of the Strawbery Banke Museum. Cleanly written, using several primary sources who are quoted from extensively. Punctures a lot of assumptions about the period. I'm enjoying it and finding it useful for the alternative history fantasy I'm planning.
Writing the Fiction Synopsis: A step-by-step approach by Pam McCutcheon. Yes, still working on this one, because I really am doing the exercises as I go along. I think it has made me look at advance planning differently, and showed me a better way to prepare a selling synopsis.
West Country Wicca: A Journal of the Old Religion by Rhiannon Ryall. The author was taught in the pre-Gardnerian days of the 1940s, and I will be interested to see what was being practiced in England at that time. I just inherited a 160-year-old set of brooms from Andre Norton--they were from an eighth generation witch whose children and grandchildren became Christians. She and her pagan husband were very disappointed...it works both ways! The brooms, as well as her Book of Shadows, etc. ended up in Andre's museum/research center, and now she is looking for loving homes for things. She gave them to me because of my two Allie books, which she liked a great deal. I need to get them up on the wall and send her a photo pronto....
Staying Dead by Laura Anne Gilman. So you like contemporary fantasy? A touch of romance that doesn't cause the plot to grind to a halt? A touch of mystery for spice? Buy this book! It was great fun, as well as being well written and fast moving. Well worth buying in trade paperback--if you don't keep trades, keep it clean and give it as a gift for Christmas!
Some Like It Lethal by Nancy Martin. This is the third Blackbird Sisters mystery, and I really like these silly things. It hits on stuff I don't read about much, and does it with engaging characters. Nora Blackbird is one of the last of the Blackbird line, left with a tax bill of $2 mil by her parents (who spent the capital and went to Argentina.) She's working to keep beans on the table and her leaky roof intact, as well as slowly falling in love with the straight-arrow son of a reputed mobster. Nora can't afford a work wardrobe, so she's wearing Grandma's haute couture from the attic while working as the assistant newspaper gossip columnist. And she keeps finding bodies, of course... A recommended series.
Undead and Unemployed by Mary Janice Davidson. Frothy contemporary women's stuff, marketed as paranormal romance but I think closer to screwball comedy, like Stephanie Plum Lite. So you wake up as the prophesied Queen of the Vampires, with your soul intact and determined to pick up your "life" and get a job...she has a designer shoe fetish which can be used against her, and she's going to bring justice and humanity back to Vampiredom, whether they want it or not. Fun, silly stuff--not much there for a re-read, but worth picking up used, which I've been doing. Or encourage your local library--we need more silly books to cheer us up!
Raven's Shadow by Patricia Briggs. I hadn't read this fantasy novelist before, but the book was enjoyable, with a slightly different take on a magic system, and some nice twists and turns with the characters. I'll look for the second one.
The Strange Files of Fremont Jones by Dianne Day. Okay--this one disappointed me. It had a good premise, and good location, and I liked the plot--but does it make sense to say that it felt "thin?" The period, the scenery/place, even the nuance of the characters seemed roughly sketched in. I felt like I'd been given spare ribs when I wanted steak. Good SF and mystery world building has spoiled me. Don't pay for it.
Recent reading:
Our Own Snug Fireside: Images of the New England Home 1760-1860 by Jane C. Nylander
She has the credentials to write this book, having been at various times the director of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, curator of the New Hampshire Historical Society, senior curator at Old Sturbridge Village, and director of the Strawbery Banke Museum. Cleanly written, using several primary sources who are quoted from extensively. Punctures a lot of assumptions about the period. I'm enjoying it and finding it useful for the alternative history fantasy I'm planning.
Writing the Fiction Synopsis: A step-by-step approach by Pam McCutcheon. Yes, still working on this one, because I really am doing the exercises as I go along. I think it has made me look at advance planning differently, and showed me a better way to prepare a selling synopsis.
West Country Wicca: A Journal of the Old Religion by Rhiannon Ryall. The author was taught in the pre-Gardnerian days of the 1940s, and I will be interested to see what was being practiced in England at that time. I just inherited a 160-year-old set of brooms from Andre Norton--they were from an eighth generation witch whose children and grandchildren became Christians. She and her pagan husband were very disappointed...it works both ways! The brooms, as well as her Book of Shadows, etc. ended up in Andre's museum/research center, and now she is looking for loving homes for things. She gave them to me because of my two Allie books, which she liked a great deal. I need to get them up on the wall and send her a photo pronto....
Staying Dead by Laura Anne Gilman. So you like contemporary fantasy? A touch of romance that doesn't cause the plot to grind to a halt? A touch of mystery for spice? Buy this book! It was great fun, as well as being well written and fast moving. Well worth buying in trade paperback--if you don't keep trades, keep it clean and give it as a gift for Christmas!
Some Like It Lethal by Nancy Martin. This is the third Blackbird Sisters mystery, and I really like these silly things. It hits on stuff I don't read about much, and does it with engaging characters. Nora Blackbird is one of the last of the Blackbird line, left with a tax bill of $2 mil by her parents (who spent the capital and went to Argentina.) She's working to keep beans on the table and her leaky roof intact, as well as slowly falling in love with the straight-arrow son of a reputed mobster. Nora can't afford a work wardrobe, so she's wearing Grandma's haute couture from the attic while working as the assistant newspaper gossip columnist. And she keeps finding bodies, of course... A recommended series.
Undead and Unemployed by Mary Janice Davidson. Frothy contemporary women's stuff, marketed as paranormal romance but I think closer to screwball comedy, like Stephanie Plum Lite. So you wake up as the prophesied Queen of the Vampires, with your soul intact and determined to pick up your "life" and get a job...she has a designer shoe fetish which can be used against her, and she's going to bring justice and humanity back to Vampiredom, whether they want it or not. Fun, silly stuff--not much there for a re-read, but worth picking up used, which I've been doing. Or encourage your local library--we need more silly books to cheer us up!
Raven's Shadow by Patricia Briggs. I hadn't read this fantasy novelist before, but the book was enjoyable, with a slightly different take on a magic system, and some nice twists and turns with the characters. I'll look for the second one.
The Strange Files of Fremont Jones by Dianne Day. Okay--this one disappointed me. It had a good premise, and good location, and I liked the plot--but does it make sense to say that it felt "thin?" The period, the scenery/place, even the nuance of the characters seemed roughly sketched in. I felt like I'd been given spare ribs when I wanted steak. Good SF and mystery world building has spoiled me. Don't pay for it.