Wooing the Wedding Planner by Amber Leigh Williams

by Carol1 Comment
Wooing the Wedding Planner is the type of romance I enjoy. Both Roxie and Byron are good, solid characters on their own and their relationship gradually grows. Yes, they know they're attracted to each other way before they do anything about it, but they both have pasts that are standing in their way. The problems aren't too big though, they never seem insurmountable, which I like. I could be friends with Roxie. She's trying to be happy after her divorce, to make the right choices for herself, and she's good at her job. For the record, her family is terrible. Byron is sexy and smart. Due to a mix-up, they are both at the Victorian, although he's living in a separate apartment. He's a widower and has always believed that Strong men have one true love and that love lasts a lifetime. His family is fabulous, funny, accepting, supportive. I never doubted that they would get their happy ending, but I enjoyed...
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Friend of the Devil by Mark Spivak

by Carol2 Comments
First a confession, I watch a lot of the Food Network, so I couldn't pass up a "culinary thriller." Friend of the Devil turned out to be a fun thriller full of drugs, sex and food. Not a bad combination. David is a writer who first meets  Joseph Soderini di Avenzano while doing a story. He is then hired to write the famous chef's biography and is summoned to the Chateau de la Mer, where the menu is amazing, the chef a brilliant, if often drugged-out, showman, and the hostess irresistible. Actually, that is my one complaint, how quickly David and Alessandra hook up. I guess they have to for the rest of the story, but it just seemed a little quick. Of course, everything at the Chateau is a little intense. For me, it wasn't a quick read. I'm not sure why exactly. The pacing was good and there was enough action to keep the story moving. I enjoyed the bits of history that Avenzano...
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The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

by Carol2 Comments
First off, the obvious question - why did I read The Man in the High Castle. I don't WW2 books or, in general, sci-fi. A friend made me borrow it and he never suggests books, so I felt like I ought to read it. And then Michelle came up with her Sci-Fi Summer read-a-thon, so it was the prefect excuse. After all, according to the blurb, this is the book that established "Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction." On a side note, I never realized alternative history is a sub-genre of sci-fi. I tend to think of it more as fantasy. Wikipedia says, "since the 1950s, this type of fiction has, to a large extent, merged with science fiction tropes involving time travel between alternate histories, psychic awareness of the existence of one universe by the people in another, or time travel that results in history splitting into two or more timelines. Cross-time, time-splitting, and alternate history themes...
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Hinterkind Vol. 1: The Waking World by Ian Edginton, illustrated by Francesco Trifogli

by Carol3 Comments
A couple of days ago I was sitting on the recliner in the basement and David must have been watching hockey or baseball or something on tv. Anyway, I was bored and my phone and current read were both upstairs. I was also feeling rather lazy and The Waking World was sitting on the shelf on the end table, so I picked it up, read half that evening and finished it the next day. To be honest, I'm not sure how I got ahold of this originally. I don't read many graphic novels, but I must have purchased it at some time. It's enjoyable enough, but there's nothing really exciting about it. It's just okay. The world is interesting, with all the fairy creatures returning, but they're nothing unique. There's a semi-military group too, but they've run a bit amok and once again don't strike me as truly unique. The teenage boy could be more than he seems, but his individual...
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Buried Threads by Kaylin McFarren

by Carol5 Comments
I'm sorry. I had to give up on this one half-way through, and it took me a month to get that far. I just couldn't get into it. I didn't care about the characters and found the plot a little confusing. They were going on a dive to find swords but yakuza were somehow involved and there was a monk who I think was good guy but was in love with a giesha who ended up "owned" by another man. Then that guy ended up dead and I quit reading. It just wasn't for me....
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Morning the Burned House by Margaret Atwood

by CarolNo Comments
I've read several of Atwood's books over the years, but that's not why I picked this one up, even though I do enjoy the short pieces of hers I've read. When we heard Louise Penny speak, she said that several pieces of the poetry in her Gamache series come from Morning in the Burned House. The poems are lovely and dark and sad. They are full of feminine power and grief, truth and mythology, anti-war messages and pro-environment. I love how the words sounds and feel, how the phrases at times are just perfect, although not always. Not every poem struck me, but enough did to make this worth reading. I wanted to give you a few bits, but taking out a few lines from the poetry doesn't really give you the feel, takes away the meaning and most of the feel of the poems. I will give you a middle bit from "The Loneliness of the Military Historian", but you can find the whole...
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