three for the price of one!

How about a few mini-reviews to get caught up on things? In two cases because I don't have a huge amount to say, and in one it's because nymeth already said it all and better. Actually, it's kind of that way with two of them. I will get to that.

So, it's been a good month for romance over here, with two really enjoyable romance stories being ingested in an incredibly short space of time. One was a full-length novel and I ate it up the way one eats potato chips: delicious while the bag lasts and then you kind of feel a little ill because of the speed with which it disappeared. The other was a novella and I read it in two days and loved it. And the third book, unrelated to romance at all, was kind of a flop, but kind of not.

The Spymaster's Lady
by Joanna Bourne
Berkley Sensation, 2008
384 pages

This was one of those romance novels that's been on my radar for a long time; I read a number of great reviews back when I was doing a lot more blog reading than I am able to do right now. My library has it as an eBook, and I needed something fast and light, so away I went.

And it was fast and light, and a great deal of fun. This book is well-written, and the humour is funny, the danger is real, and the chemistry between the mains is palpable. Actually, in this case, I felt like the chemistry was actually more exciting than the inevitable payoff, but because some of the other stuff was so enjoyable I didn't mind so much.

This is a book with multiple perspectives - we get the heroine's version, the hero's, and the villain's (there may be others, I can't remember and I should have taken better notes, but those are the three main ones.) They're each likable or rabidly dislikable in the appropriate ways. Annique is a French spy, on the run after a task gone wrong has seen her run afoul of both her own countrymen and the English during the Napoleonic Wars. Grey is an English spy who helps her escape a predicament, but determines to capture her himself and bring her back to London for England's gain. Of course, the course of true love and serious spy games never did run smooth.

The villain POV stuff is always a tricky one for me and it rarely works; here it didn't either, and I felt it added nothing, nor moved the plot along. The villain is a bit overdone overall, but over the top doesn't feel out of place in a romp like this. There were a few things that stretched credulity for me for some reason, but there was also a nice couple of twists and a satisfyingly happy ending.

The Governess Affair
by Courtney Milan
Courtney Milan, 2012
101 pages

It is possible that I didn't love The Spymaster's Lady quite as much as I might have because I chased it with this absolutely fantastic little nugget of romance writing. I am not sure this is the best romance story I've ever read - I am still very fond of some of Julia Quinn's books - but ... but it's really close. The writing sparkles and the story and characters - well, I'll point you at Ana's discussion of this piece, because even if she's coming at it from a very different angle from me, she's hit on why this is an excellent little piece.

It is a novella, so some of the character development seems a bit speedy - particularly the attraction between the two mains, Hugo and Serena. But within the conventions of the genre, Milan has written something that feels both plausible and sweet, working with the time period she has chosen (mid-1800s.) This story goes down really easily and yet makes one think, which is a lovely thing. Maybe it was just the length (I certainly don't think so) but I didn't end up feeling overstuffed at the end of this one despite the fact that I read it in less than 24 hours. In fact, I plan to dive right in to the first book in the Brothers Sinister series, to which The Governess Affair is a prequel. I'll be curious to see if Milan can pull off the full length as well as she's pulled off this novella. Really looking forward to it. Also, go read Ana's bit, serious. A feel-good story that made me feel happy after I'd read it.

Rooftoppers
by Katherine Rundell
Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2013
278 pages

Well, this was interesting. Again, I have Ana to thank for drawing this book to my attention, and while it didn't work out for me in the end, she kind of warned about that too. Interestingly, I think it maybe didn't work for me for different reasons. What happened to me was similar, though. Started with great promise, and then kind of lost steam. I loved the beginning, and the relationship that Sophie, our protagonist, has with her guardian, a scholar named Charles. It's charming and it's strangely believable, and if it's a bit over-the-top and a bit whimsical, I was on board.

Rundell has a proficiency with description and one-liners that is dynamite to read. Some of the language is beautiful and her writing is both funny and joyful, and that can usually carry a book for me. But. My problem is that Sophie is fixated, from the beginning, on something, to the point where nearly everything else is eclipsed. She recklessly endangers others she has grown to care about, and herself, in her quest, and this doesn't seem to have consequences. Maybe this is just a personal nitpick, but I don't find that sort of thing believable at all. In the end, it made me very lukewarm on a character I was otherwise disposed to adore. I'll read more Rundell because I think there's great potential here, and it is quite possible that middle-grade readers will enjoy this book more than I did.

Deja Dead by Kathy Reichs

Déjà Dead (Tempe Brennan 1)

by Kathy Reichs (read by Amy Irving)

Simon and Schuster Audio, 1998 (as part of the "A Deadly Audio Collection" compilation)

5 discs, abridged

Another case of me kind of cheating on the "Canadian" designation, as Kathy Reichs is pretty firmly American, but she also works in Canada (Quebec, specifically) and the entirety of this novel is set in Montreal. So there. I claim this as a Canadian crime novel.

And I liked it. I really did. It was also another case of me discovering after the fact that it was an abridgment, but in this case, with a few caveats, I didn't actually mind. I think the things that were missing were okay to be missing, with a couple of exceptions that I will get into in the following paragraphs. The production on the audiobook was excellent; Amy Irving as the reader was just great. She had the perfect voice, the perfect intonation, and the perfect pacing for Tempe's first person narration. I was hooked pretty much immediately and I fully intend to listen to the next book in the series at some point. Whether or not I listen to it abridged or unabridged remains to be seen. Abridged is much more accessible to me at this time, so I'll probably go that way.

This is the first of the Dr. Temperance Brennan books, made somewhat more popular than they already were by the advent of the television series Bones. The thought of reading this appealed to my book club because it's a forensic mystery -- a genre we had yet to read from -- plus it has a Canadian connection. Dr. Brennan, or Tempe, is a professor of anthropology in North Carolina, and a forensic anthropologist on the staff at the Laboratoire des Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale in Montreal, Quebec. Tempe is called to go ensure that some bones found near an old burial site are in fact old human bones, but it doesn't take long for her to realize that they're not that old at all -- and the person the bones belonged to didn't die from any natural cause, nor did she end up in pieces by accident. Further, Tempe notices some alarming similarities between this body and another she examined not long ago. What started as a simple call leads to an increasingly tense murder investigation. Tempe can't seem to convince the powers that be that a serial killer might be at work; and even when she does, it turns out she might be his next target, putting those closest to her at risk.

This is not a book for the faint of heart. The murders are grisly, over-the-top, sadistic serial killer murders, and the conditions the bodies are found in are very well-described. And this book employs my absolute least favourite murder mystery trope: This Time It's Personal. Further, the tension is ramped up heavily as we get towards the end of the story. So one would think that this book wouldn't be my cup of tea, with the least-favourite-trope plus heart-pounding-occasionally-gory-suspense-thriller. In the hands of a lesser storyteller, with a less fabulous central character, with less fascinating science, in a different setting, with a different reader, I'm pretty sure I would have put this one aside. But by the time it became clear to me where we were headed -- and when the foreshadowing got a little heavy-handed for me -- I was so interested in the whole thing I couldn't stop.

In addition to This Time It's Personal, Tempe also suffers from a bit of Horror Movie Heroine Syndrome, in that she makes some really dumb decisions for reasons that are not explained in full but appear to be entirely driven by plot. I get that Tempe is a bit brash and hasty, and I get that she's fighting for acceptance in a man's world, but heading out to a possible body-dump location by yourself in the dark in a storm is stupid. Especially if the killer knows that you know where to go. A killer who has already indicated that he's targeting you. There are a couple of incidents along the same lines, which really stretches believability, or perhaps just patience, with Tempe's character. But she was also incredibly likable, and smart, and abrasive in that somewhat endearing way. She is close to her daughter, she is leaving a shaky marriage reluctantly, she loves living alone with her cat.

Small issues with the fleshing out of Tempe's character are what makes me think I was missing stuff with the abridgement. Particularly towards the end of the novel, when I wanted to see Tempe reacting a bit more realistically to some of the awful things that have happened, I am wondering if there were things cut for abridging purposes that would have made Tempe a more well-rounded, psychologically interesting character; as it was, I liked her, but she didn't seem to even really think about certain things except perfunctorily, and they didn't seem to carry much traumatic weight. I can't discuss much further for fear of spoiling. I can fill in some of the gaps with my own imagination, but I'm not sure I should have to, given how well-written the book seems to be in places, and how rounded Tempe is in other matters. This bothered me as being lazy, an author wanting to have a sensational climax without having to give her main character suitable baggage for the rest of the series. Or possibly it's just abridged.

So there you go -- a book I probably shouldn't have liked given some of the issues with it, but in the end I really did like it, and I'm looking forward to the next. Recommended for crime/thriller fans who like their science, but can suspend disbelief fairly handily when it comes to certain plot points.

The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

The Body Finder (Body Finder 1)
by Kimberly Derting
Harper, 2010
327 pages

Don't you just love that cover? I love the covers for this series. I have wanted to read this series for ages, just based on the covers. Sadly, it's not quite going to work out between us, but I still love the covers.

I am trying to think about how to talk about this book without sounding like I disliked it. Because overall I quite enjoyed it, in the same way I quite enjoy scarfing down half a bag of delicious kettle-cooked potato chips when I get home from work sometimes. I don't even take off my shoes. Sometimes I don't even hang up my purse. I just stand there in the middle of the kitchen and hoover.

I should be embarrassed by that, but I'm not.

So in the same vein, I'm not particularly embarrassed that I essentially hoovered this book. I really did read it in the same way that I eat those chips: extremely fast, sometimes even without tasting it, and occasionally just standing or sitting in terribly uncomfortable positions, but not really noticing. I am realizing that this is the way I read novels with significant suspense or thriller elements. I don't even necessarily enjoy them, at least not in the way that I enjoy other books. "Enjoyment" is maybe not the right word for the emotion that accompanies the above actions. But I absolutely need to know what happens. And I need to know as fast as possible, and I am in this crazy, uncomfortable mind space until I finish the damn thing, either while I'm reading it or especially while I'm not.

It makes it difficult to write anything coherent or interesting about the book, I think. Because I am in the weird position of having... maybe?... liked the book, but also kind of detesting it for what it did to me.

So, summary: Violet Ambrose, sixteen years old, is dealing with two major dilemmas: her sudden more-than-friend feelings for her absolute best friend in the world, Jay, who grew from a gangly teen into an incredibly handsome young man over the course of a summer; and her ability to sense dead bodies. This ability starts to cause her significant problems when a serial killer shows up practically on her doorstep, and girls and young women start disappearing and dying. Violet can find their bodies -- and it turns out she can find their killer, too.

And let's see. I liked Violet; she's a strong character, with a great voice, and a good balance of strength and vulnerability and flaw. I liked the way her paranormal sensitivity is dealt with -- it's well done, consistent, and kind of a cool ability in the sense that boy am I glad I don't have it. I liked her parents, her close and supportive relationship with them, her relationships with her friends. I really enjoyed the relationship with Jay, and was incredibly relieved that the vague appearance of a love triangle went absolutely nowhere, as I particularly hate love triangles and YA is rife with them. The dialogue was entertaining and snappy and felt realistic anyway. In fact, if this hadn't been a thriller, but just about Violet and Jay and their friends and their relationship, I think I probably would have enjoyed myself more. I'd have taken my time. I'd have savoured things.

But alas. The action was movie-scene larger-than-life, which I expect from a suspense novel; Violet gets into scrapes and generally needs a bit of rescuing, which is a bit frustrating but again, kind of expected. She's a little bit horror movie heroine -- for god's sake, tell someone where you're going, you moron, or better yet don't go at all -- but again, kind of expected.  In fact, a lot of things were just as expected, and maybe that's where I start to feel a little... bloated? The suspense kept me reading, but not because I really felt like I was loving the book.

The convention Derting uses, of setting some scenes from the point of view of the killer, is used quite effectively here in a certain way; sometimes villain p-o-vs get a little campy or ridiculous. Here, he is really awful and creepy. For that reason, it's a convention I don't really like; I don't feel any sympathy for the guy, reading from his perspective doesn't increase my understanding of him, really, other than to build suspense when we know that things are just going to go from bad to worse. Actually, what bothers me about books that include scenes from the villain's point of view, when the villain has nothing to offer or to recommend him, and the scenes from his perspective are just to show the reader how truly evil he is, is that they're manipulative.

I am an easily manipulated reader. I don't tend to notice when I'm being manipulated, always, so it takes a bit of a clumsy hand to tip me off -- and I was tipped off a couple of times in this book. There was one really egregious example, where a villain's p-o-v section and a Violet p-o-v section coincide closely in a way that is clearly intended to make you think that maybe Violet's in serious, serious trouble. She's not. I knew that pretty much immediately. And I found it irritating that I wasn't deceived, that the trick was so obvious. It made the Violet scene not nearly as emotionally effective as it could, or should have been -- because when I know how I am supposed to feel (relieved? happy? I guess?) but I don't, the writer hasn't done their job.

And it's emphatically not that Derting is an ineffective writer most of the time. I think she's quite good for the genre, generally. I think that all that is wrong with this book is that it's a genre that is not really for me, or at least, it's not the best thing for me. Like a bag of potato chips, it leaves me feeling over-stuffed and under-nourished, which isn't a terrible thing once in a while, but it's also ultimately forgettable and leaves me feeling vaguely like I've just spent an afternoon doing something that wasn't quite worth my while.

Recommended as a try for fans of YA romance (it's a solid one, predictable and enjoyable for that aspect) and definitely suspense; it's not so much a mystery as a thriller. The fantasy aspect -- Violet's unusual ability -- is a part of the plot and the character, but is so well-done that it doesn't feel far-fetched or fantasy-like, and  therefore this might be a good entry for someone interested in reading a bit of the paranormal romance stuff out there without getting into a story where one would have to have an understanding of the genre and its conventions to buy what is going on. I probably won't be continuing with the series, although if I needed something for an airplane or a bus ride and the second book was handy I wouldn't be unhappy to pick it up.

The Shadowy Horses by Susanna Kearsley

The Shadowy Horses
by Susanna Kearsley
Allison and Busby, 2009 (originally published in 1997)
407 pages

Huh, 407 pages went by really, really fast. Which is a good sign! For some reason, this book had crossed my awareness three or four times in the past two weeks, and then suddenly one of our library patrons brought it back last week. It was headed back to one of our other branches with no holds, and it seemed like fate. So I picked it up, figuring it might be a good semi-spooky read for Hallowe'en. And it was just perfectly eerie enough without freaking me out, and a solid read for other reasons as well. Solid enough that I've gone ahead and purchased a copy for my Kobo (unfortunately, not with this cover; the ebook cover is just baffling), and if I see a paper version floating around I'll pick that up too.

Verity Grey is an archaeologist. A friend and ex-flame has recommended her for a dig that he's also working on, a nice cushy job in Scotland near the town of Eyemouth on the North Sea. Feeling restless and wanting something different, and intrigued by the hints Adrian has dropped, Verity leaves her comfortable life in London to meet Peter Quinnell, the charismatic, wealthy, and possibly mad director of the planned dig. But it doesn't take long for Verity to start believing in Quinnell, and other seemingly impossible things -- the ghostly Sentinel that a local boy has befriended, and the fact that perhaps Quinnell and the psychic child have stumbled upon the final resting place of the legendary, long lost Ninth Legion, Legio IX Hispana.

First, the bad, and there is some: I don't think this is a stellar book. The writing was occasionally a little clunky, a little info-dumpy. The foreshadowing occasionally foreshadows nothing, or nothing serious. The hints of gothic suspense are just that: hints, that often flutter away into nothing, which left even my faint heart a little unsatisfied. Other foreshadowing is a bit roll-one's-eyes obvious. As a piece with these writing-related beefs, there can be a bit much telling (ie. Verity is referred to as "difficult" a couple of times) and not enough showing (she never appeared particularly difficult to me). All of this is pretty minor, comparatively, but I mention it because I was occasionally pulled out of the story, even if just momentarily.

Also, I wanted more of the horses. They never really gelled with the rest of the story for me. But they could have been so cool. The first appearance of the horses was the goosebumpiest moment of the book for me.

The middling: though there are some deeper threads here, they're never really investigated in any serious depth, so don't pick this up if you want a read that delves into family relationships, for example, in any significant way. There seems to be an attempt at exploring themes of family ties and tragedies, but it all seemed to me to be backdrop, not very meaty at all. That was just fine by me in this read, because I wasn't expecting, or wanting necessarily, a bigger emotional resonance. I just wanted some vaguely gothic fun, some ghosts, some history, and some characters I could connect with.

Which brings me to the good: writing flaws aside, this book is compulsively readable. I stayed up about four hours past my bedtime working away on it, and when I wasn't reading it I wanted to be. The plot is thick, the fun is there, and the characters are worth it. Verity herself is believable and very likable, intelligent and sensible, willing to believe the best of everyone but not blind. She's confident, absolutely not a pushover. The other characters are varied, and though we see them only through Verity's first person narration, they take on lives of their own. But it's really Verity who makes this book. I would read several more books with her as the narrator, if I could, just to spend more time with her.

And the history! This is where this book excels, although it occasionally does get bogged down in Kearsley's clear enthusiasm for the science of archaeology. Not that I minded much, given my own predilections where science is concerned, and the portrayal of science in media. This is where things can get a bit info-dumpy, but though it took me slightly out of the story, it was Verity's own enthusiasm that propelled the facts into conversation. I know that archaeology isn't glamourous and thrilling, but I've always been interested in it and despite its distinct lack of glamour I've always kind of thought I'd enjoy being an archaeologist of some description. There but for the siren song of environmental biology and librarianship I might have gone. So it's possible I enjoyed this book even more than others not so interested in archaeology might have, but I don't think it would be a show-stopper for them; there's enough here in the characters and plot to keep one engaged. Just skip the parts about the differences between Roman marching camps and forts.

This is gothic lit lite, so fans of the deeply creepy or very suspenseful may not want to bother with this. But a little light romance, a smattering of history, and a faintly ghostly story rooted well in sense of place (I really did feel like I was hanging out in Eyemouth and I read this all with a thick Scottish brogue in my head) was exactly what I wanted right now, and I'm looking forward to subsequent re-reads. Recommended, as long as you're aware that it's not a deep, disturbing, or heart-wrenching sort of read. I'm not quite convinced that Kearsley should be on my must-read list, but I'll certainly read more by her when the opportunity presents itself.

The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson

The Name of the Star
by Maureen Johnson
G.P. Putnam, 2011 
270 pages

Oh my lord, I thought I was never going to read anything again. It has been exactly two months since I finished a book. I've started a few, but can't seem to keep the focus or the interest up long enough to finish anything. The idea of writing a review right now is daunting, I won't lie. (Full disclosure: I am not getting much more than than three hours sleep in a row at night -- three hours if we're lucky.)

And now we come to The Name of the Star, which is an interesting case. I had started this before, quite some time ago. It didn't grab me then, for reasons I can't quite figure out. Because this time around it grabbed me good, and I finished it in two days.

I am a Maureen Johnson fan. I follow her on Twitter, which has been one of my better social media moves ever; she's informative, and endlessly entertaining. I believe I reported that I even purchased Suite Scarlett stone-cold solely based on her social media presence, completely on impulse, and did not regret it one bit. I've been eager for The Name of the Star since she announced it was coming; I wanted to see her take on the supernatural. And who is not a little intruiged by Jack the Ripper?

In brief summary: Rory is from very small-town Louisiana, travelling with her lawyer-professor parents for a year's sabbatical in England. While her parents are off to Bristol, she has been accepted to Wrexford, a residential school in the heart of London. In the heart of Jack the Ripper's territory, to be precise, which turns out to be a bit of a problem when a copycat killer appears the day before Rory arrives. What's worse is that Rory sees the killer -- and discovers that no one else can. 

And I like it. That maybe goes without saying. The thing is, if you like Maureen Johnson's other stuff, you will like this, even if you're not a fantasy fan. Because what makes this book great is not the interesting world-building things she's done (which is all seamlessly integrated, and works quite well) but the things that she does best: characterization and just damn fine writing.

Maureen Johnson makes writing look easy. (It's not, I know -- this Nanowrimo pep talk being one of my favourite bits of writing about writing). The story, from plot to characters to incidental detail, appears effortless, making for an easy read without being a brain-dead one. I don't think I picked out a clumsy exposition or clunky sentence in the lot. I like her style, too; I'm not sure I can point out why, exactly, because that would require more brain power than I have currently. Suffice to say that her turn of phrase is concise and clear, often funny, perfectly descriptive without being purple, and never cliched.

And her characters. In Rory, our main character, we have a sympathetic protagonist, an outsider who is friendly with most but not popular, who is smart but not a genius, who is not preternaturally brave or capable. In other words, she's very ordinary, but with enough flavour that she's not a blank slate. I like her development and her responses to the things -- sometimes very strange, frightening things -- that happen to her; it feels organic and realistic. She doesn't roll with the punches, because that would be unfaithful to the character even if it might have furthered the plot; she is traumatized and Johnson handles that beautifully. I also love Rory's wry, observant inner monologue. The other characters that crop up are necessarily not as well-developed as Rory, since [the lion's share of] the book is from her limited perspective, but they're distinct and interesting and feel like real people.

As I noted for Suite Scarlett, too, Johnson manages to comment quietly on some social and cultural things without being preachy -- here, her target being both the CCTV surveillance culture in London and 24-hour sensational mass media. She never investigates either thing explicitly or deeply, but it's an integrated part of the story, leaving the reader to ponder these things without feeling like she's been delivered a blatant public service message.

The start is slow; we spend a lot of time getting to know Rory and her friends, which works really well -- it makes the increasing threats to Rory and her world that much more alarming. It allows us to get settled into place, with just hints of the tension that absolutely explodes somewhere around the last third of the book. While the trademark MJ humour is still present, it takes a back seat to the suspense as the tension ramps up, never entirely disappearing but the seriousness of the situation is never undercut. I won't lie: this book kept me, a sleep deprived human being, up past my (admittedly fluid) bedtime even after I'd stopped reading for the night, worrying about what was coming next. Perhaps not the smartest choice of reading material for me to make. No regrets, though -- this book was definitely a good ride and a great read.

... Aaand, now to bed, I think, since apparently writing about the book is going to keep me up too. No promises as to when the next review will come up, and I'm really barely online these days to even comment on other blogs. I miss you all, and plan to be back when I can.

Blackfly Season by Giles Blunt

Blackfly Season
by Giles Blunt
Random House, 2005
326 pages

And now for something completely different. Also, I'm back to keeping track of my editions and page numbers, after a completely inexplicable lapse.

I'm not going to be reviewing all the books I'm reading for the upcoming training retreat, because to be frank, I am not reading them all terribly thoroughly. I am skipping through a bunch of them very quickly in an effort to get through the list in time. I figure it's better to have a taste of more of them than an in-depth knowledge of only a few of them. Well, and if I'm being honest, almost none of the books on the list were books I would ever consider picking up on my own; and while it is a good thing to read outside of my comfort zone every once in a while, there are good reasons that some of those would never have made it onto my list. I'm a pretty good judge of what puts me off a book. And as far as I can tell, I will never be a chick lit fan, for example, and a half-reading of Marion Keyes' Anybody Out There? has not convinced me otherwise. I can see why people like it, but I just don't.

I thought I would review this one for sure because I read the first half very closely, and only stopped reading it as though I would a normal book when ... well, I'll get to that in the review. Blunt is also an author I've been quite interested in, and would eventually have picked up on my own. I'll read more of him, too, if this book is any indication.

The mystery starts with a red-haired woman no one has seen before wandering out of the woods and into a bar in the small city of Algonquin Bay, confused and suffering from amnesia. When she's taken to hospital and examined, it turns out she can't remember anything because she's been shot in the head; the bullet is lodged in her brain. John Cardinal and Lisa Delorme take on the case. And then the body count starts with the discovery of a horribly, possibly ritually mutilated body and the suspicion that perhaps the two cases are connected. Heroin, biker gangs, maggots and strange shamans are all tangled up together in a case where nothing is quite as it seems.

The mystery itself is pretty interesting, but what got me hooked to start was the characters. We don't meet any of the mains other than the amnesiac redhead in the first scene; in fact, it takes place in the eyes of a character we never see again. The first scene is absolutely brilliant, I think, and remains my favourite part of the whole book. The writing is very good throughout; it is intense, occasionally funny, perfectly concise without being choppy or losing any description. Most of the characters are sympathetic and interesting, with enough depth to be believable. The first half of the story was so engaging that I literally did not hear someone calling my name at one point while I was reading.

The other thing I really liked was the humanity of the mystery, the decency of the characters involved. Some of the things that happen are pretty horrific (I'll get to this in a second; first spoiler warning) but the sheer likability and humility of John Cardinal and Lisa Delorme, combined with their careful, methodical and believable unraveling of clues, makes the other bearable. The way Cardinal deals with a situation with his wife Catherine throughout was so tender and honest that I couldn't help but become invested not only in him solving the mystery, but in him as a person.

The book began to lose me in a couple of ways, though. First of all, one of the perspectives we get is of Kevin, a small-time heroin dealer and aspiring poet who is, as we discover slowly, in the thick of things. I think he was supposed to be a sympathetic character, and I guess he was, because watching his storyline was like watching a train wreck in slow motion, pretty much from the moment we meet him. The reader knows that things are going to go south pretty quickly, but Kevin is both obtuse and willfully blind, and while that's realistic it was also really frustrating and somewhat stressful to read.

And then we also get some chapters from the perspective of the murderer, which always bugs me for two reasons: 1) I've never liked spending time in deranged, murderous minds, and 2) it spoils the mystery. We now know who is responsible, rather than having a couple of pretty good guesses. I know some people like this sort of thing, that the mystery and interest comes from seeing if the detectives can figure it out, and if they can figure it out in time; but me, it stresses me out.

I don't read to be stressed out. I guess this means I'm not a big fan of suspense/thriller novels.

/spoiler alert

And finally, I can't discuss why I lost interest without discussing this -- one of the things I was enjoying at the beginning was that the crimes and criminals were ostensibly pretty run-of-the-mill; drug running and rival gangs. Ugly stuff, no doubt, but believable and all the more fascinating to me because of their ordinariness and frightening in their banality. Cardinal and Delorme plod their way through the correct procedures, gathering evidence and consulting experts.

But then it all goes a little bit sideways. It starts out slowly, so one realizes that there might (or might not) be an element of the supernatural in this. This question is never resolved entirely, for which I am glad. But it elevates the ordinariness of the criminal activity to extraordinary evil, the run-of-the-mill storyline to something so weird and horrifying that it was, for me, overload. It was just too much. It was almost a little cliched -- "Look at how AWFUL this guy is! Look at how EVIL!" There are scenes that are there expressly to make us understand just how twisted the murderer is, and also possibly how supernaturally powerful he is.

/end spoilers

That's where I lost interest. The stakes were suddenly unbelievably high, for the story I had started reading, and so I started skipping and flipping through to read the parts about Cardinal and Delorme, and to leave the other perspectives out. Because I did want to know what happened to Cardinal especially, and I did, of course, want to know if they got the bastard.

So, I would recommend this one to people who really like suspense novels, those who enjoy crime novels from multiple perspectives, for fans of police procedurals (that part was extremely well done) and for whom character matters. It wasn't exactly my cup of tea, in the end, but I wouldn't hesitate to pick up another Cardinal and Delorme mystery if it were to come my way.

Once Bitten, Twice Shy by Jennifer Rardin

Once Bitten, Twice Shy
Jennifer Rardin
Orbit, 2007
290 pages

This book took me by surprise. I mean, Darla had sold me on the series quite a while ago; I expected to enjoy it. I didn't expect to get sucked in quite as handily as I was. I literally did not want to put this book down, and I haven't experienced that with a book for a while. What kind of astonishes me is that I wasn't even sure how I felt about Rardin's writing. What she really has a knack for, though, is plot and character.

So, Jasmine Parks is a CIA agent -- a super-secret assassin, so secret that maybe five or six people on the planet know what she does and who she is. She arranges for "accidents" to befall the big baddies of the recognizeable but definitely alternate-universe world, from rogue vampires to the political opponents of the US (more on this in a moment) to the leaders of international pedophile rings. And when it's not possible to arrange an accident, she just shoots them. But Jaz is also working through an extremely traumatic incident in her past, one she can only remember pieces of and one that still, almost a year later, causes blackouts, panic attacks, and engenders a definite self-destructive streak. For various reasons she ends up partnered with Vayl, a vampire who is also the CIA's top hitman. She and Vayl are charged at the beginning of the book with taking out a skeevy plastic surgeon with connections to a terrorist group devoted to a goddess of death and destruction. Of course, nothing ever goes according to plan, and the plastic surgeon's plot is a lot more deadly and destructive than anyone realized; not only that, but it appears that one of the five or six people who know about Vayl and Jaz is betraying them and trying put them out of commission permanently.

What blew me away most was that I was really into this story, despite having several intellectual qualms about the thing. Let's see if I can explain in some sort of clear way. First of all, right off the top Jaz makes a throwaway mention of taking out a Castro advisor in Cuba. This gets my back up for several reasons, not the least of which is that I don't think the CIA has a very good track record when meddling in the politics of other countries -- I once wrote an essay on CIA and other American involvement in Chile, for example, and its absolutely disastrous consequences. So having Jaz, a CIA assassin, take out a senior political advisor of another country doesn't put her in my books as one of the good guys. While in a different book this might have been used to show ambiguity of sorts about Jaz or her employers, I didn't get the feeling that was the intention here -- it was nothing so subtle or carefully examined. This isn't a book about ambiguities in international political relations, nor is it trying to be. Jaz and her CIA bosses are the Good Guys. The guys she goes after are the Bad Guys. I thought that particular moment was ill-advised and way out of place, given the story Rardin is telling. If you're going to go there, you have to Go There and not take it for granted that your reader is going to agree automatically on who the Good Guys and who the Bad Guys are, especially in a contemporary political situation. The reason an incongruity sticks out so much is that we're trying to establish the Good Guys here, and I end up completely unconvinced, at least at the very beginning.

Another incongruity, and not one limited to this book by any means: I always find it hard to buy death cults. Period. Actually, what I really want to see is a recognizeable, relatable character who is a member of a fantasy novel death cult (and if anyone has any suggested titles, I'm way open here.) Rardin suggests that members of the Sons of Paradise, the death cult supported by the skeevy plastic surgeon, probably pass for "upstanding citizens by day." And yet they worship a soul-eating, plague-carrying monstrosity by night, apparently. Why? What could they possibly get out of that? What sort of promises would their religion make to them that would outweigh the extremely high odds of getting your soul eaten? I know I'm a relatively well-adjusted, comparatively sane, fairly happy human being, but I have never understood the kick masses of faceless extras in fantasy novels get out of worshiping something that would annihilate them without a thought. Usually in some messy, painful, eternal torment kind of way. Some societies in some fantasy novels (I'm having vague rememberances of Eddings here; it's been a long time) are built around a few perverts and psychopaths holding all the power, and the masses of faceless extras are terror-stricken and don't know that there are any other alternatives to worshiping the evil god(dess); or perhaps the evil god(dess) forces compliance through shows of power and magical compulsion. That I can understand. But knowing all the options and willingly choosing the one where the most likely end is not good, as the Sons of Paradise seemed to do? I don't buy it. It does, however, make for an extremely easy target/obstacle for the Good Guys, so that's why it gets used, I know.

I'm getting away from the book. What I have to say is that, despite the fact that I noticed these things, for some reason they didn't detract from my enjoyment at all. Either of them separately in another book might have cast a pall over the whole thing; in this case, they were footnotes that I decided I wanted to address in my review while I gobbled up the rest. I think there may be a couple reasons I can point to for this: the characters, and the plot.

Plot first -- this is a well-plotted novel. We move from one crisis to another, some seemingly unconnected but all pointing towards the Big One and, secondarily, to the Big Reveal of what exactly it was that happened to Jaz those months previous. Unsurprisingly these two are somewhat connected, but it wasn't in a contrived way. This novel is hard to put down because one is barrelling towards a conclusion and the ride is so exciting and interesting. The payoff is great; the Big One is big and the Big Reveal is wince-worthy and worth waiting for, too.

And because of the characters, we actually care about how the plot turns out. Jaz is just awesome. She is flawed, deeply flawed. She thinks she's insane, and sometimes the reader thinks she might be, too, but we don't blame her. She's engaging and smart, strong and very quick on her (mental and physical) feet. She is wiser than her age would suggest, but she's been through a lot. And she's funny, and self-deprecating, and fiercely loyal. She has a good relationship with her little sister, and tolerates her father, who is a jerk but also has his good points. Jaz is a multi-faceted character and one who is an absolute treat to spend time with, and I think for me was the main driver for me still really enjoying this story despite its flaws. I will happily seek out the rest of this series just to see how she's doing.

Of the other characters, Vayl of course is the most fleshed out; he is Jaz's vampire boss, a long-time CIA agent. He's also growing into a love interest. He's got his own backstory (it's a little stereotypical wounded hero, but not over the top) and what I liked about him the most was that he gave Jaz space. He wasn't all typical romance-hero-Alpha male; he trusted Jaz to do her job, which is necessarily exceedingly dangerous. He freaks out when she gets herself into a series of really bad situations, but not to the point of losing control of himself or sight of the mission. He never demands that she quit or do something less dangerous -- in fact, he's more likely to tell her to smarten up and do her job. They're a team, and a really good one. The only time he gets angry with her is when she does something to compromise their mission, and another time when she lies to him, both of which seem like perfectly reasonable responses. And what I like about them as characters who lean towards romantic partners is that they don't feel completely ill-matched. They are friends, and colleagues; they're comfortable with each other and respectful of each other. I like the hint of romance; I also like that it's not nearly resolved by the end of the book. They don't even kiss. Which makes the payoff, when/if that does happen, that much better down the road. There's more to come and I look forward to seeing how their relationship develops.

So there we go; an exceedingly long review on a book I view as a bit of an escape read. I am so glad I read this book; it really helped me get my reading mojo back, and it was good fun, and also allowed me a chance to think about faulty narrative devices in a way that for whatever reason didn't detract from the story for me. I recommend this for anyone who enjoys a fast summer read with a kick-ass heroine and lots of exciting action.

Angel's Blood by Nalini Singh

This book has been on my radar for ages, going all the way back to page four of my TBR list. Yes, page four was ages ago. Let's not think about that.

It's a book I had to be in the mood to read, though, and earlier this week was the day. I'd just finished a slog through a non-fiction book that was both enlightening and irritating, and I wanted something completely different, completely engaging, and completely romance novel. Angel's Blood delivered.

In Elena's world, vampires and angels not only exist, they are at the top of the hierarchy. Vampires are Made by angels, and angels are ruled by the ten archangels, beautiful, immortal and very deadly. When a vampire goes rogue, or reneges on his/her Contract -- that is, that in exchange for being Made they must give the first 100 years of their new life to the angel that Made them -- it's the Guild Hunters who are called to bring the vampire back. Elena is the best. So it is Elena who gets the very unusual call from Raphael, the Archangel of New York, when a special job comes up. This isn't a job like any other, and it will very likely be the end of her -- if Raphael isn't the end of her first.

I really enjoyed this book. It's not for the faint-hearted -- there are some rather gruesome scenes, lots of violence -- and it's a tense ride right to the end. This is why I had to be in the mood. But it also has humour, strong lead characters, an interesting premise, and a very interesting alternate modern setting. I liked the way the plot unfolded, not too fast but definitely not too slow, either. And I liked the romance. I know this won't be for everyone, because it's definately one of those "kill you or kiss you" romances. I tend to prefer the "friends to more than" romances, but every once in a while I quite enjoy the "kill you or kiss you" relationship, particularly when the balance here is almost even. Elena is a force to be reckoned with.

One of the things I liked about the book was that though Elena's a typical lone-wolf heroine, she's got a pack that backs her up. She has real friendships and those friends pull her out of scrapes, and she goes to lengths to keep them safe, too. Raphael is the same, although it took longer for me to recognize this. As to the relationship between Raphael and Elena, I thought it sizzled. Again, it's one fraught with danger so some won't enjoy it, but the chemistry was fantastic, and the relationship was complex. Sometimes with books like this you end up wondering how the protagonists could possibly stay together more than a month; here, I didn't end up feeling that way at all. And many of the other characters brought something to the table I'm not used to experiencing or enjoying: uncertainty about their motivations, their morality, and whether or not I should like them. There are a few in the book who I wanted badly to like, but they were unpredictable, and that was deliberate. Angel and vampire politics are byzantine, lethal, and inhuman, which added to both the tension of the plot and the overall atmosphere of the world. In addition to the complexity of the secondary characters, we also have a very complex, hidden-in-plain-sight society opening up before us as the book goes on.

There were a few small things that bothered me; occasionally the expositional dialogue was a little clumsy, and every once in a while something happened that was just this side of my suspension of disbelief, but I was moving through the book so quickly that I ignored these quite handily. The ending was... interesting. I can't say much more than that without giving things away. I spoiled it for myself by reading the summary of the next book in the series, Archangel's Kiss, so just... don't do that. I think I would have enjoyed the ending a lot more if I hadn't known. It's an ending that works well with the reader in the dark, and not as well if the reader knows what's going to happen.

Will I read Archangel's Kiss? Probably -- I'll wait again until I'm in the mood, though. There are a whole pile of loose ends at the end of Angel's Blood, but it does stand on its own as an entire story. No cliffhanger ending, but some rather compelling character and upcoming plot questions. Recommended for adult fans of paranormal/suspense romances, for sure! I'll be keeping an eye out for more Nalini Singh as well.

Children of the Night by Mercedes Lackey

I read this book relatively quickly and perhaps not as thoroughly as I could have. Not because it was bad, but because I wasn't really in the mood for it, but it's due back at the library shortly and I didn't really feel like I was going to be in the mood for it later, either. But it turns out I have a bit more to say about it than I thought I did.

I didn't take it back without looking at it (as I have been known to do with books that just don't quite meet my requirements of the moment) because I wanted to remember what happened, and see whether or not it lived up to my memory's standards.

Happily, it did. I don't remember it being an absolutely amazing book, and it's not. But it's definitely a good, fast, tense read.

Mercedes Lackey doesn't tend to shy away from ugliness; bad things happen to her characters, and due to her penchant for switching points of view, sometimes we see characters who we have grown attached to get really messy endings. And sometimes pointless endings. And you know what? In this book, it really works. It makes you hate the villains more (and these are villains with nothing to recommend them, no sympathetic points whatsoever) and it makes you feel that something big is at stake.

Children of the Night is the last Diana Tregarde "mystery" that Lackey wrote, and I don't believe she has plans to write any others, for various reasons. I read the story on her website quite a while ago. It's a shame, because Diana is a great character, but as the author Lackey does get to decide when to cut things off and I'm not one of those fans who demands that authors "finish" things to my satisfaction.

This story follows both Diana and Dave, her ex-boyfriend from her college days. Diana is tracking something that is eating souls, usually in a very messy way. She gets involved with a charming and sexy vampire (see, long before Twilight I was into sexy vampires), who is also tracking the soul-eater, and together she and Andre have to find it and stop it. Dave, unfortunately for him, is on the other side of the fence, and it's through his perspective that we start to see what Diana and Andre are up against.

The plot in this story, quite different from The Lark and the Wren, is incredibly solid, not too cramped, and leads up to a grand climax that is totally satisfying. I did put "mystery" in quotes up there, because we know all along what's going on, so it's more of a suspense read than a genuine mystery. Unlike in some suspense books where the narrator is omniscient, I was never frustrated with Diana for not figuring things out sooner. She's a smart, kick-ass heroine, but she's human and though she does her best, she doesn't have a lot to work with, especially at the beginning. My only complaint was that her weakness -- debilitating panic attacks -- was dealt with in far too pat a way, and in such a way as to seem almost offensive to those real people I know who suffer panic attacks because curing it is not that easy. Which is interesting, because Lackey is usually pretty careful about that sort of thing. I'm not sure what she was aiming for with her resolution of that particular character point, other than a way to advance the plot or very quickly grow Diana's character.

I'd recommend it as a fast, suspenseful read without any real lasting impressions (although I did remember it after all these years, so I guess that says something). And you don't have to read any of the other Tregarde books to follow the story or the characters. If you have a queasy stomach or don't like it when bad things happen to good people, steer clear. I think I was in grade 10 or 11 when I first read this, and that was fine for me. I don't think I would have liked it if I was much younger (or it possibly would have given me nightmares for weeks), but that depends on the person, I'm sure.

What this did do for me was make me feel a little relieved, that I can still enjoy Mercedes Lackey's writing on some levels. This is a much better book than The Lark and the Wren overall, and I'm glad that I read it, even if I did skim through parts of it.