Voyager / Diana Gabaldon

2.5 stars out of 5

Claire Randall discovers that Jamie Fraser survived the Battle of Culloden and must choose between returning to him or staying in the life she has made for herself in her own time.

Well thank goodness that Voyager is now in my rear-view mirror! Not that it’s a terrible book, just it’s not the right book for me, especially right now when I’m looking forward to diving into my fall reading list. But my hold was fulfilled at the public library sooner than I anticipated and then I found there were 25 people waiting patiently behind me in line for it, so there would be no renewal allowed. Le Sigh!

I’m interested in the basic plot of the story, but Gabaldon bludgeons the reader with detail. I persist in thinking that a more ruthless editor would improve these books by orders of magnitude. Apparently this is an argument that the author has heard before, as Jamie & Major John Grey have a discussion about the length of books when Jamie is in the prison which Grey is overseeing. They are discussing Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, by Samuel Richardson which is another kitten-squisher of a book and they come to the conclusion that some books just need more details to capture a life. Obviously, I don’t agree, but it’s a valid argument in some cases.

And of course I can’t review Gabaldon without my ritual bird-rant. This time around, it’s about a pelican, caught by the Chinese character and used to bring in fish. This method of using a bird to do the fishing is a real thing, done in China, but with cormorants. I’m unaware if pelicans have ever been trained in this way, but I suppose it is possible. There are certainly lots of cormorant species at sea that could have been chosen for the book. I’m not sure which species of pelican is referred to here, but I assume it’s a Brown Pelican (and Gabaldon, with her poor bird track record, thankfully doesn’t specify species). I suspect that she chose the pelican over the cormorant because it is a larger bird, providing some protection for its new master.

Having just recently finished Dr. No, by Ian Fleming, also set in Jamaica, I was struck by the shared details between the two books. Descriptions of mangroves and of the guano industry, for instance. Fleming references the bird guano industry, Gabaldon specifies bat guano. I assume that there are insectivorous bats in the Caribbean and caves large enough to house them and collect guano? I definitely know that Fleming’s bird colonies are dead accurate. ***I just found a reference to Jamaica bat guano on Amazon, of all places.  So Caribbean bat guano is a thing.***

One thing that I did appreciate in this volume was the lovely portrayal of middle-aged lovers. Jamie & Claire have still got it going on. I also thought that their hesitance when they are first reunited was right on the money—a 20 year gap is almost like starting over with a new person, after all.

I’m pleased to report that it looks like at least a year will pass before I will pick up the next book in this series. Hopefully, I’ll be feeling less time pressure at that point and can read at a more leisurely pace, which would dampen my resentment of all the unnecessary padding in these books.

Book number 293 in my Science Fiction & Fantasy Reading Project.

Artemis / Andy Weir

4 out of 5 stars

Jazz Bashara is a criminal.  Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent.

Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down. But pulling off the impossible is just the start of her problems, as she learns that she's stepped square into a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself—and that now, her only chance at survival lies in a gambit even riskier than the first.

Well, we all knew that this second novel by Andy Weir couldn’t be as good as The Martian, didn’t we? Not that it’s a bad novel, but very few books could live up to the level of that his first effort. I think the author is brave to issue it and keep on writing. I’ll be willing to read his third novel, too. The Martian was great because the mission was pretty simple: Get the hell off Mars! This story has more complexities, as there are many other people involved and not all of them want our protagonist Jazz to succeed.

I’d also be willing to bet that Weir has read Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress more than once. Jazz is certainly a competent & independent woman, albeit a little less voluntarily subservient than Heinlein’s supposedly strong, independent women. (Weir credits a number of female friends & acquaintances for proof-reading to make Jazz more realistic—there are still hits & misses, I think, but overall it’s not an awful portrayal). And like Heinlein, Weir is really, really interested in technical details (welding in a vacuum, anyone?).

In Weir’s world, the Moon city Artemis is sort of a colony of Kenya—a surprising little twist that I really liked. I did wonder a little bit about the correspondence between Jazz and a pen-pal in Kenya—it was a moderately useful tool, but I also found it a bit confusing, until I figured out that Jazz really was unwilling to be honest with anyone, sometimes even herself. But I adored Fidelis Ngugi, the “mayor” of Artemis, with all her plotting & planning!

The Julius House / Charlaine Harris

3 out of 5 stars

Love at first sight turns into newlywed bliss for former librarian Aurora Teagarden-until violence cuts the honeymoon short.

Wealthy businessman Martin Bartell gives Roe exactly what she wants for their wedding: Julius House. But both the house and Martin come with murky pasts. And when Roe is attacked by an ax-wielding maniac, she realizes that the secrets inside her four walls—and her brand-new marriage—could destroy her.

When your hobby is studying True Crime stories, what do you want as a wedding present? Well, a mysterious house where the whole family has vanished without a trace, that’s what. And that’s exactly what Aurora Teagarden gets from her new husband, Martin. She gets a few other secrets rolled into the bargain without her knowledge, however, that lead her to wonder whether she’s made the correct choices for her life.

The amount that I enjoy Charlaine Harris’ mysteries seems to depend more on my frame of mind than anything else. When I’m in a receptive mood, I’m willing to just go with whatever scenario she dishes up. When I’m perhaps a bit cranky, I start questioning those plot choices and I don’t enjoy the story quite so much.

This time out, I feel a bit cranky about things. Although I thought that the reveal of what actually happened to the Julius family was very well done, I found the relationship developments between Roe and Martin to be questionable. Who in their right mind goes into a marriage with unanswered questions of that magnitude? When you have an opportunity to question the ex-wife, why would you shut her down? And why would you ever go to your former date for marriage counselling?

Yeah, yeah, small town, limited number of people, blah, blah, blah. I’ve lived in a small town and I don’t find it realistic. But I’ve never lived in the Southern States, so what do I know?

I actually own a copy of the next book in the series, which I picked up in a second-hand bookstore. So I guess I will be continuing on at some point, when I have the crankies under control.

Doctor Sleep / Stephen King

4 out of 5 stars

On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless - mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and spunky 12-year-old Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the "steam" that children with the "shining" produce when they are slowly tortured to death.

Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father's legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant "shining" power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes "Doctor Sleep."


Read to fill the “Modern Masters of Horror” square of my 2017 Halloween Bingo card.

I must be getting tougher as I read more in the horror genre—I barely twinged when the Overlook ghosts showed up in this sequel to The Shining! As sequels go, I thought this one was done really well. I read it all in one sitting, stayed up until 2 a.m. to do so, and I didn’t cower under the bedclothes once!

What really impressed me was King’s depiction of struggling sobriety. As Dan sits outside a dive bar and longs to go in to sample that first drink that will wreck 15 years of being straight, I felt that longing right along with him, the desire to drown myself in booze, despite the fact that I have never had an alcohol problem. Write what you know, the advice goes, and this seems to be absolutely true in this instance. I’m betting the author has felt that same desire on more than one occasion!

As with The Shining, the true horror in this story is what regular people can do to each other and themselves, the destructiveness of addiction, and the rarity of kindness.

Misery / Stephen King

3 out of 5 stars

Paul Sheldon is a bestselling novelist who has finally met his number one fan. Her name is Annie Wilkes, and she is more than a rabid reader—she is Paul’s nurse, tending his shattered body after an automobile accident. But she is also furious that the author has killed off her favorite character in his latest book. Annie becomes his captor, keeping him prisoner in her isolated house.

Annie wants Paul to write a book that brings Misery back to life—just for her. She has a lot of ways to spur him on. One is a needle. Another is an axe. And if they don’t work, she can get really nasty.

I read this for the “Terrifying Women” square of my 2017 Halloween Bingo card.

I suppose Annie Wilkes is a terrifying woman. She is definitely written as mentally unstable and cruel. I suppose that, for a man, she would be terrifying, but in real life women face situations like these far too often. Read books like My Story by Elizabeth Smart or 3096 Days by Natasha Kampusch. Heck, just pay attention to your newspaper—there are frequently abductions and murders of women. And they aren’t fiction.

What truly fascinated me in this novel was a bit of insight (maybe) into King’s writing process. I loved the idea of finding the “hole in the paper” into which the writer could disappear, writing until inspiration left or exhaustion threatened.

Interestingly, the novel also seems to be slightly prophetic—writing about a car accident, including multiple leg fractures and a broken hip, the pain of those injuries, and how uncomfortable is was to write afterwards. But this was published in 1987 and King’s real-life car accident didn’t happen until 1999.

Well structured, well written, but not really my thing.

Sourdough / Robin Sloan

4 out of 5 stars

Lois Clary is a software engineer at General Dexterity, a San Francisco robotics company with world-changing ambitions. She codes all day and collapses at night, her human contact limited to the two brothers who run the neighborhood hole-in-the-wall from which she orders dinner every evening. Then, disaster! Visa issues. The brothers close up shop, and fast. But they have one last delivery for Lois: their culture, the sourdough starter used to bake their bread. She must keep it alive, they tell her—feed it daily, play it music, and learn to bake with it.

Lois is no baker, but she could use a roommate, even if it is a needy colony of microorganisms. Soon, not only is she eating her own homemade bread, she’s providing loaves daily to the General Dexterity cafeteria. The company chef urges her to take her product to the farmer’s market, and a whole new world opens up.

When Lois comes before the jury that decides who sells what at Bay Area markets, she encounters a close-knit club with no appetite for new members. But then, an alternative emerges: a secret market that aims to fuse food and technology. But who are these people, exactly?

I picked up this novel because I absolutely loved the author’s last offering, Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore. I won’t say that this book is completely different, because there are a few similarities, but don’t be expecting a clone of Penumbra if you choose to read it.

Lois Clary is a charming main character—a software engineer at a demanding company in San Francisco, she comes to realize that she needs more in her life than code and liquid meals. The beginning of this realization (the starter, if you will) is a bond with two brothers in her neighbourhood who run a food service out of their apartment—sour dough bread and spicy soup. When they run into visa problems, they move on, leaving their sourdough culture with Lois, their Number One Eater.

Anyone who has baked bread realizes that it takes skill. Lois leaps in with dedication and is soon getting more satisfaction from her bread baking than from her coding. Bread is indeed her ticket to real life and Sourdough follows her as she “rises” to meet new challenges. It made me wish that I could still eat gluten without consequences—instead I was driven to the kitchen to make gluten-free toast!

Shattered / Kevin Hearne

3.5 stars out of 5

Atticus’s apprentice Granuaile is at last a full Druid herself. What’s more, Atticus has defrosted an archdruid long ago frozen in time, a father figure (of sorts) who now goes by the modern equivalent of his old Irish name: Owen Kennedy.

And Owen has some catching up to do.

Atticus takes pleasure in the role reversal, as the student is now the teacher. Between busting Atticus’s chops and trying to fathom a cell phone, Owen must also learn English. For Atticus, the jury’s still out on whether the wily old coot will be an asset in the epic battle with Norse god Loki—or merely a pain in the arse.

But Atticus isn’t the only one with daddy issues. Granuaile faces a great challenge: to exorcise a sorcerer’s spirit that is possessing her father in India. Even with the help of the witch Laksha, Granuaile may be facing a crushing defeat.

As the trio of Druids deals with pestilence-spreading demons, bacon-loving yeti, fierce flying foxes, and frenzied Fae, they’re hoping that this time, three’s a charm.

***2017 Summer Lovin’ Reading List***

Best volume of this series so far!!!

I really liked the alternating chapters between Atticus, Granuaile, and Owen. This structure shows, better than any telling, that Atticus has severely underestimated both his partner Granuaile and his archdruid, Owen.

Granuaile gets to adventure on her own, while Atticus and Owen manage to get each other into trouble. Oberon and Orleith are fabulous hound sidekicks. Owen shows that he’s not just a cranky old coot, he’s still got good instincts, even if English isn’t the ideal language to express them in.
I’m getting a bit tired of the ‘dog-pile of gods on Atticus’ plot. Sure, he’s been annoying, but really has anything that he’s done warranted the amount of ill-will that is being expended on him? At least in this book we are back to dealing mostly with the Irish pantheon, which makes sense, but I am really tired of the Loki/Ragnarock plot line which keeps dragging along through so many books now. Says the woman who usually loves the Norse gods in fiction.

Owen steals the show, being completely unfamiliar with 21st century society and providing hilarious perspectives on it, while still showing that human nature hasn’t changed a bit! I used to read this series strictly for Oberon, but he has some competition now!

Shakespeare's Counselor / Charlaine Harris

3 out of 5 stars

Cleaning woman and karate expert Lily Bard is a woman with a complicated past. Trying her best to cope with her terrifying memories and horrible nightmares, she decides to join a weekly group therapy session in her hometown of Shakespeare, Arkansas. At first, Lily can hardly believe the number of her fellow Shakespeareans that share her life experiences.

As it turns out, the group members' feelings aren't the only things that need sorting out -- they assemble for a session and find a woman dead, killed in bone-chilling fashion and deliberately left on display to send a twisted message. Who would commit such horrendous crime, and who is the intended recipient of the message?

Before long, Lily becomes embroiled in this disturbing murder and its aftermath, one in which the brutal killer's motives are entirely unclear. The truth is, the situation has dredged up more than a few of her own terrible secrets, and she may not be able to rest until she can untangle the who and why of this terrible crime. But can she accomplish this before the killer strikes again, and before her nightmares send her over the edge?

I read this book to match the “Amateur Sleuth” square of my 2017 Halloween Bingo Card.

Another small town mystery and quite a contrast to “A Murder is Announced.” I enjoy Charlaine Harris’ mysteries, but she cannot hold a candle to Dame Agatha!

However, Harris does use the small town environment quite effectively. Where else but a small town would the cleaning lady, Lily Bard, be friends with the chief of police and his wife the doctor? And true to the nature of a small town, Lily knows most of the people in her counseling group and her counselor is a near neighbour.

Without all of these believable details, Lily couldn’t end up in the middle of a crime as often as she does! And, as with Agatha Christie’s small towns, people are people wherever you go and will surprise you with their reasons, logical or otherwise, for the things that they do.

This seems to be the last of the Lily Bard mysteries, so I will bid her farewell now. It seems a shame that she finally is getting her life together when her author has lost interest in her!

Real Murders / Charlaine Harris

3.5 stars out of 5

Though a small town at heart, Lawrenceton, Georgia, has its dark side-and crime buffs. One of whom is librarian Aurora "Roe" Teagarden, a member of the Real Murders Club, which meets once a month to analyze famous cases. It's a harmless pastime—until the night she finds a member killed in a manner that eerily resembles the crime the club was about to discuss. And as other brutal "copycat" killings follow, Roe will have to uncover the person behind the terrifying game, one that casts all the members of Real Murders, herself included, as prime suspects-or potential victims.


***2017 Summer Lovin’ Reading List***

A typical Charlaine Harris setting for this mystery series, a small community in the South. As per usual, Harris nails the small town details, the over-entwined lives, the importance of reputation, and the somewhat rigid social roles that people get pigeon-holed into.

Not an overwhelmingly wonderful mystery, but enough to keep me reading quickly right to the end and enough to encourage me to put a hold on the second volume at the library. It also helps that the heroine, Aurora Teagarden, is a librarian, a career near and dear to my heart.

Like so many of Harris’ leading characters, Roe is used to being part of the background. Just like Sookie Stackhouse and Lily Bard, Aurora is overshadowed by the women around her that are deemed more attractive or more normal. Harris seems to enjoy giving these kind of women some power, some male attention, and room to explore what they might actually want from life.

Prentice Alvin / Orson Scott Card

2.5 out of 5 stars

The Tales of Alvin Maker series continues in volume three, Prentice Alvin. Young Alvin returns to the town of his birth, and begins his apprenticeship with Makepeace Smith, committing seven years of his life in exchange for the skills and knowledge of a blacksmith. But Alvin must also learn to control and use his own talent, that of a Maker, else his destiny will be unfulfilled.

This has to be one of the oddest fantasy series that I have ever read. O.S. Card gives early American history his own strange, imaginative torque. Cross Pilgrim’s Progress with the Belgariad, add in a dash of chemistry, alchemy, and magic, and you get this weird combination of the chosen one quest tale and religious allegory.

Alvin is definitely a “chosen one” with characteristics of Jesus and Joseph Smith both. His quest is to become a Maker, kind of an apprentice creator to God. Like the protagonists in most quest tales, he must learn to control himself as well as to control his talent. He is up against the Unmaker, the Satan stand-in for this series, which reminds me strongly of Guy Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar Tapestry series.

The last volume dealt with race relations between settlers and Native Americans, which leaned heavily on the Noble Savage concept of the 19th century. This volume explores the relationship between white owners and black slaves. Both of these volumes leave me wondering what exactly Card is trying to accomplish in this regard—whatever it is, I didn’t get it.

Book 255 in my Science Fiction and Fantasy reading project.

Spider's Bite / Jennifer Estep

3 stars out of 5

My name is Gin, and I kill people.

They call me the Spider. I'm the most feared assassin in the South — when I'm not busy at the Pork Pit cooking up the best barbecue in Ashland. As a Stone elemental, I can hear everything from the whispers of the gravel beneath my feet to the vibrations of the soaring Appalachian Mountains above me. My Ice magic also comes in handy for making the occasional knife. But I don't use my powers on the job unless I absolutely have to. Call it professional pride.

Now that a ruthless Air elemental has double-crossed me and killed my handler, I'm out for revenge. And I'll exterminate anyone who gets in my way — good or bad. I may look hot, but I'm still one of the bad guys. Which is why I'm in trouble, since irresistibly rugged Detective Donovan Caine has agreed to help me. The last thing this coldhearted killer needs when I'm battling a magic more powerful than my own is a sexy distraction... especially when Donovan wants me dead just as much as the enemy.

I decided to start this series as the author will be attending a conference that I am registered for this summer. I like to have a feel for the work of the featured guests before the event.

If you are enamoured of urban fantasy, as I am, I would recommend this book to you. If, on the other hand, you find UF tiresome, pass this series by. For those of us who enjoy the genre, this is an acceptable series, with a number of good ideas.

Good ideas: (1) A female assassin. With magical powers, although she tries not to rely on them. (2) An interesting elemental magic scheme. (3) Gin (our assassin friend) is confident, competent & doesn’t even pretend that she’s a loner. She has friends who are like family & freely admits it.

The stuff that didn’t work so well for me? (1) The repetition. How many times do we need to be told where Gin carries all of her knives? Or how much she loves all of her knives? (2) The novel was filled with UF clichés, e.g. the main character has a tragic & damaging past (shades of Batman), she has a “code” (à la Dexter or Spademan in Shovel Ready). (3) Of course she is romantically interested in a policeman, he is as self-righteous as she is pragmatic, and every time she lays eyes on him all she can think about is sex (but her little feelings are hurt when they eventually have sex & he still dislikes her).

The set-up of Gin’s world is a little grittier and darker than I would normally choose. Sexual situations are just part of the background (lots of prostitutes & their clients) and often described more graphically than other UF series that I have read. I realize that it is just part of Gin’s “wrong side of the tracks” world, but it grated on me a bit.

Still, I liked the book and will continue with the series, both to see if Gin can “go straight” with her restaurant business (I assuming not entirely or the series is named wrong) and if she does, whether Detective Caine will unbend a bit and meet her in the middle.

The Yard / Alex Grecian

3.5 out of 5 stars

Victorian London is a cesspool of crime, and Scotland Yard has only twelve detectives—known as “The Murder Squad”—to investigate countless murders every month. Created after the Metropolitan Police’s spectacular failure to capture Jack the Ripper, The Murder Squad suffers rampant public contempt. They have failed their citizens. But no one can anticipate the brutal murder of one of their own . . . one of the twelve . . .When Walter Day, the squad’s newest hire, is assigned the case of the murdered detective, he finds a strange ally in the Yard’s first forensic pathologist, Dr. Bernard Kingsley. Together they track the killer, who clearly is not finished with The Murder Squad . . . but why?

 I liked The Yard. I really wanted to love it, but a couple of things stood in my way. I really felt like it was a modern forensic mystery being forced into a Victorian corset—and details were frequently straining to escape.

A little research has helped me like it more. This really was the time period during which fingerprinting became a thing that police forces did and autopsies were practiced. I found the resistance of some members of the police force to these procedures to be believable—perhaps more believable than the easy acceptance of them by the main characters.

I probably would have been more enamoured by this novel had I not been reading some of Ben Aaronovitch’s excellent Rivers of London series recently. Aaronovitch, as a Londoner, has such an advantage with the dialog—his sounds authentic, he uses slang expertly, his dialog sounds natural. This is a difficult task for a North American author to duplicate. Grecian’s characters inevitably end up sounding somewhat American. A couple of references to the modern myth of families needing "closure" especially rubbed me the wrong way, particularly since I really don't believe that there's any such thing! Having lost family traumatically in a car accident, I can tell you that there is never closure, just the careful construction of a new reality.

I didn’t get a strong sense of place in The Yard either. London is such a wonderful, rich location for a story--Rivers of London or the Slough House series by Mick Herron make the city an integral part of the action.

Still, this was an interesting first book in the series and I wouldn’t be surprised if I read at least the second book at some point to see if the author finds his footing. There are a number of interesting people who seem poised to become regulars and the possibilities are intriguing. If you enjoyed this book, I would also recommend Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson by Lyndsay Faye, a book which I feel captures the flavor of the period a little better.

Paper and Fire / Rachel Caine

4 out of 5 stars

With an iron fist, the Great Library controls the knowledge of the world, ruthlessly stamping out all rebellion and, in the name of the greater good, forbidding the personal ownership of books.

Jess Brightwell has survived his introduction to the sinister, seductive world of the Library, but serving in its army is nothing like he envisioned. His life and the lives of those he cares for have been altered forever. His best friend is lost, and Morgan, the girl he loves, is locked away in the Iron Tower, doomed to a life apart from everything she knows.

After embarking on a mission to save one of their own, Jess and his band of allies make one wrong move and suddenly find themselves hunted by the Library’s deadly automata and forced to flee Alexandria, all the way to London.

But Jess’s home isn’t safe anymore. The Welsh army is coming, London is burning, and soon, Jess must choose between his friends, his family, and the Library, which is willing to sacrifice anything and anyone in the search for ultimate control… 

 Not surprisingly, the second book of The Great Library series is slightly less awesome than the first book. But having said that, the first was so overwhelming—that’s a difficult standard to maintain.

However, Caine keeps the Library overbearing, uncaring, and brutal, exactly what it needs to be in this dystopian world. Even those that should be trustworthy are sometimes traitorous and support comes from unexpected quarters. Difficult choices must be made—who to save, who to leave behind, who to forgive, who to forget. We get a glimpse into the Iron Tower, into the Black Archives, into the human condition.

The writing continues to impress me. The characters continue to fascinate me. The plot draws me onwards, making me wish that book three (Ash and Quill) was going to be available before July 2017. I want the adventure to continue.

Last 3 books of the Sookie Stackhouse series / Chairlaine Harris

 There are secrets in the town of Bon Temps, ones that threaten those closest to Sookie—and could destroy her heart...

Sookie Stackhouse finds it easy to turn down the request of former barmaid Arlene when she wants her job back at Merlotte’s. After all, Arlene tried to have Sookie killed. But her relationship with Eric Northman is not so clearcut. He and his vampires are keeping their distance…and a cold silence. And when Sookie learns the reason why, she is devastated.

Then a shocking murder rocks Bon Temps, and Sookie is arrested for the crime.

But the evidence against Sookie is weak, and she makes bail. Investigating the killing, she’ll learn that what passes for truth in Bon Temps is only a convenient lie. What passes for justice is more spilled blood. And what passes for love is never enough...

 Okay, this is where I admit that I binge-read the last 3 books in the Sookie Stackhouse series in two days. Part of me is sad that I did this to myself—concluded a series that I’ve been stretching out and planning to savour for as long as possible. But once I had the final books in my hands, I just couldn’t quit reading!

I can see why others were disappointed with this ending, but to my eye it was foreshadowed from the very first book. What was required was for Sookie to gain some life experience and to learn some hard lessons about life and the motivations of other people. That’s what our twenties and early thirties are for—learning that the way that you were raised isn’t shared by everyone, not even your own family or the community where you grew up. Learning that not everyone who arrives when you have a problem is there to help you. Figuring out what you can live with and what you can’t, who you can trust and who you shouldn’t. Who is supportive of who you are and who will never be?

Sookie couldn’t have ended up in a happy relationship if she didn’t have some problematic ones to compare to. I can say from personal experience that I was much shallower in my salad days and much more impressed by personal appearance in a love interest than perhaps by his values. And I cried my share of tears when the heartless & handsome disappeared out of my life. Nowadays, I appreciate kindness more than a full head of hair, thoughtfulness over a handsome face. But you have to get there! The mating issue is the biggest thing to be dealt with during the second decade of life and we are making important decisions while inexperienced—a recipe for potential disaster.

Basically, this series of 13 books follows the growing up experiences of a naïve but good-hearted young woman. If I have any criticism, it’s that Sookie seems to become more concerned with Christianity during the last few books, something which felt off to me. For the whole series, Harris gives us far too much information about Sookie’s personal hygiene, what she does with her hair, and what she’s making for supper, but she also gives us the angst of those years, the hard experiences, the growing up, and eventually making better choices.

Possibly the best first & last lines in this series—from I’d been waiting for the vampire for years when he walked into the bar. to I’m Sookie Stackhouse. I belong here. I’m already missing having another Sookie book to read—I hope to re-read them at some point in the future.

The Eyes of the Dragon / Stephen King

3 out of 5 stars

Once upon a time - there was terror and dragons and princes... evil wizards and dark dungeons... and an enchanted castle and a terrible secret. With this enthralling masterpiece of magical evil and daring adventure, Stephen King takes you in his icy grip and leads you into the most shivery and irresistible kingdom of wickedness... The Eyes of the Dragon.

 This seems to be one of those books that people either love or hate—how strange to find myself right in the middle! I’ve never been one of King’s Constant Readers and have only read a few of his books over the last number of years. This one is written very much in the form of a fairy tale and is dedicated to his daughter, who may have heard the first versions of it as bedtime material? I was disappointed that the dragon of the title was only a mounted head on the wall—live dragons are much more entertaining.

King recycles some material here—anyone who has read The Stand will recognize the villain, Flagg. There is also some overlap with the Dark Tower series.

I found The Stand to be a very black & white tale, with very little nuance. The Eyes of the Dragon takes that to a whole new level, despite the fact that King tries very hard to convince us that Thomas isn’t as bad as he seems. However, that is the nature of fairy tales, so it fits in this case.

I chose to read TEotD because it was on the NPR’s list of Science Fiction & Fantasy finalists back in 2011 (they were asking people of vote on the top titles in the field). Other children’s books were omitted from the list (e.g. Harry Potter) so I’m not sure how this one squeaked through to be included.

It is the 232nd book that I have read from this NPR list.

Darkness, Take My Hand / Dennis Lehane

4 out of 5 stars

The master of the new "noir," Dennis Lehane magnificently evokes the dignity and savagery of working-class Boston in this terrifying tale of darkness and redemption.

Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro's latest client is a prominent Boston psychiatrist running scared from a vengeful Irish mob. The private investigators know something about cold-blooded retribution. Born and bred on the mean streets of blue-collar Dorchester, they've seen the darkness that lives in the hearts of the unfortunate. But an evil for which even they are unprepared is about to strike as secrets long-dormant erupt, setting off a chain of violent murders that will stain everything--including the truth.

I read this book to fill the Set in New England square on my 2016 Halloween Book Bingo card. Wow, this was gritty and dark. A part of Boston that had never, ever crossed my mind—the Irish working class and the mafia that sprang from them. And the two investigators, Patrick and Angela, not only share this background but have stuck around & continued to work in it. I missed the first book and truthfully I don’t know that I will read another in the series. One dose of bleakness may be sufficient for my needs. If you have difficulty with explicit murder and/or torture scenes, you may want to give this book a miss. I finished it shortly before bedtime and must confess that it spawned a series of unsettling dreams overnight. As the book starts, it seems like our two investigators are getting their lives in order. Then they are offered what seems like a simple job, surveillance of a college boy. And with that, they are pulled into a whirlpool of intrigue. Lehane does a remarkable job of fleshing out their relationships with the community and each other without doing a recognizable info-dump. Very well written. If you are a fan of noir, I would recommend Darkness, Take My Hand.

Dead in the Family / Charlaine Harris

3 out of 5 stars

Sookie Stackhouse is dealing with a whole host of family problems, ranging from her own kin (a non-human fairy and a telepathic second cousin) demanding a place in her life, to her lover Eric's vampire sire, an ancient being who arrives with Eric's 'brother' in tow at a most inopportune moment. And Sookie's tracking down a distant relation of her ailing neighbour (and ex), Vampire Bill Compton.

In addition to the multitude of family issues complicating her life, the werewolf pack of Shreveport has asked Sookie for a special favour, and since Sookie is an obliging young woman, she agrees. But this favour for the wolves has dire results for Sookie, who is still recovering from the trauma of her abduction during the Fairy War.

 Not as much fun as earlier books, but still a good way to see my way through the first migraine headache that I have had in many years! This was a good distraction.

Although Sookie and Eric seem to have gelled into a couple, this actually takes away much of the plot tension from the story. Despite the fact that Eric is often away, they seem to have lost the push and pull in their relationship that made previous books so addictive for me.

On the plus side, we get to know Sookie’s little telepathic cousin, Hunter, a little better and her fairy cousin Claude moves in and becomes marginally more likeable. Sookie’s brother, Jason, seems to have matured a bit as well, even if he has moved on awfully quickly from his marriage to the late & unlamented Crystal.

And it’s not only Sookie’s family that gets time in this installment—Eric’s vampire sire and “little brother” show up. Of course his sire is an ancient Roman and the “brother” is the Russian Romanov prince who was so damaged by the time he became a vampire that he is unstable and dangerous (shades of Anne Rice in both of these matters). Plus, Sookie finds a “sister” of Bill’s, someone to assist him in regaining his health after his gallantry in book 9. (However, she very much resembles Bill’s mortal wife from the 1800s, so we will have to see how Sookie deals with that kind of competition for Bill’s affection, little dog-in-the-manger that she is).

All in all, a very appropriate title for this volume, as there are many family ties explored. Also included: some heavy foreshadowing, as Sookie contemplates her age and how long Eric or Bill will remain interested in her when she is no longer young & pretty. Since there have also been discussions of how much more blood exchange can take place between Sookie & Eric without turning her, this will no doubt be an issue dealt with more thoroughly in the last 3 books.

Dead and Gone / Charlaine Harris

3.5 stars out of 5

The vamps have been out for years, and now the weres and shifters have decided to follow the lead of the undead and reveal their existence to the ordinary world. Sookie Stackhouse already knows about them, of course - her brother turns into a panther at the full moon, she's friend to the local were pack, and Sam, her boss at Merlotte's bar, is a shapeshifter.

The great revelation goes well at first - then the horribly mutilated body of a were-panther is found in the parking lot of Merlotte's, and Sookie agrees to use her telepathic talent to track down the murderer. But there is a far greater danger than this killer threatening Bon Temps: a race of unhuman beings, older, more powerful, and far more secretive than the vampires or the werewolves, is preparing for war. And Sookie is an all-too-human pawn in their ages-old battle...

This seems to be the point in this rather long series where the author was losing interest in these characters but was still being encouraged to produce books by her publisher.  While still entertaining, they are becoming cookie-cutter books, with predictable characters in predictable predicaments solving their problems in predictable ways.

This should have been the book to deal with the “coming out” stories of the Were community, and instead it gets hijacked by fairy drama.  So, while I would have liked more detail on Sam, for instance, instead we get a pointless war, complete with the death of Claudine, the only fairy character that I actually liked.  The horrible death of Sookie’s shifter sister-in-law gets almost glossed over and it seems that no one actually misses the poor woman.

Eric gets much more attention in this installment, as he tricks our gullible heroine into a vampire marriage.  Supposedly this is to protect Sookie from the new vamp hierarchy, but it seems pretty self-serving, especially when a quick conversation could have straightened everything out.  By contrast, Vampire Bill comes out of this smelling like a rose, having proven himself devoted to Ms. Stackhouse.

One wonders how many more “wars” can be invented to be the centre of each new book.  I do truly enjoy the setting and many of the characters, but can appreciate why others would quit reading around this point.  For me, this was an easy read during a struggle of my own with a migraine headache (which may actually have affected my enjoyment and account for the crankiness of this review).

Sparrow Hill Road / Seanan McGuire

3.5 out of 5 stars

Rose Marshall died in 1952 in Buckley Township, Michigan, run off the road by a man named Bobby Cross—a man who had sold his soul to live forever, and intended to use her death to pay the price of his immortality. Trouble was, he didn’t ask Rose what she thought of the idea.  It’s been more than sixty years since that night, and she’s still sixteen, and she’s still running.

They have names for her all over the country: the Girl in the Diner. The Phantom Prom Date. The Girl in the Green Silk Gown. Mostly she just goes by “Rose,” a hitchhiking ghost girl with her thumb out and her eyes fixed on the horizon, trying to outrace a man who never sleeps, never stops, and never gives up on the idea of claiming what’s his. She’s the angel of the overpass, she’s the darling of the truck stops, and she’s going to figure out a way to win her freedom. After all, it’s not like it can kill her.  You can’t kill what’s already dead.

It pains me to give a book by Seanan McGuire less than 4 stars. In this case, it is truly not the book, it is me. I’m just not that into ghost stories, although I liked this one as much as I am capable of enjoying a ghost story.

Those of you who have been reading my reviews for a while will know that supernatural aspects to books send me to bed with the covers over my head more often than not. Both The Shining and The Haunting of Hill House required that I read them only during bright daylight hours and then I had to distract myself with other literature as the shadows lengthened. So I was pleasantly surprised when this book was told from the perspective of the ghost, Rose. It made all the difference in the world to me, and I wasn’t bothered by my usual scaredy-cat feelings at all.

McGuire does for the ghostly world what she did for the cryptid world in her Incryptid series—she catalogues, names, and assigns limitations, duties, and dangers to each type of spook. There is even a passing reference to the Healy family (part of the Price family amalgam in the Incryptid books) which makes me believe that Sparrow Hill Road takes place in the same weird North America as that series.

The book reads more like a series of short stories which follow one another chronologically. Rose is a “hitcher,” a spirit who must hitchhike and who can sense which drivers need her help to avoid accidents or other mishaps. As in McGuire’s October Daye series, smell is an important sense—in that series, October can identify each member of the Fae by the scent of their magic. Her own smells of copper and cut grass, if I recall correctly. Similarly, Rose diagnoses what kind of problem she has been summoned to through the combination of smells that emanate from the mortal she comes in contact with.

Although this will never be my favourite of McGuire’s series, I’m sure that I will read future volumes in it should they be published. I read this to fill the Ghosts square of my Halloween Book Bingo.

Tricked / Kevin Hearne

2.5 stars out of 5

Druid Atticus O’Sullivan hasn’t stayed alive for more than two millennia without a fair bit of Celtic cunning. So when vengeful thunder gods come Norse by Southwest looking for payback, Atticus, with a little help from the Navajo trickster god Coyote, lets them think that they’ve chopped up his body in the Arizona desert.

But the mischievous Coyote is not above a little sleight of paw, and Atticus soon finds that he’s been duped into battling bloodthirsty desert shapeshifters called skinwalkers. Just when the Druid thinks he’s got a handle on all the duplicity, betrayal comes from an unlikely source. If Atticus survives this time, he vows he won’t be fooled again. Famous last words.

 This book is an improvement over the third one in my opinion, but not as good as the first two books in the series. I was glad to have Oberon the wolfhound back, being his usual goofy self. I was also glad to know a bit more about apprentice Granuaile and to get some background info on Atticus.

I was sorry that Atticus and Leif ended up at odds with one another—I will miss their Shakespeare quote battles and Atticus instructing the unwilling vampire on how to appear more modern, something which Atticus excels at.

For someone who is supposed to be preserving the earth, Atticus spends an awful lot of time haring off on missions determined by others. Some of this was pay back, of course, paying back Coyote for services rendered and dealing with blow-back from the book 3 mission under taken to humour Leif. One would think that a Druid as aged as Atticus would be less focused on honour and more focused on the big picture—keeping the earth healthy and building the relationships that will help him through the next 1000 years.

I still feel that Granuaile is being under-utilized—hopefully this will be rectified in upcoming books. My hope is also that Atticus can settle down again and develop another circle of interesting friends (similar to the first two books). Having an awesome main character is great, but good supporting characters can kick things up a notch, in my opinion.

Still, some good ideas and I will definitely continue on to the next installment.