Mini-Reviews: The Last of 2011

Another batch of reviews cross-posted from Goodreads with additional comments in italics – this time it’s the final set of books that I read during 2011.  Be warned: it’s a long-ish post as it was a bit of an uneven reading month and I couldn’t figure out how to split them up without having a post all about “just okay” books.

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Men Under the Mistletoe edited by Angela James (m/m romance)

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A really good collection of Christmas m/m romances – I loved the Josh Lanyon story (second chance romances always get me), the KA Mitchell contribution was funny-sweet-romantic, and Harper Fox’s story was just different and unusual. The only one that didn’t quite work for me was Ava March’s historical – it was a good read, but not a standout.

I don’t think I’ve ever been disappointed by Carina Press’s Christmas anthologies, and this was a good one with three out of four contributors being favourite authors of mine.  

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Carol of the Bellskis by Astrid Amara (m/m romance)

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An unexpectedly good read. I loved the inclusion of Jewish traditions in this story and found them fascinating. Romance-wise, I liked how Seth discovered new things about Lars and I believed in their relationship. A strong ending, and I just want to know what happens next now.

I think I have pretty much all of Astrid Amara’s backlist (though I’ve only finished her contemporaries to date). I really like her writing – I just checked as I don’t recall seeing any new releases from her lately, and found out that she’s been working on a romance set during an alternate-universe Crimean War.  Sounds very interesting. 

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McKettrick’s Heart (McKettrick Men, #3) by Linda Lael Miller (contemporary romance)

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A heart-warming story, though be warned, a bit of a tear-jerker. I did feel the climax was a bit of letdown after all the build-up, but a satisfying read overall. The relationship between Keegan and his cousins was hilarious, and I’ll be picking up their books.

I can go months without reading a Linda Lael Miller, and then I sometimes feel as though I need a LLM fix, even though she can be hit or miss for me.  I think I picked this off the shelves at random – it hit the right buttons. 

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Bad Boyfriend by K.A. Mitchell (m/m romance)

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

After some slight confusion about exactly who was who, I got into the story – this was a romance with a nice dollop of angst, and there was a good build-up to a satisfying ending, though I’m not quite sure if Quinn’s relationship with his ex’s family had been properly resolved? Also, minor spoiler – click through to read.

I liked this, but not one of her standout books, IMO.  I’m hoping the new release works better for me. 

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Fate’s Edge by Ilona Andrews (paranormal romance)

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I find the Edge world fascinating, and George and Jack, who play quite a large part in this book, pretty much stole the show whenever they appeared. As for the Kaldar/Audrey relationship, I liked them well enough and thought they suited each other.However, I never really got into this book – it may be that the writing just failed to capture my imagination completely. A good read, but not one of my favourite Ilona Andrews.

I bought (and read) all the Edge books, but they never quite worked as well for me as the Kate Daniels books.  I think part of it is because the world-building felt a bit more forced compared to the Kate Daniels’ alternate-Atlanta world.  It also may be due to the fact we get different h/h pairings for each book in this series – I certainly feel more invested in George and Jack as recurring characters… 

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Lord John and the Scottish Prisoner by Diana Gabaldon (historical mystery)

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book kept me occupied during a very long plane journey. While there was more Jamie than I expected, I liked how the book filled in some of the gaps in the main Outlander story. I really enjoy the relationship between Lord John and his brother Hal – it’s not something we’re often given the chance to see. And as with all Diana Gabaldon’s books, this book is jam-packed with entertaining historical detail. I’m always glad to revisit the Outlander world, and this was a solid read.

Diana Gabaldon did a Q&A and cover reveal on the upcoming Outlander novel, if you missed it.  Part of me almost prefers her “shorter” side-novels about Lord John, because they’re not the epic Claire/Jamie sagas where I have to remember this large cast of characters, but I’m glad we finally get to find out what happened next. 

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Fire and Ice by Julie Garwood (romantic suspense)

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I’m at a loss as to why something that I would think endearing (possibly?) in a historical romance doesn’t translate to contemporary. In the book, the heroine says/thinks something along the lines of “He loves her (her being the best friend, IIRC) and I love her therefore he is okay” (yes, I’m paraphrasing wildly but it’s been a while and I don’t have the book to hand). And I sit there and think “naive girl”. Whereas I swear I have read something similar in Julie Garwood’s historicals and probably went “Awww…”.

So that aside, FIRE AND ICE was okay, nothing special.

Ha. I did struggle with this one.

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Promises in Death by J.D. Robb (futuristic romantic suspense)

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I ended up skimming through most of this book, to be honest. It was an impulse buy, and as with the more recent In Death books I’ve read, I didn’t really get into the story – it may be that I’ve read too many of these books and they’re all starting to come across as too similar. I did find it interesting to get to know Morris in more depth (I have to say he was not what I imagined him to be) and yay, Eve gets a new car! Apart from that, Eve was Eve, Roarke was Roarke, etc etc – no earth-shaking developments in this book.

I think I’ve pretty much given up on this series.  Unless I read a review that says Nora Roberts has completely shaken things up.

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Trio of Sorcery (Diana Tregarde, #0.5) by Mercedes Lackey (fantasy)

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I was familiar with Mercedes Lackey’s Diana Tregarde and Jennifer Talldeer books and was keen to read more stories set in their world – they were good stories, but not particularly memorable. I did like how she explored “previous contemporary” settings in the first two stories – it brought a few nostalgic memories back. The third story featuring a new protagonist focused on computers (and I’m sure it’ll become “previous contemporary” quite quickly as well) – again, it was a decent read, but didn’t stand out. I’m glad I restrained myself and waited for the library request to come through. It’s possibly worth the price if you get it in paperback, but not worth the hardcover, IMO.

I remember being so tempted to get the hardcover for this one, primarily because of the new Diana Tregarde and Jennifer Talldeer stories. I’m glad common sense prevailed.  Nice to revisit these old settings though. 

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Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy by Ally Carter (YA)

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A fun, light read, but IMO, the book lacked substance and left me somewhat unsatisfied. I continue reading this series because it’s such a great concept (secret spy-school for girls!), but I’m not invested.

I keep requesting this series from the library because I want these books to click with me, dammit.  They end up being more mind-candy than anything else.

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A Stone Creek Christmas (Stone Creek, #4) by Linda Lael Miller (contemporary romance)

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Not a massively memorable story – I bought it primarily because I was in the mood for Christmas stories. I think the talking-to-animals angle plus Kris Kringle required a suspension of disbelief that I couldn’t quite manage.

And this was a Linda Lael Miller miss.  Too cute-sy for me, IIRC.

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Legacies by Mercedes Lackey (YA urban fantasy)

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I have a soft spot for academy/boarding school type stories, so was pleasantly surprised to find out that this was one. But at the end, I wasn’t quite sure where the overall story was going and I didn’t feel invested in the characters. There wasn’t enough pay-off to make me interested in the next book.

It’s been a while since a new Mercedes Lackey novel really worked for me, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that this was no exception.  I noticed the final book in this trilogy is out this year, but I’m probably not going to bother. 

Random Bits

You know, I was a bit grumpy last week when we missed out on a long bank holiday weekend, but this four-day weekend has probably made up for it.

Reading-wise, I started on Carla Kelly‘s new release, MARRIAGE OF MERCY, over the weekend – enjoying the historical setting and the quiet attraction between heroine/hero (not so much the compulsory evil cousin though).  I also got around to reading the new-ish Nora Roberts courtesy of my library – her romantic suspense standalone THE WITNESS.  This was more of a mixed bag –  I liked the suspense sections, but thought the pacing slacked off somewhat when I reached the romance part.  The library also came through with Isabelle Holland‘s TRELAWNY’S FELL – this was a proper old-school hardcover published in 1976, with original library cards still intact.  It got me into the right mood, and I loved the book – it had all the modern Gothic must-haves, including a spooky manor house with a maze of attics, identity-swapping, and a sprinkling of romance.

And links of interest I’ve come across:

I loved Ernest Cline‘s READY PLAYER ONE when I read it earlier this year (I know, I haven’t really been talking about books I loved this year, have I?), and That Cover Girl had a great post about the covers of the various editions.  While I had seen the hardcover edition in the bookstore, it was the paperback cover that made me grab it off the shelves.

I’ve enjoyed reading all the blog posts on this Unconventional Blog Tour.  They’ve been thought-provoking and informative – I especially liked Kate Hart’s post on Citing Your Sources.

Everyone’s probably seen this by now, but this Almack’s voucher posted by Jane @ Dear Author?  Ahhhh.  I’m guessing you can tell who the historical romance reader are by reactions (or lack of) to this picture.

How Many Books…

I used to be the sort of person who only ever read one book at a time (then again, I also never ever had a TBR pile – I blame book blogging).

Now at the moment, I’m reading:

Catherine Asaro’s “Diamond Star” (SF, part of her Skolian Empire series):  I picked this up at Baen’s Webscription ebook store (I love Baen’s pricing policy, btw – $6 for an ebook, even when it’s in hardcover).  I’m about one-third through at the moment, and have mixed feelings.  I definitely want to finish it, but I’ve got a really really bad feeling that Del’s going to mess things up for himself and something’s going to go badly wrong before the payoff at the end? 

Lisa Shearin’s “The Trouble with Demons” (fantasy, Book 3 in the Raine Benares series):  I started this a couple of nights ago when I was looking for an excuse to put down “Diamond Star” for a while, and wanted a light easy read.  However, I’m finding it slightly difficult to get into this because – and I am being picky – there are some phrases that I feel are repetitive, and now that I’ve noticed, they sort of jump out at me.  It’s like when someone says don’t think of pink elephants and then all you can think of are pink elephants.  So I’m putting Raine and Tam and Mychael aside for a bit.

Also, I’ve sort of started JD Robb’s “Salvation in Death” (futuristic romantic suspense) and Mike Shepherd’s “Intrepid” (military SF) – “sort of” meaning I’m at least one chapter in but haven’t yet committed fully to the book    There are also the anthologies I picked up last month, I’m still slowly making my way through them (and a massive collection of Agatha Christie short stories).

And finally *deep breath* I just bought Kelley Armstrong’s “The Awakening” (YA urban fantasy, 2nd in her Darkest Powers trilogy), and well, had to start reading it on my way home – hey, there were delays on the line! 

My plan of attack?  Finish the Kelley Armstrong, then the Catherine Asaro (I think I just need to get on with it!) – and then re-evaluate where I am…

How many books do you normally have on the go?

Very Quickly…

I stopped by the bookstore today and they had Karen Chance’s “Curse the Dawn” out!  Her Cassie Palmer UF series is one of my favourites so getting this just in time for the weekend made my day.

I almost missed it on the display table because I was expecting a cover similar to the US one, as all the previous UK editions have pretty much re-used the US cover picture.  However, “Curse the Dawn” has completely different cover art – I’m not 100% convinced because it looks pretty generic (the UK cover is the one on the right).  Oh well, it’s what’s inside that counts 

And because there was a 3 for 2 offer, I also picked up JD Robb’s “Salvation in Death” (let’s face it, Nora Roberts is a fail-safe choice) and Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games” (have been meaning to get this one forever because of all the great reviews).

Am off to read now…

The First Quarter of 2008

Okay, I’ve been wondering how to go about doing this, and I think I’m going to start off with a month-by-month review, based on notes made in my trusty reading spreadsheet. 

 

January

Highlights for me were Patricia Briggs’ “Iron Kissed” (urban fantasy), Eileen Wilks’ “Night Season” (urban fantasy) and Catherine Asaro’s “The Ruby Dice” (science fiction).  Now the first probably has had the most air-time (or is that blog-time), but I have much love for the other two as well. 

“Night Season” is the fourth book in Ms Wilks’ Lupi series – yes, werewolves as well, but so not Mercy Thompson.  Instead you have an equally kickass heroine in Lily Yu, a homicide detective, and a very alpha hero in Rule, the werewolf prince with a rather complicated family.

“The Ruby Dice” is the latest in Ms Asaro’s Skolian Empire series, and one that had me holding my breath up to the very end.  A very satisfying read.  If you’re a SF/Romance fan, you have to try this series.

I read 11 books in January, which was around average for me.  This included three Elizabeth Peters’ books (mystery, all standalone), so I was polishing off the rest of her backlist.

 

February 

Moving on to February, standouts for me were Julie Hyzy’s “State of the Onion” (cosy mystery), Nalini Singh’s “Mine to Possess” (paranormal romance), and Barbara Michaels’ “Stitches in Time” (mystery).

Ms Hyzy’s book was an impulse buy in a bookstore, and one that paid off in spades.  I really really liked – and moaned about the fact that not only was it the first in her White House Chef series, it was also her first cosy mystery.  Sigh.  I did note at that time that she had written a few suspense novels, which I still haven’t tracked down *checks The Book Depository and finds out that “Deadly Interest” is retailing for £20* umm… maybe not.

“Mine to Possess” was Clay and Tally’s story in Ms Singh’s Psy/Changeling series – one of the things I like most about this series is the worldbuilding and how the overall story arc is developing.

I continued reading Barbara Michaels a.k.a Elizabeth Peters backlist and “Stitches in Time” was a very spooky read.  This is loosely-linked to “Ammie, Come Home” and “Shattered Silk” – I think I preferred “Shattered Silk” best out of the three.

10 books read in total during February, but not a fantastic reading month.  I read Maria Snyder’s “Magic Study”, which *whispers* reinforced the fact that her books aren’t for me despite the overwhelmingly positive reviews elsewhere, Alexandra Potter’s “Me and Mr Darcy” my I-know-I-don’t-care-for-chicklit-so-why-do-I actually-buy-them purchase, and “My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon” anthology, where I only really liked three or so of the short stories (Kelley Armstrong, Jim Butcher, and PN Elrod’s).

 

March

And then March – Keishon kicked off the TBR Day challenge and I started with Lois McMaster Bujold’s “Legacy”, which I loved.  This was the first blogland challenge I’ve participated in, mainly because I’m rather lazy and anything requiring me being organised normally ends in dismal failure.  But having viewed my TBR pile with horror at the beginning of the year, I decided anything that would make me read from my TBR pile would be a good thing.  And it was – it not only made me read books I already had, it made me post about them.  I daresay without this challenge, I would have been pretty rubbish at actually writing any reviews.

I also loved Deanna Raybourn’s “Silent in the Grave” (historical mystery), which I finally picked up after reading numerous recs.  This book totally wins my best opening line award for 2008: “To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband’s dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor.”

I read Elizabeth Moon’s fifth and final book in her Vatta’s War series “Victory Conditions” (military SF) and thought it was easily the best in the series.  I also very much liked Jo Beverley’s “A Lady’s Secret” (historical romance) and JD Robb a.k.a Nora Roberts’ “Innocent in Death” (futuristic mystery), both part of long-running series, with the latter probably longer than most.

I read 15 books in total during March, and re-reading the list of books I read makes me smile, so it was a good month.

 

Much longer than I thought this would be – and nine months left to go!

TBR Day: Nora Roberts’ “Blood Brothers”

This is posted as part of Keishon’s TBR Day challenge, which is aimed at encouraging us readers with the towering TBR piles (you know who you are) to start tackling the books that have been languishing in there for eons.

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Book: Blood Brothers (paranormal romance)

Author: Nora Roberts

Copyright Date: 2007

Why did I buy this book?  Err I didn’t.  I nicked it off my sister ages ago… and never quite got around to reading it.  See next question.

Why did it sit in my TBR pile for so long?  I’ve read practically all of Ms Roberts’ backlist, and while I still enjoy her writing, I’ve felt that there has been a bit of a same-ness about her recent books.  Also, her previous “Circle” trilogy, which had paranormal elements, really didn’t work for me – so when I heard that this one also had a paranormal storyline, I just couldn’t get excited about reading it.

What is it about?  The first in Ms Roberts’ latest trilogy, “Blood Brothers” starts off with three boys, Cal, Fox, and Gage, swearing blood brothership on their tenth birthdays and accidentally unleashing a demon that brings chaos and murder to their small town every seven years.   Fast forward 21 years, and Quinn, a writer (and obviously the heroine of Book 1), turns up to investigate the phenomenon.

So what did I think about it?  Well, first off, this is very much a NR trilogy – if you’ve read a couple, you’ll be very familiar with the set-up in this book.  Three men, three women, each of a certain “type” (the clever one, the quiet one, etc), all end up in the same place and relationships develop.  And as I alluded to earlier, unfortunately this just didn’t feel fresh to me.  It reminded me a lot of previous trilogies, especially the Chesapeake Bay series - an association not helped by the fact the heroine’s name is Quinn, which is the name of the main family in that series!

Having said that, it is a Nora Roberts, and it has her characteristically smooth flowing writing style.  The background is deftly sketched in and the secondary characters nicely brought to life.  I did like the relationship between Cal and Quinn, and I loved the male viewpoints and dialogue.  For instance, this had me smiling – when Fox’s secretary suggests he refer a problematic client to someone else:

“You can’t refer off the first girl you got to second base with when she’s filing for divorce.  It’s against the laws of God and Man.”

And then the plot, well.  Okay, I’m not a huge fan of horror, and I think this book veers towards the horror side of the scale.  Not massively, but horror’s really not my thing.  And maybe I missed something, but what I just don’t grasp is why anyone is still living in this town.  I mean, if I knew my neighbours went mad and started murdering everyone every seven years, there is no way I’d still be living there.  Yes, the period’s a bit of a blur to anyone actually experiencing it, but if the phenomenon has been written up so much that a writer comes to town to find out more about it, it’s hardly a secret.  So I did think there were a few logical gaps in the plot.

And finally, my other main bugbear with the plot is the ending.  Yes, I know it’s the first in a trilogy, but the plot climax really came across as a letdown and I felt as though the book didn’t really have a proper ending.  Definitely not a standalone at all, which irked me.

My conclusion?  I think that someone fresh to Ms Roberts’ writing would probably rate it higher, but this book didn’t wow me.  And the ending?  Just plain disappointing.  However, I still enjoyed the humour and the writing flowed well, so a B- for me.

This and that

Minor panic attack last night as my ebook reader just restarted randomly while I was reading.  I sat there barely daring to breathe until it had restarted properly and displayed all my books.  All 63 books/novellas appeared so I’m completely relieved and don’t even quite mind that the Collections on my memory card have vanished.  If all I have to do is re-organise my books, I’m happy.

Speaking of ebooks, this week’s Tor giveaway is Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory‘s “The Outstretched Shadow”.  I’ve read this one – so out of the four books so far, I’ve read three.  LOL.  Not doing too well there.  On the other hand, it’s nice to have e-versions of the books to carry around.

Once my reader started behaving itself, I continued reading JD Robb‘s “Innocent in Death”.  I was wrong in thinking this was where I left off in the “In Death” series, btw – I missed the previous one where Mavis had her baby.  I get confused with the titles in this series.  Instead, I keep them straight by using “this is the one where the chambermaid got murdered”.  Or “this is the one where the guy leaped from his flat”.  You know, for a series with 20-something books, it’s pretty amazing that the murder/mystery is unique for each book.  So this is the one with the history teacher murder.

I really really liked it.  More than I thought I would.  This series is sort of a comfort read for me – it’s reliable and I know what I’m going to get when I read an Eve/Roarke book.  Which is good, but well, a bit boring. 

But in this book, a lady from Roarke’s past makes an appearance.  And she’s everything Eve isn’t – glamorous and polished, with a shared history with Roarke.  And for once, Roarke’s famed cool and street smarts desert him. I didn’t think there would ever be a time when Roarke wouldn’t “get” Eve.  So yeah, I really enjoyed the relationship angle in this book.  Seeing Eve and Roarke struggle to re-connect and the pay-off at the end.  Oh, and the solution to the murder?  Very neat.  And a bit chilling.  A very strong B+ for me.

I cave…

Remember my resolution not to buy a new book unless I finished one from my TBR?  Shot to pieces by the Fictionwise Leap Day sale.  I’m such a sucker.

I got a rather random selection of books:

“Innocent in Death” by JD Robb (futuristic romance/suspense) – The last In Death book I read was more than a year ago, so I’ve a few books to catch up.  I *think* this is where I left off – I can never remember the titles with this series.  I purposely took a break because I was finding each book just a bit too same-y – I think it worked because I’m actually looking very forward to this one!

“Demon Night” by Meljean Brook (paranormal romance) – Errmmm… I’m going to read “Demon Moon” this month.  I promise.  Then I can read this.

“The Perils of Pleasure” by Julie Anne Long (historical romance) - While the reviews haven’t been glowing, they’ve generally been good.  I’m keen to find out if this one has the sparkle that characterised her first two novels.

“Virgin River” by Robyn Carr (contemporary romance) – I’ve been wondering about this one – I know a lot of peeps have rated it.  So while I’m not a huge contemp fan, I’m giving it a go.

“Grimspace” by Ann Aguirre (SF romance) – After all the blogland buzz, I was incredibly curious.  It’s a toss-up whether I’ll read this or the JD Robb one first, methinks.

“Silent in the Grave” by Deanna Raybourn (historical mystery) – Inspired by the review of the second book in this series over at Dear Author.  I’m starting to read a lot more mysteries, and I like historical settings, so why not?

Gosh, when I break a resolution, I don’t just break it, I smash it…

Around the Web

Apparently, Diana Gabaldon will be doing a reading from her latest book “Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade” in Second Life (Oct 11).  I’m seeing a lot of Second Life news around nowadays, but have no interest in actually trying it out.  Isn’t it like The Sims but online?  I’m starting to feel like a bit of a Luddite.

Also, if you’re a Nora Roberts fan in the UK (and if you have digital), ITV3 will be screening the four TV movies (“Angels Fall”, “Montana Sky”, “Carolina Moon”, and “Blue Smoke”) aired in the States earlier this year.  The first movie is “Angels Fall” and is scheduled for Oct 1.

This should be interesting!  I completely ignored the discussions on these movies because I didn’t think I’d ever get to see them.  While I can’t quite recall what “Montana Sky” and “Carolina Moon” are about, I did read “Angels Fall” just a few months ago, so that’s still relatively fresh in my mind – whether that’s good or bad, I’m not sure!

What I read on holiday

Not full-on proper reviews, because I’m, well, lazy – just thoughts! 

I picked up Linda Lael Miller‘s “The Man from Stone Creek” on impulse.  I haven’t read her books for ages and ages, and was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it.  I hadn’t read a Western historical romance in, well, ages.  But I loved the characters in this book – the undercover Ranger working as a schoolteacher, the heroine managing the general store, the vividly-drawn secondary cast – as well as the general atmosphere and feel of the wild wild West!  This really put me in the mood for reading more Westerns, so I also picked up her “Emma and the Outlaw” and “Lily and the Major” books (re-issues).  While these weren’t as good as TMfSC, I think I may start reading Westerns again.

Nora Roberts‘ “High Noon” was my airplane book – I thought it was a solid read, but nothing special, IMO.  My sister said that Ms Roberts writes great characters, but her recent standalones lack *something*. And I think I’ll agree.  The writing flowed as always, but I didn’t love it, and from a distance of two weeks or thereabouts, I can’t even remember the storyline.  I think the last Nora Roberts books I loved were her Chesapeake books – the ones with the Quinn brothers.

I also read Stephenie Meyer‘s “Eclipse”.  Eh.  I’ll admit it – this book bored me.  I gave up halfway through and skimmed through to the end, just to find out where the characters ended up.  I don’t like Bella, which is a major problem since the book is written from her POV.  She’s too whiny and well, immature.  But she’s only 18.  Or 19.  I’m wondering if I would have liked it more if I were a teenage girl – would I have identified more with Bella?  I’m a bit on the fence as to whether I’ll get the final book – I’ll probably wait until the reviews come out for that one, I suspect.  This was a bit of a disappointment.

Oh, and Suzanne Brockmann‘s Force of Nature.  Now this I loved.  I thought FoN was classic Brockmann, with a really action-packed suspenseful ending. Without giving too much away, I’m a huge Jules fan, and I’m glad he finally got his story and HEA.  And I’m so getting the November novella (FoN spoiler-ish blurb here).  

I heard she’s starting a new story arc that includes Tess and Nash.  Ouch.  Poor them.  I’m in two minds on these secondary romance arcs – on one hand, I love them because you really get invested in the characters and there’s more scope for “what’s the worst thing I can do to these characters”-type plots and she does it *so* well, but on the other hand, I find that I get so caught up in them, that I just end up skimming through the books for the bits that involve them.  I know I certainly did that for Sam/Alyssa and now for Jules.  Hmm… 

And finally, I read Linda Howard‘s “Up Close and Dangerous” on the way back.  Though reading about a plane crash while on a plane may not have been the best choice.  Heh.  Maybe I’m in the minority here, but I found all the practical survival stuff fascinating.  So I liked that part, which was good since they spent most of the book getting off the mountain, which surprised me a bit.  The suspense part… wasn’t really suspense, was it?  I thought she could have led up to it better, more foreshadowing perhaps?  The twist came out of nowhere for me – I re-read the relevant bits once I finished the book, and still didn’t think she gave any clues.  Perhaps not one of her greatest books ever, but a good read nonetheless.

I actually did more re-reads of old favourites, but I’ll save that for another post!