Monday, Monday

IT's MONDAY!!!!!

hosted by Sheila at Book Journey

I had an Interesting Week. Had to spend more time than I wanted at Doctor's visits the week before, and this week. That's way too many visits, ex-rays, ct scans, etc. So to de-stress I tried to focus on reading and watching as much Doctor Who or Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I could catch. BBC is sporadic in their airings of Doctor Who - that's BBC America. And LOGO, the channel that's been airing Buffy the Vampire Slayer seems to be stuck on the same 8 episodes, day in and day out. No rhyme or reason. If I get tired of those, and feel like watching TV, then I get to watch Gordon Ramsey yell at business owners who are almost losing their restaurants, watch the owners complain about Ramsey and then watch the successful relaunch of their businesses. Great fun, really.

I should have read more, but it was hard to concentrate at times.

Here's what I have managed to do, regarding BOOKS

{as usual, click on cover for excerpt}

I finished Magic Bleeds (Ilona Andrews). Haven't blogged about it yet, other than "DAMN!", but it's definitely a book worth buying, reading {DON'T LOAN IT OUT, YOU MIGHT NOT GET IT BACK!} and Keeping.

That's 6 stars out of 6 ****** for Magic Bleeds

I finished Hell Fire, by Ann Aguirre. I enjoyed this one very much - will blog about it in the coming week.

This one 5 out of 6 stars. ***** for Hell Fire

I am almost finished with Allyson James' Stormwalker. Allyson James also writes under the name Jennifer Ashley. Very Close to finished, things keep getting in the way of me sitting down and finishing, like....Father's Day. :)
Enjoying Stormwalker, so far

I used Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane as my sitting in the waiting room book last week. Stacia Kane also writes The Megan Chase books (Personal Demons, etc). Oh Boy, I could tell this is gon' be good! Oh YEAH. There's more coming from that series, also (Yay!)

Some books just grab you from the first page on. This is one of them

I started Moonshine by Alaya Johnson, and I was about......3/4 of the way through when I misplaced it. This is one of the reasons that I read more than one book at a time (remember the whole B.A.D.D. thing?) I frequently temporarily misplace books - but I usually find them within a week. It mainly bothers me when I'm very into a book - such as Magic Bleeds, or one of Suzanne McLeod's books. Then I freak out (in a totally mature, ladylike way, of course!) until I find the book. :) Really.

Anyway, back to Moonshine and Alaya Johnson. Ms Johnson has written other novels and has a children's novel, The Goblin King published. Explore around her site, it has a quirky set-up, fun. This Cover! Moonshine's cover is what first led me to pick up the book. I normally don't go for pale skin on covers, but I think the contrast of the three main colors is very dramatic. The secondary character is a POC man, one that the Heroine is attracted to, so there's a bit a bigotry to deal with in the book (it's the 1920's) More on this after I finish reading Moonshine.

At any rate, so far I was enjoying Moonshine, It's a new take on vampires and "others" - set in 1920's America.

After finishing three very top of the line books and starting a fourth extremely well written novel, I ended up putting aside Touched By An Alien (Gini Koch) for later. This is not to say that I think this is badly written; on the contrary, the style of writing is interesting, the plot promising, the characters engaging. It's just that this book, though marketed as a Science Fiction Novel, READS just like a Romance Novel. I'm not currently in the mood for even paranormal romance. I realize that genres are being blended and crossing over lines, but there's a specific way humorous Romance novels are written - kind of a light tone, lots of references to the "hotties" and "hunks" etc, and that's not what I feel like reading right now. I can tell it will be good for a light-hearted reading session - possibly soon for me. Right now, I want to read Space Science Fiction, Dark Fantasy or Urban Fantasy - those are what I'm in the mood for.

I bought my father two Terry Pratchett books. Making Money and Small Gods. My dad loves figuring out interest rates, talking about banks and corporations, etc, so I thought he might enjoy the satire of the banking system explored in Making Money. He also loves exploring all different kinds of religions. While I was little he used to tell me little bits and pieces about many different belief systems (Buddhism, Christianity, Tribal, all kinds).

For my son, I bought him a Tom Holt novel. Tom Holt writes funny books about all kinds of things. He's done a version of Beowulf. All I could find this time, was his brand new novel, Blonde Bombshell - thankfully. It was good to get a brand new Tom Holt book.

Both Terry Pratchett (Sir Terry Pratchett) and Tom Holt are British Authors.

While I was buying books for my father (DADDY'S DAY!) and my middle son (Daddy's Day, again) I picked up a few for me.

God, I hope I didn't already buy this one. Sometimes I do that - buy it, put it somewhere, buy another......(lame). This is the second Seanan McGuire book. A Local Habitation has been out for a bit already. A third book will be published in fall 2010. She also writes as Mira Grant (Feed).

Cat Adams is a new pen-name of the duo C.T. Adams. Blood song I read the first two of their Thrall series. I have to admit I liked the first book way better than the second. The narrative (first person) way of speech started getting to me. The speech patterns were very proper, or professor-ish. Which can totally take me out of a horror or urban fantasy book. I scanned a few pages of Blood song, and it seems way more down to earth with the words. Hope I'm right on this - it was $15 bucks!

To my UTTER SHAME - I'm cringing as I type this....I lost my mind and PAID for another Anita Blake, Vampire Humper - er Hunter novel. I don't know why. Really. I don't even like the cover. I was going to order the UK coverversion, but it would have cost more, and no way. I shouldn't have bought this because the quality of LKH's books have really gone south. WHY?DID?I?BUY?!!!. Really, the woman writes with less polish than many teen-age writers. I've read many more debut books that read so much better than LKH's later books - there's like reverse experience in writing happening here. GEEZ! I'm disgusted with myself!!! I do reserve the right to take it back. To the store. I had promised myself after reading pages and pages of useless relationship angst and pages and pages of sex DISCUSSIONS that I wouldn't buy anymore of these books....Yup. Going to take it back - find my receipt and get a different book. Then - maybe if I feel like I need to get this still - I'll buy it USED! That's the new plan.

:)

Okay everyone - here's to a good week all 'round