Dead Ever After - Charlaine Harris (Ace Books, 2013)
I feel vindicated. The series wrapped up more or less exactly how I thought it would. (See previous entries here.) Which isn't particularly the arc I would have chosen, but I'm too colored by the actors playing various characters to have any real objectivity there.
(PS - what on earth is going on in HBO's Bon Temps?! I haven't seen this past season yet, but reading about it online makes it sound insane.)
But anyway, Sookie. Characters return from the past to seek revenge, and the repercussions of her use of the cluviel dor in the last book continue to ripple. With the usual amount of insanity - jail, murder attempts, etc etc etc - eventually things tie themselves in a neat enough bow. Sookie ends up not exactly back where she started, but somewhere near there. And with some promise that even if she doesn't get a happily ever after, the era of the constant threats to live and limb is coming to a close.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Fake marriage! Amnesia! Huzzah!
Tempting the Bride - Sherry Thomas (Berkley Sensation, 2012)
End trilogy. (Parts 1 & 2 here and here.) In the first book, one driving motive in the plot is keeping Baby Sis away from an affair with a married man. In the second, you get a bit more of that. So here in the third, Helena is frustrated like mad. In large part because her family got to her lover and now he's staying away (hmph) but also because her brother's best friend is continuing his role as "bane of Helena's existence."
And like any young boy on a playground, this is of course because he's madly in love. But of course Helena somehow is fooled by his caustic comments, and troubled by the twinge of attraction.
Fortunately, FAKE MARRIAGE! Helena almost gets caught in a compromising position, but Lord Hastings (ever the protector) makes sure she is caught with him instead of her lover. So they have to elope to save her reputation. (Natch.) And then, for good measure, she ends up losing her memory in a crazy accident, giving them the chance to start over in their relationship.
Cute, but.... I get the reasoning behind the accident. And it works. But the dramatic hum of energy that comes from watching them antagonize each other is more fun. I would have rather watched him win her over from that state.
And so I move on to Thucydides. Seriously. Which means that while I'm plodding through the Peloponnesian War, expect plenty more lighthearted distractions.
End trilogy. (Parts 1 & 2 here and here.) In the first book, one driving motive in the plot is keeping Baby Sis away from an affair with a married man. In the second, you get a bit more of that. So here in the third, Helena is frustrated like mad. In large part because her family got to her lover and now he's staying away (hmph) but also because her brother's best friend is continuing his role as "bane of Helena's existence."
And like any young boy on a playground, this is of course because he's madly in love. But of course Helena somehow is fooled by his caustic comments, and troubled by the twinge of attraction.
Fortunately, FAKE MARRIAGE! Helena almost gets caught in a compromising position, but Lord Hastings (ever the protector) makes sure she is caught with him instead of her lover. So they have to elope to save her reputation. (Natch.) And then, for good measure, she ends up losing her memory in a crazy accident, giving them the chance to start over in their relationship.
Cute, but.... I get the reasoning behind the accident. And it works. But the dramatic hum of energy that comes from watching them antagonize each other is more fun. I would have rather watched him win her over from that state.
And so I move on to Thucydides. Seriously. Which means that while I'm plodding through the Peloponnesian War, expect plenty more lighthearted distractions.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Murder most foul
A Great Deliverance - Elizabeth George (Bantam Dell, 1988)
Shortly after I moved to Orange County, three different people recommended Elizabeth George to me. It may have been partly coincidence, or it may have had something to do with the fact that she was an Orange County resident writing British mysteries. At any rate, she's been on my to-do list for awhile, until finally a copy of her first Inspector Lynley book made its way to me.
There's a rather huge cast of characters and the book visits all of them. The two inspectors, several people in some way near the crime - a farmer beheaded, his daughter confessed to the killing, but clearly something is off - and a few others who are more peripherally involved in the world of Scotland Yard. It gets a bit confusing, but allows for all sorts of red herrings.
Lynley and Havers find the whole situation ominous and unsettling from the start, but it took awhile for me to understand why, and while the climax made sense, I didn't see it coming. I found the relationship between them more interesting, as each battles his or her own inner demons. I suppose that is more how mysteries are supposed to work anyway.
Shortly after I moved to Orange County, three different people recommended Elizabeth George to me. It may have been partly coincidence, or it may have had something to do with the fact that she was an Orange County resident writing British mysteries. At any rate, she's been on my to-do list for awhile, until finally a copy of her first Inspector Lynley book made its way to me.
There's a rather huge cast of characters and the book visits all of them. The two inspectors, several people in some way near the crime - a farmer beheaded, his daughter confessed to the killing, but clearly something is off - and a few others who are more peripherally involved in the world of Scotland Yard. It gets a bit confusing, but allows for all sorts of red herrings.
Lynley and Havers find the whole situation ominous and unsettling from the start, but it took awhile for me to understand why, and while the climax made sense, I didn't see it coming. I found the relationship between them more interesting, as each battles his or her own inner demons. I suppose that is more how mysteries are supposed to work anyway.
A writer's writer
All That Is - James Salter (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013)
I've heard Salter described as a "writer's writer" and judging from the author names on the blurbs (John Banville, Tim O'Brien, Julian Barnes, Edmund White, John Irving) it seems it must be so. What I have read of these authors makes me lump them together as beautiful constructors of prose, but too masculine in some ways for my sensibilities (to grossly oversimplify, since A Prayer for Owen Meany made me bawl more than I think any book ever has). And it's almost too bad I went into the novel with that preconception, since the book pretty much fit right into it.
Salter is a gorgeous writer. I was struck again and again by the beauty of the sentences. It kept me reading. And I was interested in the characters too, I swear. But I felt like I was watching them from some remove. I never particularly cared, I just wanted to see how prettily they could be written about. And that's fine, but it's different from what I normally care to read. Maybe it's what has to happen when your characters are roughly Mad Men-era.
Some of the lovely lines I noted:
When Bowman first falls in love, almost blindly: "When you love you see a future according to your dreams."
About another character's girlfriend's ex: "He was destined to be a father who would never disappear because of the way he did."
The next woman Bowman loves: "The truth is, with some women you are never sure. They had traveled for ten days and he felt he knew her [...] but you could not know someone else all of the time, their thoughts, about which is was useless to ask."
Bowman's mother, reflecting on the afterlife: "I think that whatever you believe will happen is what happens." A reflection that Bowman comes back to at least once in the remainder of the novel.
Anyway, a step outside of my comfort zone, and one I'm glad I took.
I've heard Salter described as a "writer's writer" and judging from the author names on the blurbs (John Banville, Tim O'Brien, Julian Barnes, Edmund White, John Irving) it seems it must be so. What I have read of these authors makes me lump them together as beautiful constructors of prose, but too masculine in some ways for my sensibilities (to grossly oversimplify, since A Prayer for Owen Meany made me bawl more than I think any book ever has). And it's almost too bad I went into the novel with that preconception, since the book pretty much fit right into it.
Salter is a gorgeous writer. I was struck again and again by the beauty of the sentences. It kept me reading. And I was interested in the characters too, I swear. But I felt like I was watching them from some remove. I never particularly cared, I just wanted to see how prettily they could be written about. And that's fine, but it's different from what I normally care to read. Maybe it's what has to happen when your characters are roughly Mad Men-era.
Some of the lovely lines I noted:
When Bowman first falls in love, almost blindly: "When you love you see a future according to your dreams."
About another character's girlfriend's ex: "He was destined to be a father who would never disappear because of the way he did."
The next woman Bowman loves: "The truth is, with some women you are never sure. They had traveled for ten days and he felt he knew her [...] but you could not know someone else all of the time, their thoughts, about which is was useless to ask."
Bowman's mother, reflecting on the afterlife: "I think that whatever you believe will happen is what happens." A reflection that Bowman comes back to at least once in the remainder of the novel.
Anyway, a step outside of my comfort zone, and one I'm glad I took.
Tuesday, August 06, 2013
I can't help myself, part 2
The Earl is Mine - Kieran Kramer (St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2013)
...and so we move on to the man named Brady, and the three boys of his own. Marcia got herself settled, so now it's Greg's turn. This time, the love interest is an old childhood friend, his godfather's niece. But he's pulled back from her and everyone else after learning a dreadful secret on his mother's deathbed. Oh, and she's off to follow her dreams, at least the ones that aren't him. Are you surprised that this leads to her running off and cross-dressing and much hijinks?
Like most romance novelists that I've come across (and the sample size is admittedly small), Kramer seems to care a lot about portraying women that are independent and willing to follow their dreams, and having that spark be what makes men love them. But she also plays around quite a bit with questions of legitimacy and parentage. It makes you wonder what's in store for the rest of the Bradys.
...and so we move on to the man named Brady, and the three boys of his own. Marcia got herself settled, so now it's Greg's turn. This time, the love interest is an old childhood friend, his godfather's niece. But he's pulled back from her and everyone else after learning a dreadful secret on his mother's deathbed. Oh, and she's off to follow her dreams, at least the ones that aren't him. Are you surprised that this leads to her running off and cross-dressing and much hijinks?
Like most romance novelists that I've come across (and the sample size is admittedly small), Kramer seems to care a lot about portraying women that are independent and willing to follow their dreams, and having that spark be what makes men love them. But she also plays around quite a bit with questions of legitimacy and parentage. It makes you wonder what's in store for the rest of the Bradys.
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