Review: Infinite Crisis

Infinite Crisis - Part 2 by Greg Cox

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Yeah, I can't see any reason to review the parts individually. Both parts of this are awesome, although I haven't read the original graphic novel so I don't have much to compare it to. This isn't just a reading of the novelization, however. It is a full production with cast and effects and it sounds much like it would if you were watching it on tv, but with the added descriptions because you are listening and not watching. The hits and the violence can sound almost brutal, which, I suppose, they really are when you think about it.



The "not seeing" can be a problem if you, like me, have a very limited familiarity with DC comics. There is a very large cast in the Infinite Crisis and it was sometimes hard to tell who was good and who wasn't just by hearing the names. It took some effort, but I'm sure that wouldn't be the case for people who were better versed in the DC Universe. That really was the only downside to this audio. Run right out and get it.


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Review: I Love a Man in Uniform

I Love a Man in Uniform: A Memoir of Love, War, and Other Battles by Lily Burana

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
You all know how I feel about memoirs: don't trust 'em. Not my fault, I've been hurt before. BUT, I found this book absolutely charming, brutally honest (sometimes more than I think I needed to know) and very entertaining. It starts off strong, giving you a picture of the "perfect" Army Wife and then Burana tells you she is not that woman. Usually, the best compliment I can give to a memoir is that it "reads like fiction". This, to me, means that it isn't slow or overly detailed or dry like some memoirs, but is fast paced with snappy dialogue like the best fiction books. This book is fast paced with snappy dialogue, but you never get the feeling that it isn't real. There is always something there, lingering in the background, that tethers you to the reality that this is someone's life.



The Iraq War looms large over this book. First in anticipation of Major Mike going, then while he is gone, and then when he comes back. Burana was mostly very respectful of the Army, both as an institution and the political leadership thereof, so if you're looking for a book that bad talks the military, or something along those lines, best to move along. It doesn't happen here. What you get here is a wonderful insight into her life as an Officer's wife, and the adjustments she had to make. The chapters on West Point were fascinating and informative, but there was also plenty of humor to be found in the book. I'd always wondered what real Army wives think of the show Army Wives for instance. (She is an addict. Like me.) And calling the military "Uncle Sugar" cracks me up for a reason I still cannot identify.



One of my favorite parts came near the end where Burana, sick about the atrocities at Abu Ghraib, came face to face with Donald Rumsfeld at the Army-Navy football game.

"Shifting back and forth, I weighed the possible outcome of saying something to her husband, and no matter how angry I was over the hell that Rumsfeld and his crw had wrought, all I could envision were my words casting a long, dark shadow over my husband. For all my fury and indignation I would not win this war with a personal attack, and by Rumsfeld on the spot, I would be serving no one but myself. What he did to our contry might be unforgiveable, but so, too, would be turning a football game into my own personal bully pulpit. My husband committed to a vocation of selfless service and sacrifice. I would match his sacrifice with discretion. For the first time in my loudmouth life, I chose impassioned silence."

I'm glad she chose to break that silence to write this book. Very well done.


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Tuesday dump!

Ever wondered how books are ordered for a library? I was cleaning out my email today and found this lurking there. Someone in the system asked for a brief (ha) description of how we decide what to buy. This was my reply. Enjoy.

Well, I guess the first thing to say is that all fiction titles are eligible for purchase. There used to be an unwritten policy that we didn’t buy certain types of romance fiction (mostly the series romance books) but that is no longer the case. I don’t immediately reject something just because it was published by a certain company (like Harlequin) or because it is romance or whatever. If it is fiction, we consider it. But, just because everything is considered doesn’t mean everything is purchased.

Reviews are less helpful in fiction than in non-fiction because, unlike with non-fiction, there isn’t a blatant wrong answer. In NF, you can reject a book because it gives out bad information. (Like saying, for instance, that AIDS is spread by sharing water fountains.) That is just completely wrong, and we wouldn’t buy a book that gives out bad information. With fiction, reviews are just what people think about the book. They can like the story, or not. They can like the writing, or not. They can like the author, or the genre, or not. That doesn’t mean that any given reader will agree. So, it is difficult to rely strictly on reviews. Plus, there are a lot of fiction books that don’t even get reviewed and some that are, in genre specific magazines, may or may not be anything more than “I hated this book.” Not helpful. That said, I do READ reviews. Sometimes.

So, if not reviews then what? Well, the aforementioned genre magazines. Mystery News, Mystery Scene, Romantic Times, Locus, The Bulletin of the SFWA and Starlog are the main ones. Lots of web sites. Overbooked. (www.overbooked.org) Early Word (www.earlyword.com) GalleyCat (http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat) CoaIM (http://www.sarahweinman.com/confessions/) are the best ones. Plus a handful of fiction listservs.

When I first started here, I had SS make me a list of branches with all kinds of neat demographic info. But, with floating, none of that matters. You just put a number in and that’s how many we have. They start out in certain places, but who knows where they will end up. Most things end up just fine, but there are some collections we haven’t been able to get right. African American fiction is the one that immediately comes to mind. The others are classics and science fiction/fantasy. I have found things in the Booksale, discards, that still have holds because people think that just because a SF/F book is not going at their branch, they should throw it away…..without checking Horizon. Floating is a partnership and I really rely on public service staff to make sure we are keeping things we need to have. They have to know who the big authors are, who has a high re-read rate, or a large number of new readers (Nora Roberts comes to mind) and who is just a flash in the pan. They need to know multiple genres and authors in those genres, an they need to do all of this without their own personal biases entering into it. For the most part, public service librarians do an awesome job. But, as with anything else, there are some areas that need work. Without them, though, this system won’t work. I only buy the books, and if they’re discarded, then we’re right back where we started.

Keeping up with new trends is essential. We buy erotic fiction, which is pretty much standard in the romance genre now. No more holding hands and then ending with a smooch. J We buy urban fiction. We buy books with werewolves, and were-lions, and…..no, I’m not kidding! Vamps, and ghosts, and whatever it is. We have a ratio of number of copies to holds, but that is flexible. I rely heavily on previously purchased works by the author to determine the number of copies. If their most recent books have done well, I’ll increase the number of copies. If I look on Horizon and see that the author’s last book has 5 copies, with 5 circ between all of them, then I’ll probably buy fewer. If those 5 copies all have double digit circs or a current hold list, then I’ll probably increase the number of the next title. If the author changes styles, or genres (for instance they go from historical mystery to paranormal romance) then I’ll increase if the new area is more popular, and decrease if not. I NEVER BUY ONE COPY OF ANYTHING. NEVER. There is no place in a 24 branch system for one copy of a new book. The fewest I’ve bought is 3 copies and even that makes me feel like I’m not giving it a chance to succeed. The most copies I’ll buy is 300. Anything over that requires more fortitude than I have. We rarely have anything go over 900 holds, so 300 is sufficient. For the bestsellers, I’ll start out with 200 (James Patterson, John Grisham, hardcover Nora Roberts) and then go from there. Strangely enough, paperback Nora Roberts titles don’t gather as many holds, even when they aren’t re-issues. Don’t know why, that’s just how it is.

Audiobooks: Because we are getting them at a much more reasonable price, I buy more copies and I buy more titles. More titles are coming out in audio format, and it is everything from the huge bestsellers to paperback originals. If it is available, I’ll try anything once. I’ve found that until you put it out there, you don’t know if people will like it. GraphicAudio specializes in paperback original authors and they make audiobooks that are like big budget action movies. People find them entertaining. They circ pretty well, and they’re only $19.95, so it’s a win-win situation.

Downloadable audio: the same basic rules apply. Because they have a mandatory 3 week loan period, I’m likely to buy more copies than I ordinarily would so people don’t have to wait so long.

For now.....but I keep hoping for an upgrade to X!

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Review: The Steel Remains

The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This was my first experience with Richard Morgan, so I have nothing else to compare it to. Reading some of the other reviews on GoodReads, I see that many people prefer his straight Science Fiction works to his new Fantasy series.



I thought this was an excellent book. It started with action, and it rarely let up. Yet, it was had complex plotting, intrigue, and the most realistic characters I've seen in a book in a long time. All of the characters in this book, even the characters you see just briefly, are multi faceted. If there are "plot device" characters in this novel, I certainly couldn't pick them out. They were well integrated into the story, not just devices stuck in to move plot points along. The main and secondary characters showed a depth that, frankly, has been missing in fantasy fiction of late. The relationships between the characters was complex, each of the three main characters having lives that were not easily described. All of them had faults, some big some little, and all of those faults weren't neatly tied up when it became time for them to become heroes again. They continued to be faulty characters who rose to the occasion. Isn't that just the way of people?



The one thing I would change about this book is the beating me over the head with the homophobia of the general populace. I get it. Ringil is gay and the peoples don't like it. Honestly, his being gay is not the most interesting thing about him, or the book. Bigotry happens. Archeth faced it too. Egar's situation was much more interesting as the bigotry towards him was about ideas (him having them instead of sticking with traditions) instead of physical attributes. I just thought it was overdone. But, if that is the biggest problem with this book, that isn't much of a problem at all.



The book is action filled and thought provoking and complex. If Fantasy novels are your thing and you don't object to violence or sexual situations, this is the book for you. But, it is violent, so be warned. Definitely an adult book, not for the kiddies.


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Review: One Taste

One Taste by Allison Hobbs

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
The blurb on the front says "A Fast-Paced Sex Thriller with a lot of Eroticism" but the book did not deliver. It delivered fast pace and sex. There was nothing "thrilling" or "erotic" about it. You can't create eroticism just by using naughty words. That isn't enough anymore and there wasn't enough here to get me engaged.



I didn't like the characters and I don't think I was supposed to. The first thing we see is materialistic Regina and it all goes downhill from there. She isn't sympathetic at all, even though Hobbs tries to build in a backstory of heartbreak around a son who died in an accident. Maybe if we would have gotten the full story about the son up front it might have helped create more of a connection with Regina. Instead, we get the barest hint of her pain, but it seemed contrived without the full story. Her husband is another completely unsympathetic character. Did this man have ANY redeeming qualities? Any at all? He was a cardboard cutout character, there only to give Regina an excuse to do everything she did. Not only does that not work for him, it doesn't work for her either. Why do I feel badly for her when she stayed with someone like that? I don't believe that she did it for love. Why? Because there wasn't anything lovable about him, that's why. There wasn't anything lovable about either of them.



The rest of the characters were equally two dimensional and un-interesting. They showed no depth, no growth, no individualism. So if you have characters like that guess what suffers? That's right, the sex.



To put it bluntly, there was nothing sexy about the sex in this book. It wasn't hot. It wasn't "freaky" (despite the blurb from Zane on the back of the book). It was plain, like checking off the list of words: Pussy? Yep. Dick? Uh huh. Clit? Gotcha. Cum....yep. Great! We hit our quota. If it wasn't plain, it was ridiculous. I mean, did you really say:

"Yeah, his dick was husky like a mufucka"

Seriously? And I'm supposed to be aroused by that or laughing my ass off? Because I'm still laughing. Which is too bad because the one redeeming quality of this book was Cochise (aside from his nickname.) He was the only character that straddled the line between two dimensional and fully developed character. He wasn't all the way there, but he came closer than any of the others. He had his own voice and hinted that Hobbs might be a better writer than this book suggests.



But I knew I was in trouble on the first page with

"She could eye spy a knockoff with just a glance"

She could "eye spy"? Really? That's something a person might say, that doesn't belong in the narration. There is an old adage for writing called "show, don't tell." There is a lot of tell in this book, and not nearly enough show. Would I try another book by her? Probably. There were glimmers of things in this one that gave me hope. But, I'll definitely be checking out from the library instead of forking over my own recession dollars.


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It could just be me

But I think it kind of dulls the danger to be advertised as having a special (read cheaper) price.

Maybe you could be Cheap as Sin? Somewhat Dangerous? Maybe they could put the frickin' sticker somewhere else?

Review: Talk Me Down

Talk Me Down by Victoria Dahl

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Do you know what is harder than writing a review of a book you really didn't like? Writing a review for a book you LOVED. You don't know where to start. You don't know when you're crossing the line from intelligent review to giggly fangirl. You don't know how you can do the book justice. The truth is, you can't do it justice because you have to READ THE BOOK to understand why it is so good. You can't capture that in a review. The best you can do is a "Why I liked this book" summary:



First and foremost, I loved the heroine in this book. If any of you read my reviews (and really, why would you?) you know that I have a longstanding problem with heroines. Either they are whiny, or stupid, or have GHH (glittery hoo haa) or everyone wants to sleep with them, be them, worship them, and have done nothing to earn that devotion. They often are mean with no repercussions treat their best friends (and everyone else) more like sidekicks than friends and make me wonder why anyone would want to be around them at all. Molly Jennings wasn't like that at all. Instead, she was warm and funny. She was kind, vulnerable and, most importantly, she was hilarious. Seriously hilarious. Yes, there were times when I wanted to hit her over the head with my book (just TELL HIM ALREADY, MOLLY!) but that happens all too often in real life as well.



Ben was equally awesome and didn't leave me wondering "What the hell would he want her for?" He wasn't hunky yet brainless. He wasn't, in my opinion, easily cateogized in the alpha or beta boxes many people like to shut heroes in. He was well rounded. He wasn't perfect, wasn't superhuman, wasn't anything other than himself. The fun part of the book was finding out exactly what that was. You found out right along with Molly and Ben as they found out about each other.



The plot was perfect. It kept you guessing, it threw you off track, it moved at the same pace as the book. A lot of books really want to focus on the "romance" part of the book and let the rest of the plot drop until it is needed to advance the book. This one kept all parts integrated so you never really forgot the overall story.



The best part of this book, though, was the voice. All the characters, including the narrative voice, were distinct. No one sounded alike and, better yet, no one sounded stilted. Conversations flowed, and sounded like people talking not characters talking. It makes me wonder if Dahl read this out loud as she was writing, because there weren't any awkward phrases or pieces when any of the characters talked to each other. It didn't matter if they were main characters, or secondary, they all sounded realistic. And hilarious. I can't tell you how many times I laughed out loud while reading this book. The circumstances Molly got herself in to, many times unapologetically, were great. Lori, Helen, Juan, Quinn, even icky Cameron and Molly's parents were all people you could picture in your head as you read the words. You really can't appreciate how special that is unless you've read books that never come close to that level of writing. It isn't something everyone can accomplish.



And the sex? Hot. Fun. Hot. I don't know what else to say about that.



Overall, I can't say enough good things about this book. It'll be like catching up on the exploits of a friend you lost touch with. And I think, at the end, you'll be happy to see whatever happened to that Molly girl you used to know.....


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Review: 3

Three by Julie Hilden

My review

rating: 1 of 5 stars
It wasn't so much dislike that made me give this only one star. It was more disinterest. There was an interesting hook to start the book: a woman catching her husband with another woman. Okay, I'm intrigued. And back cover copy told me that said wife would agree to an "open" marriage of sorts. That's why I picked it up! The author has already won me halfway over because I picked up the book. But, it takes more than that to keep me interested.



The prose was written well. The book had a literary look and feel to it. And, even though it may seem like I have a bias against modern literary fiction, I really don't. Some of it is interesting, and some of it isn't. This one wasn't. The characters were bland. They weren't sympathetic at all. I didn't like any of them, and I didn't dislike them either. I just turned pages. Pretty soon, I didn't care enough to continue to do that. I didn't care about their motivations. The sex was boring, even though it was supposed to be illicit and exciting. It wasn't the words that made the sex boring, it was the lack of interest in the characters.



A lot of people enjoyed this book, and that's great. Anything that is positive feedback for an author is a good thing. For me, though, this was a disappointment. I probably won't be trying any of her other fiction.


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Review: I'm Down

I'm Down: a memoir by Mishna Wolff

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I'm skeptical about memoirs now. It wasn't just James Frey that made me skeptical. Since then, there have been many memoirs, both published and unpublished, that have proven to be false. So, while I very much liked this book, I'm not at all convinced that it was true. The beautiful thing is that it doesn't matter. If it is true, great. I can't wait to read the rest of the story. If it isn't true, great. I can't wait to read the rest of the story.



The writing was engaging and it read like fiction. It moved along fast and there weren't really any lulls to skim through. I almost wish this book was fiction, because that would make the narrator a lot more reliable. When I was reading this, I kept thinking "This is how YOU saw it. But I wonder how it really was." Which isn't to say, of course, that she deliberately lied. But, if these things are happening to you, then of course you're going to spin them with your own interpretation. That, and you're only privvy to the conversations you had access to.



The other thing was that the book ended too soon. Unless she's planning to do another one, and maybe she is, I thought it ended way too early. What happened in high school? What happened with her parents? What happened post high school? I know it was supposed to be about her "growing up" but it just seemed to end in an awkward place. I wanted to know more. I suppose wanting to know more is the best compliment you can give a memoir.



If you're planning to read this book (and from the cover how could you NOT want to read it) don't expect any deep philosophical answers about race relations (or anything else) from it. Expect to be entertained, and you won't be disappointed.


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Bad Cover

Seriously. If you can look at this and NOT make Hulk sex jokes, you are a better woman than I. Love her. HATE the cover.

Dumb is.....

Not including a link to your own blog on your own blog! Check out Obiter Dictum, which will turn 5 (!!!) this year.

I started Unpaged so I wouldn't clog the other one up with stuff about books. Then, I promptly abandoned it. But, maybe now I'll be more diligent about updating my life over there.

Love is in the air!

Everywhere you look around! Big news in romance publishing, and really all genre publishing. Sales are up up up!

A brief cameo by me towards the end of the article. Come one, come all. Pick up a book!

Review: Be With Me

Be With Me by Maya Banks

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
I guess this would be more of a 3.5. (Hey GoodReads, why can't I give half stars?!)



Basically, my problem with this book all stems from the fact that I don't believe the underlying premise that there can be HEA with three men and one woman. I'm sure it's me, but I don't think I'd like to share. I have a problem suspending my disbelief long enough to think that the three guys would all be happy sharing one lady they all loved.



So, if you don't buy in to the book on the most fundamental level, how can it get three stars? Well, because I loved all the characters. Towards the middle, Reggie started to get on my nerves, but I have a notorious problem with heroine(s). I either love them or hate them. Overall, she was a win for me. I liked her attitude and her determination. I like how she had to give in and became part of a group instead of just an individual. I loved how she stood up to her parents. I liked her relationship with her partner and her boss. She was great. The boys were equally fantastic. I thought Banks did a really good job giving each one their own space for development. And that is partly why the rest of the book didn't work for me. It felt like they were all cheated out of the HEA that each deserved. I preferred her with Hutch, and I thought Cam and Sawyer (God, I loved Sawyer) deserved their own books. Even though they were all three dimensionally developed, I wanted to know MORE about them. I don't know, I just didn't feel like they were done. Did I mention how much I loved Sawyer?



The creepy stalker plot was enough to move the story along, but I could have used more there as well. I never really felt like it was an imminent threat. It was, of course, but I was too busy trying to figure out how the relationships were going to work to care about anything else. I think if it would have been just a story about her and Hutch, then it would have fallen into place easier for me. I did like the revelation of the stalker, and I wanted to feel badly for that person (and I think I was supposed to) but by that time, I didn't care about any of that anymore. I was invested somewhere else, and just wanted it to be over so we could get back home to see THAT resolution.



So, I liked the book. I did. I'm looking forward to reading more books by Maya Banks, but I wish two of the guys would have gotten more love.


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Review: Long Lost

Long Lost by Harlan Coben

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Right before I started this book (on audio) I read a less than stellar review from a newspaper critic. I'm a big fan of Coben and of Myron Bolitan (well, of Win mostly, but you know...) and I was sure that I would love the book regardless of whatever problems it might have. When I finished, though, I thought the critic had been a little bit harsh in her assessment.



First of all, I thought the story was good. The ending was a little bit creeptastic, but I'm sure that was entirely on purpose. If I had to criticize the plot at all, it would be that it is so easy to design a plot around muslim extremists now that it doesn't even register with me anymore. It's like making walls cream or eggshell in a room. You don't even notice them. There are just some things that don't leave an impression anymore because they are so overdone both in real life and in entertainment. You want to be impressive or memorable, make Danish extremists. Finnish extremists. Wow, that is something new. Buddist extremists and I may never forget it. Muslim extremists? I've seen that season of 24 at least 2 years in a row. The story was good, there was a twist that I'm still thinking about, but until that happened, it was mostly a forgettable plot line.



But the characters were spot on. Everyone you expect to see in a Bolitar novel was present and accounted for. The one thing about a longstanding series is that there are some things you see over and over again. Almost all the usual jokes were there (MB Sportsreps, etc.) And because they were almost all there, I could tell which one was missing (El-Al....like the airline.) I understand that not everyone has read all the books in the series (and why not?) and that you have make them accessible to newcomers to the series. I'm just saying, when you've read them all it can be a little.....repetitive.



But even after all of that, this book delivers everything I expected and even some creeptastic chills that I didn't expect. I could read about Win all day and this one will definitely get a re-read.



A word about the audio: Every character seemed to be right on the money except Esperanza. It just wasn't right. Everything else was perfect, and she wasn't there enough to put you off the audio if you are inclined in that direction. But, it did bother me enough that I had to mention it.


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Review: JLA: Exterminators

Justice League of America - JLA: Exterminators by Christopher Golden

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I wasn't sure how this would translate to audio format but I shouldn't have been worried. It was absolutely amazing. The voices were right on and some, like whoever did Batman, were flawless. GA's tagline is "like a movie in your mind" and this really did flow more like a movie than a dramatization of a story, even though there was narration and not all dialogue.



The story was good, although you really have to pay attention in the beginning to understand what is going on. With an ensemble cast of characters, someone is bound to get shorted in the development area. If there was anyone here who got shorted, it might have been Wonder Woman. There was a little bit of characterization there, but certainly not as much as the boys. I enjoyed her parts, though. Aquaman came off as kind of a jerk. Batman too, although my love affair with him goes way back. I was always more Marvel than DC, so I'm less familiar with characters that didn't make their way past the pages of comics into other media. Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Steel, etc. I liked getting to know more about them but I couldn't tell you if they were done well or not because my experience with them is so limited to begin with.



Sometimes, as much as I have come to like audiobooks, listening to one person read to me is just not that interesting. This is a nice change of pace, and I really didn't see a downside to it at all. If you like action, this is probably something you're going to enjoy.


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What a difference a year makes!

This is what I wrote in my June monthly report last year:

Disturbing discovery

The Romance Writers of America hands out the RITA awards every year at their convention. This is the “official” award of the romance industry, although there are several others given by different groups. While I was searching Horizon to see if we had all the nominees, I found that there were a few categories we had few, sometimes none, of the books that were nominated. The titles were from 2007, and they were all “category” romances. Category romances are defined as the ones that come out monthly in a category (like Harlequin Blaze for instance). I didn’t start buying those until mid year 2007 because it had always been that we didn’t buy those. Now that I think about it, I find it kind of appalling that we would single out a category of book we didn’t buy just because we didn’t think it had any merit. We’re a library for crying out loud. I think we’re the absolute last people who should be judging what books have merit and which do not. I understand that we can’t, and don’t, buy everything but we really shouldn’t be making the decision on what to buy based on something as general as “it’s a category romance.” And I really hope that we don’t ever go back to that way of thinking. It is embarrassing, as an institution, to be so closed minded about a collection that aims to serve the WHOLE city, not just the ones with high literary taste.

So, today the RITA nominations were announced and I can report SIGNIFICANT improvement in what is in our collection. I wish I could say that it was 100% but, I can't. Sadly. BUT, there were only 3 categories where we didn't have them all: Best First Book, Contemporary Series Romance and Contemporary Series Romance: Suspense/Adventure. Out of all the books nominated, there were six we didn't have. I'm encouraged by that, although I'm also curious as to WHY we didn't have those six. How did I miss them? Why didn't I pick them? Was it bad reviews or what? I'll have to check into that.

In the meantime, here is the list

Review: Kill Zone

Kill Zone: A Sniper Novel by Jack Coughlin

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This gets four stars because even though I thought there were problems with it, I couldn't stop reading it. And, by the end, I realized I'd liked it a lot.



Part of the problem, I think, was reader interference. Whenever you have a book that deals with politics, even tangentially like this one does, I can't help but try and decipher the unwritten (and probably unintentioned) messages. Does this author have a political bias? Do they lean in one direction or the other? What does it mean if they DO have a bias? The fact that I had to ask meant that it was pretty well hidden.



The other criticism I have is that there were some missing descriptions in the book. What did these people look like? Some of them were described pretty well. Others, I'm still not sure. I actually went back to where one character was first introduced because I thought I had missed the description. Turns out, it wasn't there (other than he was bald.) WTF does he look like, though? Maybe the authors don't feel it is important, but, trust me, it is.



Some of the conversation seemed stilted in a few places, but that can happen to even the best writers. It certainly wasn't an issue throughout the book. It just seemed like the authors weren't together and the gap showed in the conversation between two characters at that point. It always got back on track.



The action sequences were EXTREMELY good in this book. If I were writing a book and I needed to know how to handle things of an action nature (using contemporary weapons and techniques) I would use this book as a reference. Not a call to plagiarize, of course, but to see how things are done. Obviously, authors involved know what they're talking about and it shows. But, it is done in a way that is less "education" and more entertainment. Main characters are likeable, secondary characters are decent. Villains are.....villainous? And there are even some characters that are in between. It almost reads like an action movie, which can be good or bad. Your choice.


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Review: Dominic

Dominic by Elizabeth Amber

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
I wasn't crazy about it. Amber started off strong in this series with oldest brother, Nicholas. I thought the books went downhill after that, but I was hoping she would go in a different direction after she'd written about the three brothers. She didn't. Part of the problem with this book, for me, is that it is much the same as the other books in the series. She adds a little bit of difference with the going between the two worlds, but that isn't enough. The plot reads the same as the others. If I wouldn't have liked Nicholas so much, maybe I wouldn't be expecting more from the rest of her books. But I did, and now I do. This one left me disappointed, but not quite enough for me to give up on her.


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Review: Plum Spooky

Plum Spooky by Janet Evanovich

My review

rating: 1 of 5 stars
Wow. I don't know that I've ever given a one star review. Maybe I have and I just blocked it from my mind.



I attempted to read this last night. Now, in all fairness, I should have known better. I broke up with Evanovich after Lean Mean Thirteen. The books started to read the same and I no longer cared about the characters....even the ones I have previously liked very, VERY much. So, why, then, would I try and read this "Between the Numbers" novel? Because I'm an optimist, that's why. MAYBE, I thought, there would something good in here. After all, she's still hella popular. Well, I was right and wrong at the same time. I was right to have broken up to her, and wrong to be such an optimist. I read the first chapter and decided to skim the rest of the book. I skimmed the next three chapters, flipped to the somewhere in the back and read, and then I was done. Never did I get the hook that made me want to go back and see what I'd missed. Never did I get the hook that made me want to read the last page to see how it ended. I put it down and picked up something interesting.



I'm glad she still has a huge following and that those peeps are still getting something out of her novels. Finger Lickin' Fifteen already has 200+ holds 3 months before pub. I won't be one of them. We are truly broken up for good.


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