Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

This is a good point.

Ratings systems and their issues.

So, for the record, this is what my star ratings mean:

5 stars = FREAKING EPIC, gigantic story, everything works well, my mind is blown that a human being thought this up.

4 stars = love this book, it's just not as humongous in scope as a 5. But it's totally awesome and everyone should read it, it's a keeper.

3 stars = mixed feelings (this is where the "I think others might like it, it's just not for me" reviews are likely to go). Not that bad, but has some issues, or it's an okay story but nothing really stands out to me as being memorable. It was a pleasant enough read for a few days, but I'll probably just end up giving the book away rather than rereading it again.

2 stars = generally pretty terrible, but not 100% so. There was at least one thing in this book that made it not totally horrible. This book isn't really recommended to all and sundry, but you might get some value out of the one thing if you try.

1 star (rarely seen here): It's a wallbanger. Nothing is redeemable about this book, it's utter crap, and I probably only finished reading it so I could do an awesome bitchrant about it and I can't justify doing that to books I didn't finish.

The More You Know!(TM)

Snuff

By Terry Pratchett.

Commander Sam Vimes is being forced to go on holiday with his wife and 6-year-old poo-obsessed son, Young Sam. He's being forced by his wife and by *cough* his boss, Lord Vetinari, who suspects something is up in the countryside. The latter part is unknown to Sam though, so he's unhappy as he's forced to hobnob with the other nobs, deal with the feudal system, and take his son around to look for poo. And also hit the local pub, get into it with one of the locals, who seems to want to let him in on a crime, and then disappears. Then the lone local cop comes by to arrest him....Really, you've got to admire a guy who can suck up the nerve to arrest Vimes, and even clean up the jail spot for him and have his mum provide Chinese food.

Even though Sam shouldn't quite have any cop authority in the countryside, that doesn't exactly stop him from throwing his weight around. Once he's asked by a local goblin for "just ice" (justice), he and fellow copper Upshot go to the goblin caves, where they find a murdered goblin girl. Even though goblins are pretty much considered subhuman by most people, Vimes is an equal opportunity sort of fellow, who's not going to let a murder stand regardless of the victim. So (with the translation/visual help of the Summoning Dark, some kind of demon-ish dark sentience that took a shining to him back in Thud!) Vimes gets to know some goblins, his son's favorite "poo lady" author who's a friend to them, the local nobs and the local criminals. Whatever's going on in the area (drug smuggling) seems to have a lot of people involved...and has ties to the local goblins getting taken away 3 years ago.

Meanwhile, back in Ankh-Morpork, Captain Carrot, Sergeant Angua, Cheery Littlebottom and company at the City Watch find out that something strange is going on when Fred Colon goes to pick up his snuff and finds the soul of a dead baby goblin in it. Once again, we get to see lots of Discworld species in action as they all use their special skills to track things on their end. And back in the country, Vimes appoints some officers and takes off down the river after the goblin killer...

Especially good bits:
(a) Vimes and Sybil's relationship in this one is quite adorable. The quiet schmoopiness continues. Heck, even some affection is indicated. Especially in the bath. Hubba hubba!
(b) Ditto Young Sam and his poo obsession and overall friendliness.
(c) The surprises you find out about goblin society.
(d) How a piece of music literally changes the world.
(e) The pluckiness and good judgment of Feeney Upshot.
(f) "The poo lady" author and her expert knowledge of goblins.
(g) Vimes always getting the drop on the bad guy, who thinks he's so sneaky.
(h) The return of the Watch folks, who have been missed.
(i) Willikins, criminal turned valet turned "I'll do whatever's necessary here."

If there's any flaws to the book, I got a little confused as to the plot here and there, but that might just be me. It also starts to feel kind of anticlimactic/multiple endings-ish after the big giant climax of the novel about 3/4 in, since there's still stuff to do on the case and in the story. And I do admit that "_____'s are people too" is a plot that Pratchett has done before, with Vimes, a lot, but I still enjoyed it, so I'll let it slide.

But still, a darned good story. Four stars.

River Marked

By Patricia Briggs.

Previous book here.

In this book, Mercy and Adam get married. It's very cute. Then they go off on a camping trip honeymoon along the Columbia River....with a trailer especially provided by fae Uncle Mike. Who apparently had opinions-- based on a psychic prediction from another fae-- that it'd be a good idea if Mercy and Adam were around that area at that time.

As it turns out, there's a "river devil" monster/fae creature that's been unleashed in the river, and it's eating tons and tons of people. Mercy and Adam team up with the local Native American medicine man and his friends to figure out how to handle the problem-- but they're also being assisted by Coyote and other immortal animal spirit folk.

A cool aspect of this book is that Mercy has had next to no knowledge of walkers (people who can painlessly switch to another animal form). In this book, she meets a few others AND finds out how she is one. I appreciated the explanation. She and Coyote...well, there's some kind of family tie there even if technically speaking, Coyote claims it's not what it looks like. I enjoyed Mercy and Coyote's relationship, as well as watching her and Adam be all schmoopy with each other on their honeymoon.

In the end, Mercy has a very hard time solving the river devil problem even with supernatural assistance-- kind of shockingly so in a way-- but the book resolves well and I enjoyed it.

Note to book cover designers/marketers: Mercy would like you to know that she doesn't have this many tattoos and doesn't plan on getting herself overly marked beyond her pawprint tats. Thank you!

Four stars.

The Rook

By Daniel O'Malley.

First five star book of the year! Yesssssss!

Myfanwy Thomas II becomes conscious in the rain, having been beaten up and having somehow defeated a bunch of bad guys wearing latex gloves. She has no idea what's going on or how she did it. She goes through her pockets and finds two letters-- from herself. "Dear You. The body you are wearing used to be mine." See, Myfanwy Thomas the original was warned by various psychics she ran into that she'd be losing her memory forever and ending up in this situation. Being possibly the world's best contingency planner, researcher, and organizer (seriously, as this kind of person I totally love that she's like that), Myfanwy I did her best to write down everything her successor will need to know to function in her world. She's got dossiers on everyone and everything, interspersed with personal letters about the past and what her current life is like-- and what she's investigating that probably led to her downfall.

When she was 9 years old, Myfanwy I impaled herself in the leg accidentally, which led to the discovery of her superpower: the ability to manipulate other people's bodies, usually in a painful way. If she's in enough pain, anyone within the vicinity is going to find themselves in similar agony. This led to her being recruited by the Checquy, a secret British organization run by others with superpowers, dedicated to saving lives and stopping horrendous supernatural eruptions from happening. Myfanwy I was sent to the Estate--the early-powered kids go to a Professor Xavier-ish school--and grew up rather timid and shy and averse to using her power due to her childhood trauma. Despite pretty much coming off as a nonentity, Myfanwy I was such a good administrator that she was eventually chosen to join the Court of 8(ish) people who run the Checquy. Two people hold each titled chess-based rank. Myfanwy is a Rook, and she and her partner in Rookery Gestalt (quadruplets who have one shared mind--very weird!) are in charge of dealing with not only administration stuff, but heading into the field when some horrendous supernatural eruption happens on domestic soil.

Myfanwy I-- clued in by the various psychic predictions that it was a Court member who is going to do her in-- has been researching who could possibly have done it. While she didn't actually find out (until the end, of course, when she couldn't do anything about it), she's found some amazingly secret information. Myfanwy II, upon her entry into the job, finds out that the Grafters, the greatest enemy of the Checquy, are back again. The Grafters are Belgian fleshcrafters who make terrifying monsters out of human beings, and the Checquy barely fought off their original invasion a few centuries ago.

Despite being a newbie to the job and only equipped with a huge purple binder of dossiers, Myfanwy II takes like a duck to water when it comes to doing her job and figuring out how her powers work. However, there's one big difference between the two Myfanwys: without the stolen-from-parents, sent-to-supernatural-school, not-fitting-in mental baggage, Myfanwy II is a lot braver, unafraid to use her powers, and takes charge a lot more. (Almost makes me want to have a bit of a mind wipe myself, hah.) As she charges into the midst of danger, she definitely needs that.

This is a freaking awesome mystery. Myfanwy II does a great job of traitor-hunting, figuring out how to deal with the Grafters, and figuring out who her enemies are. I thoroughly enjoyed the worldbuilding in this one, and especially the letters from Myfanwy I explaining her life and her job, and telling crazy stories periodically. I particularly liked the dragon story (I assume this is totally making fun of Pern/Eragon books, but I haven't read 'em to know for sure) and the duck story. As she writes her regularly, Myfanwy I's affection grows for her sucessor even though she'll never know her. It's bittersweet and adorable to read. You love Myfanwy I and miss her, but enjoy Myfanwy II as well. Ditto II's relationship with her assistant Ingrid. Other relationships could use a bit more development, but since Myfanwy doesn't have too many and she suspects her closest co-workers of trying to kill her, it's understandable that those folks are a bit more distant.

This story works great as a one-off, but I wouldn't mind a sequel either. And while the special effects bill would be amazing, I think this would make a great movie too.

Five stars. Highly recommended.

Oh, and just for fun (read after reading the book since it spoils), here's the book's playlist, with great descriptions as to what goes where in the book and why.

Miss Scarlet's School of Patternless Sewing

By Kathy Cano-Murillo.

Scarlet Santana comes from a family of engineers. A few years ago, she finally went against them and decided to pursue a career in fashion instead of engineering, which none of them have taken well. She's got a fashion job--albeit with a boss who turns out to be a jerk-- and she has a very successful blog dedicated to her fashion idol, Daisy de la Flora. And she's finally been accepted to a three-month-long study program in NYC led by Daisy's nephew, "Johnny Scissors." It's the kind of thing that can make a girl's career. And Scarlet will do whatever it takes to make the money to get there. Such as offer a class in patternless sewing--something I sure wish I could take. Even though her boss shafts her at the last minute about allowing Scarlet to hold classes at work and a lot of people drop out, the cute guy at the local record shop lets her use their back room for class.

Little does Scarlet know that the program she's hellbent on joining has gone way downhill. Johnny Scissors is just waiting for his absentee aunt to die so he can take over her business, he's a crappy designer, and the program has not only eroded in quality, but he's decided to end it altogether. And up the starting date to freaking January...and the book starts out around Thanksgiving. Scarlet may be willing to sacrifice anything to get into the program, but will it even be worth it? You feel pretty worried for Scarlet, under those circumstances.

Class members include two high schoolers, an enthusiastic woman named Olivia (pronounced really enthusiastically), and the following other main characters:

(a) Mary Theresa, who starts out as an incredibly rigid woman (she counts how many times she chews and writes up her employees for eating Christmas cookies at work) that nobody can stand. After 60% of her team wants out, she gets demoted to working part time from home. Even her husband hits his limit early on in this book and walks out to a job in California, leaving her to take care of their twins. I am happy to report that taking a sewing class and making some friends and having some interests beyond nitpicking mellow her out nicely.

(b) Rosa, an "enigmatic seamstress with a mysterious past," to quote the back of the book.

Plusses to this book:

(a) As usual, I enjoy the discussions of crafts, the metaphor of patterns representing your life, chasing your dream, etc. The back of the book also has instructions as to how to make the featured crafts in the book. I would like to see some pictures, though, especially of the "Mexibilly" dress. I need some visuals to make stuff!

(b) The author does do a great job of mellowing out the uptightness of Mary Theresa, though I sort of wonder if it goes a bit fast for the book's timeline (about 2-3 months long).

(c) Scarlet herself is great fun. You love reading her writing, you feel for her, you fear for her with regards to New York.

(d) As usual, the author does a great job of team building and friend building. Even when the other three class members that aren't Mary Theresa and Rosa doesn't get as much focus (why not? Olivia at least seems like she should be a more prominent character), you get that everyone's friends and on each other's team.

(e) The romances are sweet and quiet. One of them doesn't end as you might expect, but it's a fitting end for the characters, so you're okay with that.

Minusses:

(a) The villains in the series--Carly and Johnny Scissors (why yes, that does sound like a mob name)-- are cartoon-y, black-and-white, flat out evil. This seems fairly reasonable to me to see Johnny in that role, but one wonders why on earth Scarlet thought Carly would offer her a business partnership-- or anything-- upon Carly's first scene in the book, because she's nothing but nasty to her from the getgo. Unless Carly had some drastic personality change before the book, I don't get it. The woman is literally Lucy from Peanuts with a football at every possible opportunity.

(b) Scarlet's family: we're told that family is soooooooooo important, and that Marco (the record shop guy) kind of wants to break it off with her once he finds out that Scarlet is temporarily estranged from hers. And then later on we're told, "No, it's not that they didn't support her, it's just that they were annoyed that she didn't have time for them!" That's even in the reading group guide at the back. But I kind of didn't feel like that was the case. Yes, at the end her family accepts that Scarlet just wants to pursue her dream, finally. And yes, they're justified in feeling annoyed when Scarlet is so busy making money that she has time for no one. But I honestly felt like her family DIDN'T respect her for most of the book. They brush her off, they kind of put her down, they brush her off because she isn't married with kids either. By the time Scarlet says "enough," I was cheering for that, not rooting for her to reunite with her beloved, so-awesome family there.

I felt like suddenly the author got uncomfortable with how nasty it was getting and decided to just say the problem was something else instead. I know, I know, Latina folks love their families and estrangement is not acceptable there, but... I dunno, I just felt like the transition from "parents are actually not supporting Scarlet" to "oh, now it's all fine, it's you who weren't paying attention to us" did not work so well.

I am also in need of a "Questionables" section here. There were two major aspects of the book that I did not like upon reading, but in the end, they were resolved in a surprising way that made me feel a lot less bothered by them. But they might put people off at the start, so I am mentioning them here to point out that It Gets Better:

(a) I honestly didn't like that the book literally starts out with a cliffhanger in the prologue. (Sorry to spoil, but this is literally how the book starts-- three unnamed ladies celebrating in a cab go over a cliff..) If I hadn't been so hyped to read this book, I might have put it down in a bookstore. I generally hate prologues anyway, and it takes a very long time to get back to this one, but starting out with your thinking that the book possibly ends with the deaths of your main characters? Yikes. So I spent a fair amount of time wondering who was going to die and how they got into the Cab of Death. It's kind of a buzzkill to have hanging over people's heads while they're trying to enjoy a book.

(b) Rosa temporarily moves from NYC to Arizona to take Scarlet's class, even though she's terminally ill. You find out these details within the first few pages of her introduction. I'll be honest with you: it's pretty obvious that Rosa is Up To Something. You will guess 95% of what Rosa is Up To within the first few pages of her introduction. Actually, you'll think you guessed 100%, but it's really more like 95%. If you're me, you will find it frustrating that you know something the other characters do not for 300 pages before Rosa's secret is finally outed. And yeah, it's irritating to read a book knowing stuff that the characters don't know, and you know it for a long-ass time before they do, so you just have to sit and wait and wait and wait for The Great Reveal Which Is Not Shocking To You Because You Guessed Hundreds Of Pages Ago. If Scarlet's journey was less entertaining, I might have gotten fed up with waiting before then. To be fair, at least for about the first half of the book, it's pretty reasonable that nobody else figures out what is going on. But after they wonder about what the hell is going on with Rosa, I started to think that some puzzle pieces needed to start coming together, and apparently they did not.

However... I will say that (a) the cliffhanger did NOT go as I had expected it to go, and (b) the Rosa situation is not 100% as it seems. And while it might be a wee bit predictable/contrived once you find out a specific bit of information that informs what went on there, I actually enjoyed that plot twist, and no longer had a problem with the book's prologue starting out as it had. Go figure.

So, overall I'm going to give the book four stars. I ended it feeling pretty happy :)

Shockaholic

By Carrie Fisher.

I love Carrie Fisher, so I'll admit that I am biased about that while reading this book. My only quibble with it is that I want more, please. I don't know if she's up to writing more, but please, write down more of these amazing stories before the ECT zaps them away! I will totally help ghost write that if you'd like, Carrie!

(I have also decided that should I ever be in a point in my life where I can meet and re-meet Carrie Fisher, I want to keep asking her to autograph my book and see what happens when she sees that she's already done it. I think she'd deeply enjoy this, under the circumstances.)

The subjects are:

• Carrie getting ECT and how really, it's not all that bad except for the memory issues, so she'd better write these stories down now.
• A brief coverage of her weight issues.
• "The Senator," about her date with Senator Chris Dodd. Memorable because they are on a triple date with, among other folks, Ted Kennedy. And Ted Kennedy asks thoroughly shocking and rude questions...and Carrie answers back. Muahahahah. Love this.
• Carrie's friendship with Michael Jackson, including spending Christmas with him. She also knew the dentist that sued him because of the kiddie sleepovers, and she found the dude to be totally creepy (and all for it) before the lawsuit.
• A horrificly funny recollection of her stepfather Harry Karl, who was apparently one of the most disgusting men on earth and only good for his money...until he lost it and his wife's, anyway. Seriously gross but funny.
• "Oy! My Pa-Pa," Carrie's telling of growing up with and without her dad, doing drugs with him, his women, and his final years. Also, how Elizabeth Taylor threw her into a pool.

The woman is an amazing storyteller. More books, one-woman-shows, anything you want, Carrie. I had a shitty morning the day I read this on and needed this book as a funny palate-cleanser and pick-me-up, and it delivered.

Four stars.

The Enchantment Emporium

By Tanya Huff.

I need to explain some things to you before we begin.
The Gales are a huge magical family, primarily run by the "Aunties" (women who hit menopause and REALLY came into their powers). The Aunties scare the shit out of everyone. Incest is pretty much mandated in the family to keep the power in. There's fewer Gale men than women, so it sounds like the men are forced to marry some cousin of theirs no matter what. They are given a list of every girl they can choose from within 7 years of their age. Everyone sleeps with everyone (I do mean sexually, and pretty much at random) and have whopping sex drives, and until a Gale boy has Chosen a wife, any of the eligible women on his list can order him around and he can't do shit about it. I can't even explain that. As for the Gale Girls, they either wait around to be Chosen, or since there are so many of them, they can marry outside the family if the Aunties approve the guy. Choosing a Gale is a BIG EFFING DEAL, and kind of awkward if you aren't born into Gale Culture and have no idea what you are getting into.

I'm explaining this to you ahead of time because for all the talk about Gale Boys and Gale Girls and Aunties and the like, this stuff doesn't really get explicitly explained for quite a damn while in the book. (And I'm still wondering how the dudes develop semi-visible magical horns.) We're told so much about Gale Culture and how super-important it is and the like, but damn, I could have used some more exposition early on. This is weird stuff and could use it.

Our heroine, Alysha "Allie" Gale, is recently out of work when she gets a notice from her grandmother Catherine announcing "If you got this, then I'm dead." Grandma ran off years ago and mostly turns up once a year. In this case, she owned a business (guess what it's called) in Calgary, and she leaves the whole thing to Allie to take over. After about five minutes of thought, everyone deduces that Catherine isn't actually dead, but Allie should go to Calgary and figure out what the hell is going on and where Catherine went to. So Allie goes, soon to be followed by her brother, cousins Roland and Charlie, and her gay best friend Michael. Allie hires the local leprechaun changeling, Joe, to run the store. She also falls in love with Graham, tabloid reporter and sorcerer's apprentice since the sorcerer took him in after he got orphaned. Graham doesn't do magic, but he does do the sorcerer's killing for him.

Gales can't stand sorcerers--the Aunties take them out for being magic-abusing power hogs--but Allie wants to try another method of handling Stan the sorcerer other than death. Since her brother's a potential sorcerer if he ever goes bad from power, she's motivated. She finds out that Stan is in the midst of a war with a family of Dragon Lords from the fairie dimension--holy shit, dragons in Calgary. She's told "it's a family matter." Little does she knows how true that is. Meanwhile, poor Graham is trapped in the middle, getting magically claimed left and right, and he has no idea about the whole Gale Choosing Thing, which kinda bites him in the ass.

I don't know what to make of this book. On the one hand, the plot with the sorcerer and the Dragon Lords and how Graham is caught between everything is good and interesting. I like the non-Gales and most characters in general on some level. On the other hand, the Gales are some weird, weird people. And you spend more time hearing about Gale Culture than anything else. And this starts to kind of get old, on top of the weird. Really, I just don't know what to make of the Gales, if I like them, if I'd want to spend more time with them. I guess I'd want them on my side in a crisis, but dating within the family...argh. Plus, Aunties. Terrifying people there.

And the whole incest thing... well, squick. I don't know how close "the lines" are in this book, but somehow I found it more bothersome than say, Temptation of the Night Jasmine (note: most distantly strange and hard to describe "cousin" relationship EVER) or the last two books in the Kushiel series (also fairly obscure/distant blood relationship). It's more along the lines of the Family Trade books, though we're less clear on the "braids" and how incest-y it is or how distantly related the braids are. I think with the boy shortage, I suspect it's closer/more ick than we're supposed to think somehow. I also feel sorry for the Gale Boys if they don't WANT to marry their cousins-- Roland being the example of this in the book, but getting somewhat off the hook for impregnating his bisexual-partnered-with-a-lady cousin rather than Choosing A Bride. It makes you wonder how the hell they can be happy with their options.

But really, what makes this squicky is that the family culture is to sleep with pretty much anyone short of a sibling because all the Gales are sexually voracious and attracted to power no matter whose. Like Allie is worried about suddenly wanting to sleep with the sorcerer when she meets him because uh, power is horny. It's very Anita Blake-ish there if you have no self-control. Hell, it's mentioned multiple times that if David and/or Allie are horny, they need to stay out of the same room, GEEZ, REALLY?! I think that's what puts me off about the incest-loving in this book: the sexual hijinks go way beyond just falling in love with your cousin stuff.

I do have to give one cool point, which goes below the spoiler cut.

I'm going to give it three and a half stars overall. Pretty good, but with some issues. I am undecided on reading the sequel.

The Temptation of the Night Jasmine

By Lauren Willig.

This is a book that I never could get into when flipping through it in the bookstore. I finally just put it on my wish list and hoped someone would buy it for me so I wouldn't be standing around going "eh, I dunno...." about buying it myself. And it's okay, but definitely not as sparkling as most other books in the series to me.

(Note: plotwise the book seems to fit in after this one, in order of publication it's after this one.)

Charlotte Landsdowne is a duke's daughter, an orphan, and a dreamy book nerd. She had a mad crush on the heir to the family title, Robert, when she was 9 and he was 15. Many years later, she's an adult and he's come back to town. They hit it off as much as they ever did, but in a more adult way. However...the reason Robert's in town is to chase after the guy who killed his mentor, and he doesn't tell Charlotte this. Nor does he explain to her why he's hanging out so much with the guy who runs the local Hellfire Club. Robert is a super-honorable man, so the whole Hellfire thing is Not Fun For Him, but you can pretty much figure out why he doesn't explain to her why after having a hot moment, he totally bails.

Left to her own devices, Charlotte's doing a 3-month stint as lady in waiting to the queen. While looking for a book in the library, she comes across the king, who appears to be going mad again...except this time Charlotte is pretty sure that something is really fishy with this situation. With her best friend Henrietta, they find out that the king's new doctor isn't a doctor... And VERY eventually, the two plots tie in together. Robert's is a fizzle, but the king plot is actually interesting and gripping, under the circumstances. And Charlotte handles it beautifully with her inner knowledge of the palace and the king.

I forgot to mention that this is the book before The Betrayal of the Blood Lily.  You see Penelope in the first half of the book, then she uh...seems to publicly ruin herself? Outs herself, at least. Then she drops out of the book entirely. I found this kind of annoying.

Frankly, this is my least favorite of the books. Robert and Charlotte are very nice people and kind of sweet, don't get me wrong, but they're not exactly a sparky couple like most others in the series. (I'm reminded of reading Vision in White, it's a similar sort of "too good of a match to be interesting" situation there.) I enjoy seeing the couple in love getting into plots together, but (a) due to Robert's standards, that's not going to happen unless it has to, and (b) it takes a long-ass time for the two mysteries to coincide. And I really didn't give a crap about why Robert had come back from India to chase after this dude. That plot was never made interesting to me.

The book didn't get super interesting to me until Charlotte stumbled across the king in difficulties. I do love how the author used a historical loophole to come up with a secret plot that very well might have happened under the circumstances. And it's nice to see Henrietta and Miles again, even if they don't get to have the awesome sparkitude that they did in their own book. But for the most part, I just don't find it as memorable or interesting as the other books, and it does wander off the flower spy plot (ties in tangentially). The Pink Carnation is pretty well forgotten except in Elise's framing plot. Argh.

Oh yeah: the Elise framing plot. She thinks Colin might be a spy. Yeah, right. I just don't care.

Three stars.

V is for Vengeance

By Sue Grafton.

Previous book here.

It all starts when Kinsey's shopping for underwear and spots a shoplifter. Kinsey's inner ex-cop who used to work property theft kicks in and she squeals to an employee. The original shoplifter is caught, but her secret partner in crime nearly runs Kinsey over as she escapes. A few days later, Kinsey reads the newspaper and finds out that the shoplifter, Audrey, threw herself off a bridge. Or did she? After going to Audrey's funeral with William and William blabs to Audrey's fiance Marvin about Kinsey, Marvin hires her to look into the situation. (Though Marvin is in some pretty heavy denial about Audrey's actual career.) Kinsey doggedly works on the case, which ties into a shoplifting ring run by the local loan shark. However, it turns out that her case is tied into a heavy-duty police investigation involving Len Priddy, a friend of Kinsey's first ex-husband who can't stand her. And there's confidential informants. And Kinsey's occasional criminal client Pinky Ford (otherwise known as "the guy who gave her the lock picks") ties into it as well. There's also Diana Alvarez from the previous book, still driving Kinsey up a damn wall as she noses about in Kinsey's case.

The "chapters from other people's POV" mostly feature Nora Vogelsang, a rich society wife who finds out that her husband is cheating on her. While accumulating a bunch of money by selling things off just in case, she's introduced to Lorenzo Dante, Jr., the aforementioned local loan shark. Oddly enough, Dante is about the most decent, least homicidal, gangster sort you've ever seen in fiction. They fall into an affair, but his impending investigation and the one person they have in common (you'll figure out who that is after reading the opening of the book) may doom their budding new love. While I wouldn't normally find folks like this terribly sympathetic, I found myself actually kind of rooting for those folks.

I will say that it seems a little odd that Kinsey--for a character who starts out basically gloating at catching a shoplifter in the act and hoping she gets what she deserves-- kind of switches over to the side of the not-so-law-abiding in this book at the end. She has an odd soft spot for Pinky Ford--I had less of one for him, somehow, because he was sweet and loves his wife and all, but uh, he's pretty dumb for a criminal. I kept picturing him as looking like Dr. Elmo (of "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" fame). And Kinsey actually tries to help out Dante, which is odd given the cat-and-mouse at a distance sort of relationship that's been going on. On the other hand, I can't help but like Dante myself. The man is smart, takes care of those who are loyal to him, and he's not a killer. (His idiot brother Cappi, on the other hand....) I oddly rooted for him myself. Go figure. And I found myself enjoying the twists of this book-- eventually circling back to who was it that gave Kinsey a birthday punch in the face.

While I normally <a href="http://fullmoon.typepad.com/books/2006/01/s_is_for_silenc.html">gripe about a lack of Henry</a> in the books where he's not really in them, and this one has Henry out of town for most of it again, at least there's some good plot reasons for that.

Note to Sue Grafton: I find it amusing that you had a character killed off on our birthday. Interesting choice there.

I am rather sad to say that most of the last few books in the series just haven't been memorable to me in the way that earlier books (I'm thinking of G and H and J in particular, which aren't reviewed here) do. Looking at the four reviews I have on the site, I actually don't remember reading S and T at all at this point and vaguely remember U. (I don't actually remember Diana Alvarez as being in that book, though I do remember her brother.) But I think I'll actually remember this one for its own brand of memorable. I enjoyed this case and how it went. So while I'm a little questionable on having Kinsey lean towards the non-law side of things, I'll give it three and a half stars.

Strangers in Death

By J.D. Robb.

Super nice rich dude Thomas Anders died in the most kinky, embarrassing way possible-- and as far as anyone can tell, he wasn't that sort of guy. His wife Ava was conveniently in another country at the time, but her frosty demeanor makes Eve convinced that Ava did it, even with an unimpeachable alibi. This isn't so much of a "whodunit" so much as a "how do we prove whodunit," and the plot revolves around figuring out how Ava murdered by proxy-- and discovering her other murder plans. It's an interesting read, albeit it probably won't stand out to me much in the long run since you know who did it early on. Three and a half stars.

All You Desire

By Kirsten Miller.

This is the sequel to The Eternal Ones. I'm not sure what to make of it. It actually took me a long time to finish because I put it down in the middle where it was frustrating me. The end is good, I just...yeah, the middle got on my nerves. Which is why it gets three stars.

The rest of the review is going below the spoiler cut.

Fantasy In Death

By J.D. Robb.

This is an interesting one, with a plot that only works in futuristic 2059 or so.

Who would want to kill Bart Minnock? He was a sweet game designer that everyone liked. But while in a locked room alone playing his company's new game, Fantastical, his character got beheaded...and so did he in real life. Eeek.  I'm still kind of wondering how a holographic game got real on THAT level...but maybe I'm not quite smart enough to get how that works. Anyway, people are upset, especially Detective Eve Dallas's husband Roarke, who was kind of a mentor to the U-Play company.

This reminds me of Agatha Christie novels a wee bit, what with the "how do you solve the murder of someone who was utterly alone in a locked room without even a droid in there" factor, and also the books where there are very few suspects. It's also a little different from most Eve Dallas books I've read because there isn't really a whole lot in the way of serial killing. While that's different, it also kind of feels like there's some wheel spinning going on. Eve talks to people, she and Roarke play with swords and computer games, Peabody and boyfriend go to a con, etc... but it seems like they're just doing that to kill time until Eve comes to the inevitable conclusion that since only a few people had access to the game, it means there's a limited suspect pool. Which is kind of a "duh" anyway, so I don't really consider that spoiling. And Eve ignores a few clues, which seem to be red herrings anyway so I guess that doesn't matter so much?

Anyway, the book takes another turn eventually, and the true killer suddenly stands out. It's an interesting read in some

The DUFF (Designated Ugly Fat Friend)

By Kody Keplinger.

Bianca's spending another night in the teen dance club, watching her hot blonde best friends dancing while she talks to the bartender. Until Wesley Rush the school manwhore comes up and flat out calls her "the duff"-- designated ugly fat friend. Because, you see, guys can totally get laid by the hotter chicks if they're nice to the ugly friend, so how about it? Help me out? Bianca does what about any girl would do, i.e. chucks her drink in his face, grabs her friends, and leaves. You'd think that would be the end of it, right?

Except Bianca's not having such a good time of it right now. Her mom has been out of the house for months and dad's not doing so well alone, her crush Toby turns out to have a longtime girlfriend, and her ex-boyfriend's coming back into town to visit...with his fiancee. And when Bianca's dad gets served with divorce papers, he goes off the wagon that he's been on since Bianca was born. Naturally, the girl could use some ... distraction. And Bianca, after having a moment where she totally snaps and makes out with Wesley, figures out that having hatesex with the dude is excellent distraction. Soon Bianca's kind of keeping things to herself with her friends, and spending a lot of time over at Wesley's.

I have to say, this is the most sex I've ever seen in a YA novel EVER. And it's AMAZING. (And I say this as someone who is way bored and jaded of reading sex scenes 95% of the time.) Maybe it's because the author was a teenager when she wrote it, but this book doesn't delicately shy away from the topic like most books do or have one big sexual moment and that's it. Nope, there's hot 'n steamy nookie going on a lot... when Wesley and Bianca aren't like, just hanging out and playing games and stuff like that. Even if he calls her "duffy" frequently, he does seem to like hanging out with her. And after things really go bad at home, Wesley comes to the rescue. And that's when Bianca really freaks-- she can't be going for jerkass Wesley, right? She really needs to do something about that...

I'm not normally a person who gets the whole "hate to love" thing, but boy, does this book do it well. Bianca is a prickly character, but you understand how she feels and mostly how she acts. Wesley does a good transition from jerkass to non-jerkass deep down-- or middle down. He's a fellow who has the reputation and rolls with it...even though that affects some areas of his life. Bianca's friends are good people. I also like the musings and debates on words like "duff" and "whore" and how everyone has their "duff" moments in life and insults aren't what you think.

If there's one thing that isn't perfect to me in this book, it's possibly the handling of Bianca's dad's alcoholism. Bianca clearly doesn't know what to do about it since she wasn't around the last time Dad had a bender, and she's only heard secondhand how jerky/angry her dad got way back in the day. But it does seem to go awfully quick from "Dad's drinking" to her dad totally crossing a line into major badness-- and then a really quick resolution. I know there's only so much time you get in a novel, but while I'm happy to see the resolution, it seemed pretty damn quick for reality.

But otherwise, this is really great. Sympathetic behavior from the characters for the most part, good character evolution, good thoughts on the insult culture that we live in. Four stars.

Reunion in Death

By J.D. Robb.

In this Eve Dallas novel, the villain is man-hater poisoner extraordinare Julianna Dunne. Julianna's a born sociopath who seduced her stepfather, married and killed three times for money, and finally then Eve busted her and sent her to jail. Ten years later, Julianna's out on good behavior and going after Eve. Except this time she's poisoning random old men without even marrying them first. This seems to be a way of disgusting that she plans on offing Eve's husband, though Eve is of course smart enough to figure that out right off the bat. This case ends up taking her to Dallas at one point, where she can go relive the trauma of her horrific childhood. Fun times.

Now, I did enjoy this novel for the most part-- the cat and mouse aspects of it are good. I sort of wonder about the intelligence of Julianna though. Yes, I get that she's clever and seductive and attractive and yet can blend in anywhere, but the woman insists on using her real life initials in every alias and she truly thinks nobody's gonna figure it out? Really? And while going after random men works, I am still wondering where the fuck Eve suddenly came up with the idea of looking for Julianna at a spa right at the moment she did. That's just really not well built into the plot at all and seems to come out of nowhere-- oh yeah, she used to take vacations after she killed her husbands! Uh, she's just offing old dudes at random now, maybe that changed up a little?

The book also ends in a traditional Dynasty-style catfight, complete with clothes ripping off. I think that's some kind of fanservice for any dude that might be picking up this novel.

Three and a half stars. Pretty entertaining read, but there's the occasional eye-rolling moment when it comes to plausibility.

A College of Magics

By Caroline Stevermer.

This is a really odd book. From the title, it sounds like it's Harry Potter College Style. It is NOT. Just so's you know.

It takes place in an alternate version of Europe at the turn of the twentieth century. Our heroine, Faris, is duchess and heir to the small country of Galazon. Her evil uncle Brinker, currently running the place, sends her off to the magical college of Greenlaw to kill some time until she becomes of age. Also attending at the same time is bitchy Menary from a neighboring country, who likes to be difficult. Except this is the weirdest freakiing "magical" college I've seen. Everyone only has to attend one lecture on how magic in the world works a day, and otherwise...uh, it sounds like Faris spends a lot of time piddling off, reading novels, and not necessarily doing a whole lot of course work. Nobody actually seems to get instructed in magic until maybe third year, when you have to do an all night vigil and then come into your skills. The area of Greenlaw supposedly has more magic than the rest of the world, but everyone is utterly forbidden to do magic until you graduate and if you don't, you're expelled. How the hell you actually LEARN magic, I still don't really know.

That's about the first third of the book: Faris hangs around college, gets taller, gets into spats with Menary, they both do their vigils, and then...shit blows up. And Faris's uncle summons her home for reasons he won't say. And people try to kill Faris on the way there. And she finds out that she's well, a chosen one in a way that pretty much comes out of the blue. She figures out some magic here and there, then goes home and tries to figure out if her uncle is the one trying to kill her or not, and why he's taxing the shit out of everyone in the country. She starts to get interested in her mysterious bodyguard. Eventually everyone journeys to Menary's home country, where...more shit goes down.

It's very odd.

So why did I keep reading it? I find Faris to be an entertaining character, and I enjoy her attitude. She's extremely loyal and responsible to her home country, nice to her friends (though ah...kinda homicidal to her enemies, honestly so!), and has a certain twist to her attitude that I enjoyed. For example, at the start of the book, she, Menary, and a third student (who appears to be poorer than the other two royals) show up at college and are told that only one of them will be allowed to attend. They're all asked who the college should choose. The first two are "Pick me!" and Faris is all, "Pick Menary, keep Odile around here as a servant until Menary flakes off and quits attending, then give her the place." Admittedly, Faris doesn't want to go to college at all, but that's still an entertaining answer. And her best friend Jane and her bodyguards are nice folks. The romance between Faris and her favorite bodyguard is subtle yet sweet, though I don't know what to make of how it resolved.

The ending, however, is pretty odd. I guess it's supposed to be happy, but...there's a lot of sad weirdness going on there too and I have no idea how Faris is going to go on after that. Very strange.

I'll give it three and a half stars. It's an interesting read, but I had a hard time making sense of how the world and magic works.

Vampire Detectives

By a bunch of people.

This was a really weak collection of stories as well, with only a few I thought were worthwhile.

• "Vampire Dollars" by William F. Nolan: Really strange noir story that may not even be vampiric: involves an actress mother, her loser daughter, the daughter's loser boyfriend, and the murder of the actress mom's director/boyfriend.
• "This Town Ain't Big Enough" by Tanya Huff. One of the best stories in this book. If you've ever read the Blood Ties books by Tanya Huff (and hm, I haven't reviewed them here? Problem), this takes place after the series ends, as Vicki tries to get back into her old local groove and gets into a fight over territory.
• "Girl's Night Out" by Kathe Koja and Barry N. Malzberg: Really weird and depressing story about a woman with a sad life and a fairly creepy boyfriend and eventually a vampire shows up to uh, improve things. I guess. The narrative style was really hard to follow or get into. Also, dear god, use smaller paragraphs. It dragged on and on.
• "Home Comforts" by Peter Crowther: Very creepy story about a man and his daughter and...well, ew. I don't even wanna get into it.
• "Origin of a Species" by J.N. Williamson: Erwin is a homicide detective who always wished he'd gone into anthropology, and does the latter as a hobby. He uses his vacation time to go inviestgate the world's oldest corpse. That kinda goes as you'd expect, but what's either interesting or confusing is Erwin's wife's insistence that he's a violent man who wants to beat on his wife and children--- and yet, we don't really see a hell of a lot of evidence that Erwin even WANTS to do so, since this is from his head POV. And then once he leaves town, that plotline is dropped entirely. I don't get it.
• "Fangs" by Douglas Borton: Cops tracking down a vampire in Hollywood. Not bad, comparatively speaking to most of the rest of the stories in this book. Not that memorable either though, even though I like the end last line.
• "The Night Of Their Lives" by Max Allan Collins: Depression Era detective investigates a rich charitable woman who's known for picking up homeless men and giving them...well, you know. Weird story, but not that bad.
• "Night Tidings" by Gary Alan Ruse: This is one of the best stories in here, featuring a priest who goes to the local rich guy who he suspects is a vampire (he's right) for help in solving the murder of one of his parishoners. I enjoyed the partnership between the two, and how the vampirism is handled in stride.
• "God-Less Men" by James Kisner: Local sheriff has to team with a vampire hunter to take care of the local vampire problem. The sheriff isn't too cool with this, but eventually has to go along with it. It's okay. Has a fairly nice twist at the end.
• "No Blood For A Vampire" by Edward D. Hoch: Two guys go to Madagascar to investigate a vampire problem. Notable for its use of warthogs.
• "The Count's Mailbox" by William Sanders: Story about what happens when Vlad Dracula tries to get his memoirs published in the modern era. It's about what you'd expect from that.
• " Tom Rudolph's Last Tape" by John Maclay: Semi-interesting story about an old school detective who has casually boinked one of his clients, and how she seduces him to the dark side. I can't help but kind of thing he's an idiot to fall into this, but yeah, dudes think with their dicks.
• "The Turning" by Jack Ketchum: Vampire gives a homeless girl $20. Seriously, that's the entire plot of it. I don't get it.
• "You'll Catch Your Death" by P.N. Elrod: Vampire comes across a girl whose husband and sister (or, I suspect, "sister") are trying to murder her for the life insurance money. One of the better stories in this book.
• "Shell Game" by John Lutz: Creepy story about a teacher whose student claims that one of the other teachers is a vampire. Uh... doesn't go so well.
• "The Secret" by Barbara Paul: My favorite in the collection, it's the story of the town El Secreto and its neighbor, Pritchett City. A rich fellow (named guess what) bought El Secreto, then had a village in Transylvania shipped over brick by brick to attract tourists. Naturally, something goes wrong with this idea.
• "Blind Pig on North Halsted" by Wayne Allen Sallee: I'll say this for this story: in three pages it gives more setup for a plot (cop and actor investigate killings in the gay community, with details) than many short stories I've read before. And then it freaking stops in 3 pages. I don't get it. What the hell? Where's the rest of it?
• "Phil The Vampire" by Richard Laymon: Interesting story about a woman who goes to a PI complaining that her vampire husband who loves her feeds off of other women-- and she'd like him to die for it, please. I like how the detective is willing to hear out this crazy, but not enough to believe her entirely. Pretty good story.
• " Undercover" by Nancy Holder: Vampire detective whose wife left him because he got converted finds someone new to hang out with. Eh, it's kind of weak.

Overall, I'm giving it two and a half stars. A few good ones in here, but it ain't the best.