A Year in Reading, 2012 Edition

For the past couple of years, I've posted my end of year reading summary. It's not necessarily books published only in 2012, it's simply what I've read in 2012. It's not even the best of what I've read in 2012. It's simply a reading retrospective with a few words about each. Since I've read about 75 books or more this year, this list will be a bit more summary than in previous years. (Which will probably be a good thing because in 2011 I don't believe I finished my retrospective — oh my!)

The most awesome book series I read in 2012: Grave Witch by Kaylana Price (Series title: Alex Craft, Grave Witch, Grave Dance, Grave Memory). These are great, fascinating, urban fantasy novels featuring a witch PI in a world that's not really comfortable with the overt magic it's soaked in. The fae are omnipresent, but humans would rather believe the glamour they see than reconcile the creature beneath — ditto for the witch-made charms. Top that off with the personal struggles of Alex Craft — she's estranged from her family, barely making rent, and the only thing she's good at monetizing is her Grave Sight, an ability that leaves her night blind and sometimes worse. Oh, and there's a love triangle that gets more and more and more tangled as the series continues. The closer Alex Craft gets to accepting a relationship, the more alone she finds herself.

I actually read these books before I read Kim Harrison's The Hollows/Rachel Morgan series (more on that later) but once I had, I found Grave Witch extremely similar yet much more mature in world and premise. The Grave Witch world and character development leaps into the arena that the world of the Hollows only achieves in books six and on.

Favorite YA series of the year: I was surprised to fall in love with the YA sci-fi Cold Awakening Trilogy by Robin Wasserman this year. In this not-too-far-future dystopia, a rich, spoiled, self-centered teen ends up in a near-fatal accident that leaves her “skinned” — her brain is sliced, scanned, and uploaded into a synthetic body. I have a problem with whiny teenage characters (even if the whining is realistic) but the fascinating science and technology milieu pulled me through Frozen, and once we got into the larger social and political issues of Shattered and Torn, I found myself staying up way past my bedtime to gobble up this series.

Series that made me gain over 5 lbs. in a month: I read Janet Evanovich's One for the Money because the movie looked cute. Truth. I loved this book and snapped up Two for the Dough, Three to Get Deadly, Four to Score ... all the way through Fearless Fourteen before I stopped because I realized they were all awesome, but they were all the same. I have no doubt I'll go back and visit the Berg and the Plum family, Morelli, Ranger, and Stephanie Plum's inexplicable ability to destroy cars and read through the latest Notorious Nineteen. But I had to stop reading and take a break. Take a breath. Stop my constant reading about doughnuts, fried chicken, and pot roast — a devastating trio to have on the brain in the middle of winter.

Although the endless pot roast discussion did lead me to find a great, easy, pot roast recipe for crock pot: trim roast, place in a crock pot that's been lightly coated in PAM (for clean up), and then for every 2.5 lbs. of roast add one can cream of mushroom soup and a half-packet of powdered onion soup. Cook on low for eight hours. Don't add water! The roast will create its own gravy from this concoction. And it comes out super tender. The pot roast wasn't as debilitating a factor in my Evanovich inspired weight gain, it was more the doughnuts and fried chicken cravings that did me in.

So later, when I came across The Haunted Housewives of Allister, Alabama by Susan Abel Sullivan, I immediately recognized the protagonist Cleo Tidwell as a Southern, thrice-married Stephanie Plum. The humor's spot on, the crazy-but-lovable family is there, the zany problems that emerge in the course of solving the mystery and staying alive in the process — all the things that made Janet Evanovich's novels something which I felt like I read without breathing, were there in deep fried package from Susan Abel Sullivan. I highly recommend The Haunted Housewives of Allister, Alabama to anyone who's read and enjoyed One for the Money and the other Stephanie Plum mysteries.

The series with the devastating emotional roller coaster: JC Andrijeski's Allie's War, Book Four Shadow. I've posted before about this series. Everything I know about fiction tells me this series shouldn't work, yet oh-baby does it work. I read the first three in a madcap dash then waited for book four — a whopping 200,000+ words in length — and kept biding my time to start it because these books are an emotional roller coaster. I have a copy of book five, Knight, but every time I go to start it, I take a deep breath and ask myself are you ready for this? So far, I've not been prepared. Part near-future dystopia with some aspects of a tech thriller, part paranormal romance. These books are — and this doesn't often get said about PNR — epic.

Holy hell, how did I manage to ignore this series this long? Actually, I know how. Book one of Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan/The Hollows Novels, features cover art of a half-naked red head with handcuffs dangling off the belt loop of her hip hugging leather pants. Excuse me? You want me to believe your urban fantasy is a strong ass kicking chick when she's depicted wearing a bandeau bikini top on the streets of Cincinnati? Yep. That's the idea. Except the funny part about this depiction (and my subsequent reaction to it) is that Kim Harrison actually writes the character Rachel Morgan as dressing in precisely this fashion ... and then having people try to proposition her because they think she's a hooker. Oops! In later books in the series, Rachel's vampire friends and roommate try repeatedly to class her up. Her taste level is constantly in question and Rachel's not thrilled to hear it. So I zipped on through this great nine book series (book ten out this spring) starting with Dead Witch Walking of the bikini top infamy, then up through The Outlaw Demon Wails before I took a break from the series for a bit. Even then I caught myself saying "crap on toast" anytime something went wrong in my life.

After (not a spoiler) one of the main characters dies, Rachel loses a sense of focus, and I lost a bit of my interest. But after reading a half-dozen other novels by other writers, I started to wonder what happened next. So I happily turned back to the series and cruised on through to Pale Demon. These more recent titles bring Trent back more interestingly into the picture and I actually loved the cross-country road trip which allowed us to see just how different this post-genetic-crisis world is from our own — not something we were really able to see in the previous urban Cincinnati and touristy Mackinac locations. I'm looking forward to Ever After coming out January 22, 2013.

Because fairy tales are pretty. Opal is a YA fantasy by Kristina Wojtaszek that features multiple, nested fairy tales (some of which you'll recognize) within a fantasy world. The prose is lyrical and rich. Fans of Patricia McKillip take note of this new voice in the world of fantasy and fairy tale retellings.

Books I re-read. Elizabeth Vaughn's Warprize is just an absolutely stellar example of romantic fantasy (second-world setting). The rest of the books in the trilogy don't live up to the awesomeness of this first installment. I've not read the further books set in the same world, but might yet one day.

I also re-read the Others Series by Jess Haines as Stalking the Others was coming out during summer 2012 and I could remember that I liked the series but I couldn't remember what all the rules of that particular urban fantasy world were. Hunted by the Others (book one) was just okay. It took me two years before I bothered looking around to see if there was more in the series. Books two and three get more interesting. No longer does the main character think all vampires are Evil and most werewolves are okay but really the only species you can trust are humans — sorry, but that sort of thinking in a book is boring. Anyhoodle, book three ended with a doozy of a cliffhanger: the heroine might have been changed into an otherworldly creature against her will! So I was going to relish the fourth book, damnit, and that meant re-reading, re-skimming the previous three.

Promising beginnings. Silver by Rhiannon Held is an interesting, slightly grittier, werewolf urban fantasy. The two main characters aren't your typical heroine and heroine a la paranormal romance, rather they remind me of The Fifth Element's Corbin Dallas and Leelo. (My full review of the novel can be found on NewMyths.com.) Book two, Tarnished, comes out this spring. I'm hoping this series delivers on its promising beginning.

I used to love the Katie MacAlister series with the dragons. Actual, this is her third series of books featuring the same world/characters just switching narrators. But Sparks Fly completely lost me. Maybe I skipped over the previous book, because I constantly felt like I didn't know what was going on. Maybe it'll all make sense to me if I go back and re-read all ten books...?

Another promising beginning that's petered out, is Thea Harrison's Elder Races novels. Romances set in a modern world with were-creatures that can shift into giant animals like dragons, griffons, and thunderbirds. Dragon Bound, the first in the series, was awesome. Loved it. Read Storm's Heart, the second in the series, and it was okay. Read a novella out of order that I really had no idea why I finished. Sadly, I'm done with this series that had previously shown so much promise.

Matriarchal fantasy world — a bit like Scott O'Dell meets Anne McCaffery. Shards of History by Rebecca Roland is a fresh new fantasy world where the main civilization puts one in mind of southwest Native American cultures. The heroine, Malia, finds out a truth about the hated and feared creatures that live on the fringes of their civilization, one that can save them from the dragon-riding army that's poised on the edge of the valley, waiting to kill, capture, and enslave Malia's people. Of course, if she can't get her people to believe this newly discovered truth, it'll be their destruction. Time is running out before the sky — literally — falls down on them.

A return to Jeaniene Frost. I adored the first two Cat and Bones books. Halfway to the Grave was so good it made me want to hate Jeaniene Frost for her storytelling ability coupled with her writing skills. But as the series wore on, the spin-offs and one-off novels appeared, and the vampires become and and more powerful (an annoying problem that means they have to go to extreme lengths not to have other vampires in a half-mile radius overhear their conversations), I sort of slipped away. Since Cat became a vampire, I let the series go on without me. But then along came Vlad. And more importantly, Leila. I like Leila. And I like that she's not becoming an all-powerful vampire. She doesn't know much about the vampire subculture she's been sucked into, so we get to go on the journey all over again. I'm down with that. Once Burned brought me back to the Night Huntress franchise. I look forward to Twice Tempted coming out in late-March.

Non-fiction. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is a fabulous braided narrative of Skloot's research and her research process into the life of Henrietta Lacks — the African American woman from whom HeLa research cells were derived — and her surviving family. Henrietta never knew that she was "donnating" cells, and it would be decades before her family knew that their mother's cells had been instrumental to 20th century health science, having been key to producing a functional polio vaccine among many other advances. Skloot keeps a human interest angle to her book even when she's discussing science and legal precedents. Eminently readable and jargon-lite in spite of its science rich content.

Books I picked up for free and was happy to have found! Delilah S. Dawson's Wicked as They Come is vampire, steampunk romance FTW. The dialog is quick and witty (sometimes too quick as I love a good angsty brood), the heroine is spunky and capable, and the world of Sang is fascinating. An alternate dimension where the reasons for steampunk are simple: there's magic and vampireish Bludmen so you better lace up that stiff collar and cover your neck! Not to mention the hero is equally fascinating as our tour guide through the world. I'm willing to forgive this book its trespasses because reading it was just plain fun. The teaser scene from Blud Book #2 shows us a different first person protagonist in a different city, which saddens me only because Criminy and Tish's storyline did not feel finished. I'm holding out hope for Criminy & Tish the Sequel! I've also picked up the novella in this series, The Mysterious Madam Morpho, which is a cute, brief tale of the traveling caravan show that Criminy runs. Liked it. Will likely pick up Wicked as She Wants this April. Bludbunnies — now there's something I can't get out of my head!

The Scottish historical romance, Claire Delacroix's The Beauty Bride, was a free ebook download (I think it's still free at most major retailers and is the first in Delacroix's series). I admit that I judge books by their covers, especially in the age of free and cheap ebooks, a shoddy cover is often a sign of shoddy writing within — but don't let this cover fool you! Delacroix's writing and historical research are fabulous. I believe this ebook version is a reissue of an earlier title which was published by a major publisher, and since it went out of print the author has brought it back on her own (that's my speculation at least). I didn't expect to enjoy this book as much as I did. I didn't expect to stay up reading all night only to look at the clock and say, "How the hell did it get to be 5:00 AM?" I'll likely be seeking out the rest of the series in 2013 when the historical mood strikes me.

Books I picked up for free ... and sort of wish I hadn't. Waking Up Married. Harlequin is promoting this book as the banner carrier of their new KISS line. From all the hype I expected something youthful and fresh, like if the KISS line was a dessert, it would be a crisp and sassy, low-cal dessert. With citrus. Instead I got a Diet Coke. With lime. At the very least I expected it to feel more "youthful" because that's how it's being promoted. But except for the fact that the heroine isn't in a work/family position where she's subservient to the hero (he's her boss, etc.), this felt exactly like the PRESENTS novels I used to read. The heroine has a career. Bravo. But she didn't feel any more like a modern twenty-something than any other Harlequin heroine does (Harlequin's selling point for KISS). And I happen to be something of an expert on modern twenty-somethings: I am one.

Nora Roberts. Yes, Nora Roberts is her own category of reading. Her shelves are my go-to section of the library whenever I'm feeling glum or overwhelmed by life. I know that I can escape into her worlds and that the books are always satisfactory — they'll never rock my world, but I know they'll never disappoint me either. In 2012 she wrapped up her Inn BoonsBoro trilogy with The Last Boyfriend and The Perfect Hope. The cool part about these books? A hefty component of each is running a small business (bookstore, pizzeria  bed-and-breakfast) and decorating/building the inn. So it's a bit like reading a romance and simultaneously leafing through a home fashion magazine. Still not as cool as the Bridal Quartet which was like reading a romance and leafing through a bridal magazine.

Also in the Nora Roberts category this year, I read the Key Trilogy and most of the Dreams Trilogy. The Key books involve three women helping otherworldly creatures free three women who are sort of trapped in a sleeping beauty spell and was among the more memorable of Nora Roberts stuff (although when it comes to her novels with paranormal elements, my favorite is still The Jewels of the Sun trilogy).

The unmemorable odds and ends. I picked up The Wrangler as part of a free promotion. I'd never read a western romance before. It's not likely to become my genre of choice. Marked by Elisabeth Naughton is another title that I only know I read because I wrote it down on my list of finished books. I vaguely recall something about the Greek gods. Another paranormal romance that's selling well that didn't catch my fancy. Ditto for Goblin King  and Kiss of the Goblin Prince by Shona Husk. I will give these goblin books props for choosing a more original  paranormal creature (the goblin) than the majority of casting for paranormal heroes and heroines out there.

There were other books I read in 2012. I've recently started but not finished Clean by Alex Hughes which seems promising. I can't forget to mention all the ghost stories I read in 2012, published and submitted for publication, as I worked on editing the anthology Specter Spectacular: 13 Ghostly Tales. There are books of poetry such as Jay Nicorvo's Deadbeat and the poem a day I get to open courtesy of NPR's Writer's Almanac, along with numerous short stories from Daily SF and other magazines and anthologies.

What of note have you read in 2012? 

How Many Days Till Christmas?

According to the sudden overcrowding of my email inbox, today is the last day to buy online with assured delivery before Christmas. Or so at least twelve different emails told me this morning. Then there were a few more that sported digital gifts and the "It's never too late for a digital gift" slogan. 'Tis the season.

But what I want to mention today is another beautiful Christmas surprise. This week, World Weaver Press released their first novella, Opal, a gorgeous, lyrical retwisting of the Snow White tale by Kristina Wojtaszek, which both fairy tale lovers and YA fantasy readers will find reason to enjoy.

Writer's Digest editor Zachary Petit called it:

“A fairy tale within a fairy tale within a fairy tale — the narratives fit together like interlocking pieces of a puzzle, beautifully told.”

This is a tale that reaches from the frozen tundra, to the snow filled woods, thick and deep with the secrets of the shape-shifting Fae, back to the world of men. It's the journey of the daughter of an owl, a girl who is the key to unlocking the prison that holds a king. It's the perfect, quick, winter read.

The moment I started reading the first few pages, I was put in mind of the fairy tale novels of Patricia McKillip and Robin McKinley.

White as snow, stained with blood, her talons black as ebony… In this retwisting of the classic Snow White tale, the daughter of an owl is forced into human shape by a wizard who’s come to guide her from her wintry tundra home down to the colorful world of men and Fae, and the father she’s never known. She struggles with her human shape and grieves for her dead mother — a mother whose past she must unravel if men and Fae are to live peacefully together.

It's out now as an ebook for Kindle, Nook, and Kobo. And a paperback from Amazon ... which they're quick to assure everyone you can still have delivered by Christmas.

Haunted Housewives Goodreads Giveaway

Susan Abel Sullivan and World Weaver Press are giving away a SIGNED paperback copy of The Haunted Housewives of Allister, Alabama -- enter this week for your chance to win!

“Grab a peanut butter and banana sandwich and settle in for a cozy mystery full of zany characters, haunted paintings, and a big dose of Southern humor.” — Heidi Ruby Miller

Who knew one gaudy Velvet Elvis could lead to such a heap of haunted trouble?

When Cleo Tidwell said, “I do,” for the third time, she had no idea her marriage vows would be tested by a tacky piece of art. But Cleo’s not the kind of woman to let a velvet-offense-against-good-taste just hang — oh no, she’s on a mission to oust the King. Trouble is, Elvis won’t leave the building. And he’s attractin’ all manner of kooks, fanatics, and lookie loos to Cleo’s doorstep, including the entire congregation of the Church of the Blue Suede Shoes.

Everyone wants a piece of the painting, but Cleo’s starting to suspect that whatever’s haunting the Velvet Elvis wants a piece of her husband. Why else would her hubby trade in his car for a ’56 pink Caddy, moonlight as an Elvis impersonator, and develop a sudden hankering for fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches? Certainly it can’t be anything as simple as a mid-life crisis, because Cleo is not getting divorced again — her mother would never let her hear the end of it.

Cleo’s life is all shook up by crazies with death threats, psychic warnings “from beyond,” kidnapping attempts, invitations to join the Blue Shoe Loonies, and even murder! Cleo’s in a fight for her life, her marriage, and the perseverance of good taste everywhere.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Haunted Housewives of Allister, Alabama

by Susan Abel Sullivan

Giveaway ends November 29, 2012.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

“Prepare for the read of your life! ... Sullivan is the new mistress of humor in horror.” — Perpetual Motion Machine

All Shook Up

I've never been an Elvis fan -- I should preface this post with that -- but I've also never been an Elvis hater. In fact I never really thought about the King of Rock and Roll except for the passing mention in The Outsiders where the uptown kids love the Beatles and the greaser boys think that Elvis is way better.

So when the manuscript came across my desk for The Haunted Housewives of Allister, Alabama, a tale of an upper-middle class housewife who has a haunted Velvet Elvis forced into her possession, I didn't entirely know what I was getting into Elvis-wise. But the writing was fabulously witty and the main character, Cleo Tidwell, was enchanting. In fact, Cleo Tidwell quickly put me in mind of Stephanie Plum, a character I'd consumed with ravenous speed one winter. So I dove on in to the world of ghost Elvis and possessed Velvet Elvis. And it was a riot.

I've learned so many wacky Elvis factoids in the process of editing and publishing this book. When you finish the novel and realize how much true Elvis stuff falls in the realm of the strange, it's hard not to imagine it as the perfect basis for this kind of fun, witty, cozy mystery with a paranormal twist. Susan Abel Sullivan did her research -- fried peanut butter and banana sandwich, anyone? Apparently there's a knack to making these sandwiches. If I'd have tried, I'd have not thought to make the paste, so the result would have been ... different, I'm sure.

If you enjoy Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum, or more generally cozy mysteries, Southern humor, and witty writing, you can grab the ebook of The Haunted Housewives of Allister, Alabama today (early release) or the trade paperback on October 30. Or perhaps just warm up to the novel with the sneak peek of chapter one on the publisher's website.

Friday night frights

The title of this post might be misleading. Specter Spectacular is an anthology released this week that I edited, and while it opens with a pleasantly eerie story ("My Rest a Stone" by Amanda C. Davis) and a straight up frightening story ("Alabaster" by Jaime Rand), the anthology as a whole isn't one fright after another. It's a fabulous mix of the frightful and fanciful. The eerie and the romantic. The horrific and the humorous.

Putting this together, I must admit that my favorite tale to come across my desk was "Wendigo" by Shannon Robinson. The tale appeals to my young-working-woman mindset with a quirky family, yet it enthralls, horrifies, and triumphs.  It's about addiction, but not merely in the substance sense of the term.

Yet I also had so much fun with funny stories like "The Haunts of Albert Einstein" -- hey, if Einstein is stuck on the ghostly plane, you think he'll sit back and do nothing? -- and "Cooter, Ass-much, and Me" -- as the title implies, it's damn funny ... and a little bit chilling.

Ghosts are fascinating creatures. But I admit to approaching horror tentatively. There's so much gore-fest out there in cinema that horror has earned a "I don't like that" rep from many people. I'd like to think that Specter Spectacular transcends that and invites in those who love the slightly mystic as well as the horrific and the otherworldly. People who enjoy folk lore and romantic tales. People who may or may not believe in "ghosts" but who are willing, in the course of a fabulous short story or two, to explore their potential.

Available as an ebook from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Kobo, as well as in print, Specter Spectacular: 13 Ghostly Tales is out now from World Weaver Press, just in time for your Halloween reading pleasure. Find a dark, chilling evening one night soon, and curl up with this anthology ... but maybe keep a flashlight close at hand. Just in case.

New title from World Weaver Press announced!

We're at it again! This time with an anthology of new twists on the classic ghost story titled Specter Spectacular: 13 Ghostly Tales, to be released on Tuesday, September 25, 2012.  Should be available as both ebook and trade paperback.

Anthology description:

Spirits, poltergeists, hauntings, creatures of the dark — Specter Spectacular: 13 Ghostly Tales delivers all these and more in thirteen spooky twists on the classic ghost story. From the heartwarming and humorous to the eerie and chilling, this anthology holds a story for everyone who has ever been thrilled by the unknown or wondered what might lie beyond the grave. Step inside and witness ghosts of the past, tales of revenge, the inhuman, the innocent, the damned, and more. But be warned — once you cross the grave into this world of fantasy and fright, you may find there’s no way back out.

Featuring the work of Amanda C. Davis (“My Rest A Stone”), A. E. Decker (“Death and Taxes”), Larry Hodges (“The Haunts of Albert Einstein”), Sue Houghton (“The Secret of Echo Cottage”), Andrea Janes (“A Fitting Tribute”), Terence Kuch (“What If It Could Speak!”), Robbie MacNiven (“The Little House at Bull Run Creek”), Kou K. Nelson (“Safe Upon the Shore”), Jamie Rand (“Alabaster”), Shannon Robinson (“Wendigo”), Calie Voorhis (“Cooter, Ass-munch, and Me”), Jay Wilburn (“Pushed Out”), and Kristina Wojtaszek (“Cinder”).

More details.

What do you collect?

I realized today that I am a collector. This would not come as a surprise to my mother who threw out many of my prized collections of rocks, sticks, buttons, and happymeal toys over the years, but it came as a surprise to me.

It's been years since I collected anything, really collected anything. The last time when I wanted to have the whole set was most likely in the Beanie Baby era. I've said flippantly that I "collect shoes" but really what I mean by that is that I have more pairs than are strictly necessary. I have none of the collector's zeal for researching, coveting, finding, buying, displaying, and discussing my shoe "collection."

I collect old computers ... but that's a bit more like a graveyard waiting to be recycled.

I definitely collect coffee mugs. Actually ... I don't. Once people know you're a coffee addict, they give you mugs. I landed a nifty set of four this Christmas. One has a penguin on it. Very cute. But I haven't purchased a coffee mug for myself in five years. Four years if you count the travel mug I purchased while at a week-long workshop after realizing I'd forgotten to bring the travel mug I had at home (a gift).

And then I realized, I'm a book collector. I collect books.

I know -- not shocking -- but it was to me.

I had never seen the hodgepodge of paperbacks lining overstuffed shelves as a collection. Really I'd just seen it as a way of life. (Which probably should have been my first clue.) Every year I get more books. I weed out some to give away, but I always buy more. Ones I want. Ones I've researched. Ones I've coveted. But I thought of it not as an activity, but as evidence of time passing.



Days turn into weeks and books accumulate. It's a fact of life, isn't it?

I was always weirded out in the heyday of of home renovation TV when the homeowners would cite the floor-to-ceiling built in bookcases as having no function and needing to go.

"I just don't know what to do with them!" the wife would squeal.

The husband would state longingly to the TV host, "I'm gonna be happy to take a sledgehammer to those."

And I felt a little faint.

Sledgehammer? Don't know what to do? They're bookshelves! Fill them with books! Surely you have books, oodles and oodles of books overgrowing their very modest bookshelves every year and you need those gorgeous built in shelves! Surely! Right?

Even with my Nook tablet I'm still buying paper books. Sometimes because if the paper book is the same price as the ebook I say, what the hell, and I go and buy it from my local retailer. If I'm not actively saving money I might as well be spending that extra cash locally. And sometimes I want the paper book because I intend to keep the book. Display it on my shelf. Reread it one day. If I'm marginally impressed by book one of a series, I'll buy book two for my Nook. But if I'm desperate for the sequel, then I know I need the paper product. ... because I'm a collector.



Thanks to theLiz for pointing me to this wonderful video. The blurb about it in YouTube says that a couple in Toronto spent many sleepless nights moving, stacking and animating the books at Type bookstore in Toronto -- and you buy everything you see in the video at Type! The same couple also shot the "Organizing the Bookcase" video earlier in the post. I can't take credit for any of these videos, but their marvelous little pieces of ingenuity.

The 52 Book Resolution: a year's reading, part three

A continuation of a year of reading in review. 


24. Anya's Ghost, Vera Borsgol. A great YA graphic novel which deals nicely with both being a teenage girl today and the immigrant experience in a then-and-now sort of way. Anya falls down an abandoned well and meets another girl who fell down the same well ... some eighty years prior.

25. The Demon in Me, Michelle Rowen. Did I even read this book? I have it written down on my list of "books I read" so I must have done so. However I don't recall anything about the novel at this time. Huh.

26. Dark Destiny, Christine Feehan. 2011 brought us the closing of Boarders stores across the country and a great urge for me to spend all the money I carried around in Boarders gift cards. Since this was essentially frivolous, must-spend-now money, I purchased several romance novels that I never would have bought otherwise. I'd heard about Feehan before -- namely that she was a best seller -- so I decided to see what the novels were like. It wasn't until I got home that I realized that this was something like book nine of the series. So I went to the library and tried to read book one, Dark Prince, and I absolutely could not finish it. The damn ditzy heroine doesn't realize that she's essentially been kidnapped and that her "hot vacation fling boyfriend" is manipulating her because he thinks she's dumb, sexy, and utterly incapable of doing anything from walking alone at night to feeding herself, and to this end, he keeps magically making her fall asleep anything she contradicts him. But it's luuuuuuuv. I got disgusted and returned it to the library unfinished. Dark Destiny is a little bit better in the sense that the heroine, Destiny, isn't as cowed or easily manipulated and she'd not immediately secluded from all of her friends and family inside the hero's lair upon first meeting him. Feehan's male characters take "dominating alpha male" to a level that is beyond what I can tolerate.

27. The Bride and the Beast, Tersa Medeiros. The intelligent, overly plump, hardworking if somewhat waspish Gwendolyn is the last virgin of age left in the Highland village of Ballybliss, so when a dragon moves into the old castle, the villagers offer her up as sacrifice -- and aren't the least bit sad to see her go. The dragon, however, doesn't eat her on the spot; he takes her into the castle, locks her in a comfortable tower room and plies her with fine food and as many books as she could possibly crave. This turns into a warm, witty romance that sort of breaks my rule about not liking historical romances.


28. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke. Amazing. The premise (and the ending) was so cool. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and have it turn into any of the melodramatic sci-fi blockbuster movie plots that I'm familiar with, and (blissfully) it never did. The majority of the narrative is precisely described in a manner that is realistically scientific but never dull. And the description was easy to follow -- a real feat when the author is describing reorienting the character's plane of reference in a low- or no-gravity situation. I didn't know if I'd like it -- I'm often leery when approaching things which are considered "canon" or written by the "classic" within any genre -- but I absolutely fell in love with this sci-fi adventure.


29. Accidental Demon Slayer, Angie Fox. There was such great potential here. A demon shows up in Lizzie's toilet bowl on her birthday. Her terrier starts talking. She joins a gang of biker witches against her will/better judgment. The entire novel was fun but not fun enough to get me to read the next book in the series. In premise, tone and set up, it reminded me a lot of a Katie MacAlister novel, but it lacked the storytelling elements that don't just tug on my heartstrings, they wrap themselves around my heartstrings and ensnare my soul. Accordingly, my unensared soul went out and immediately got a Katie MacAlister novel to fill the void.


30. Love in the Time of Dragons, Katie MacAlister. This novel continues on the narrative that threads that started in the Aisling Grey, Guardian series and continued in the Silver Dragon series. Most, if not all, of those series' character make return appearances in this closely tied but separate series that starts to answer the overarching crazy questions of the dragon world: what the hell happened to Baltic and Ysolde? Why'd they die five hundred years ago? Why did the black dragon weyr shatter? And how the hell are they both alive again? Katie MacAlister is an insanely witty writer and has great unique characters that clash brilliantly with each other. And the elements of her narratives, the stories she tells and the way she tells them always manage to hook me. If you find yourself interested in this novel, I highly recommend starting seven books back with the start of the Aisling Grey series,  You Slay Me, because it's a much better way to be introduced to the world.

Link+Love

This week's Link+Love post comes to you a bit early.

Absolutely awesome advice to those thinking of going or already attending grad school -- it's succinct, it's honest, it's got enough depth to have meaning, and most of all it's so damn true.


Grammar Girl -- whom I love, love, love for her grammar savvy and word-geekery podcasts and newsletter -- recently posted a podcast of some tips about identifying and overcoming writer's block. Lower your standards, she says, and join NaNoWriMo. Well, okay, she doesn't suggest that, but lower your standards at the beginning is the moto of NaNoWriMo (which starts in less than a month, ohmy!).


I'm teaching two sections of the exact same class this semester. Classes always vary, one to the next. But usually, when you teach the same syllabus at the same time, you have a similar experience in both sections. Not so this semester. I am amazed at how differently each class responds to exactly the same material and exactly the same lecture. I won't say any more about the specifics of the responses, but serve to say: I'm floored.


This past September would have been Jim Henson's 75th birthday. Tor.com remembers.


Writer Sara Douglass recently passed away. When I read her Wayfarer redemption, my jaw dropped as I admired all the world building and the tight building of plot that those novels possess. Although I have to say that once Axis left this earthly plain, I wasn't much interested in reading further -- note to all: don't deify your hero. A tribute, also from Tor.com.

Got my hands on a copy of Florence + the Machine's album Lungs -- and it is awesome. I thought that when I got it, I would like "Dog Days Are Over" (the reason I got the CD in the first place) and that the rest would be just okay -- how pleasantly wrong I was.