In My Mailbox # 65

In My Mailbox is a weekly bookish meme hosted @ The Story Siren

Only two books, but from my favorite authors!

A Rogue By Any Other Name - Sarah MacLean (already read, and wow!)

The Darkest Seduction - Gena Showalter

Oh, I almost forgot: Free for Kindle!

May Day (Murder-by-Month Mysteries #1) by Jess Lourey

What did you get this week?

A Week of Lives (Series 2)

Lots of us are probably currently enjoying BBC2's My Life in Books - I find it incredibly refreshing to have intelligent discussion of books on television, even if Anne Robinson wouldn't have been my first choice of host.

I mentioned a little while ago that I'd be hosting a second series of the bloggers' version of My Life in Books - and it will be starting tomorrow!  (I'm taking a bit of a risk here, as I'm still waiting to hear from some people... but I have full faith that they'll get their replies to me before their slot comes up... please!)

So this is the last you'll be hearing from me for a week and a bit.  This time around we have 16 participants, in pairs, running from tomorrow until the following Monday.  I've asked questions which cover books loved in childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, and today - as well as a guilty pleasure or surprise.  The resulting lists probably wouldn't be each blogger's top five favourite reads, but they certainly reveal a lot about their cumulative reading lives.

Oh, and I emailed everyone their mystery partner's choice of books, and asked them to answer a tricky question: what do these books say about their reader?  Always the most fun part, in my opinion.

Thanks to everyone who has agreed to play along - I think it's going to be a really fun week.  Please do comment about the books you've read or want to read, and if you're one of the bloggers for that day, please do feel free to answer away in the comment box.

Lovely!  Have fun...!

Book Review: Serpent's Kiss by Thea Harrison

Title: Serpent's Kiss

Author: Thea Harrison

Series: Elder Races #3

Release Date: October 4th 2011

Publisher: Berkley Sensation

Age: Adult

In the latest Novel of the Elder Races, a Queen on the brink of sanity has no one to rely on except the Wyr warrior whose conviction is every bit as strong as his passion.

In order to save his friend's life, Wyr sentinel Rune Ainissesthai made a bargain with Vampyre Queen Carling—without knowing what she would ask from him in return. But when Rune attempts to make good on his debt, he finds a woman on the edge.

Recently, Carling's Power has become erratic, forcing her followers to flee in fear. Despite the danger, Rune is drawn to the ailing Queen and decides to help her find a cure for the serpen's kiss—the vampyric disease that's killing her.

With their desire for each other escalating just as quickly as Carling's instability spirals out of control, the sentinel and the Queen will have to rely on each other if they have any hope of surviving the serpent's kiss.

Serpent's Kiss is the third book from the Elder Races series, which is getting better and better!

In this book, Wyr sentinel Rune, second in command to the Wyr world, has to pay the bargain he did with Vampyre Queen Carling for saving his best friend's life. He wasn't scared, but never thought he was going to find Carling alone because lately her power has become erratic, she's close to the end. Everyone has left her, but Rune isn't scared of her...he wants to help her.

Carling was the perfect protagonist. She's way too strong, maybe even more than Rune. She's powerful, scary, wise, and yet she's sweet and likes when someone just care about her. I loved her interaction with her dog, the way she treated him and wanted to make him comfortable.

Rune is an alpha male, and I easily could picture him as a Egyptian good. He was very handsome, but I didn't like the way he acted when he was with Carling. He practically turn his back on the other Wyr. I know the Wyr just want to protect their mates, but I think it was a little bit hypocritical when you know what he did to his best friend on the second book...

But anyway, this book was full of action! Fights, more alpha males and time travel! It was great, it's hard to play with time travel but the author made a great job.

Overall, this book wasn't my favorite from the series, but I still enjoyed it. If you are looking for a hot romance and you like amazing paranormal characters, this may be a series for you.

More about this book at www.theaharrison.com, Goodreads, Amazon, The Book Depository.

Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany

Happy weekend, folks!  Mine is looking chirpier than last week, as I seem to be back on my feet.  A bit of coughing here, a bit of sneezing there, but it no longer feels like my brain has gone on holiday without leaving a forwarding address.  (This isn't what I wanted when I hoped my blog would go viral, ba-duhm-crash.)  For the first time in a while, I'm actually going to be disciplined and stick to a book, a link, and a blog post.

Oh, but first a reminder that it's March!  And thus it is time to read A View of the Harbour, if you're participating in Elizabeth Taylor Centenary Celebrations.  I'll be hosting a discussion later in the month, and will hopefully start reading it myself this weekend (if I don't get distracted by reading In Cold Blood for book group.  I know Polly and Simon love it, but I'm a bit trepidatious...)

1.) The link - comes via my housemate Debs' friend Jo.  It's a response in the Guardian to that list of beautiful bookshops which did the rounds a while ago (did I post them here?  I can't remember - there were some stunning places.)  Basically it's about the most unattractive and haphazard bookshops containing the best 'finds' - and does raise the question: why are so many secondhand bookshop owners grumpy and unpleasant?  Is it just me who has found this?  Is it because I buy cheap books, and they're hoping I've got my eyes on £500 first editions?  (There are notable exceptions, of course - the staff in Slightly Foxed bookshop, for instance, are always lovely.)  Enough waffle from me - the article is here.

2.) The book - Urania, in the Virago Modern Classics LibraryThing group, mentioned a book in passing which really intrigued me: The Faster I Walk, The Smaller I Am by Kjersti Skomsvold.   All I know about this book is that it's a Norwegian novella - but those are two definite buzz words for me, and I was immediately sold.  Onto the Amazon wishlist it went, for a post-Lent purchase... but I'd love to know if you've come across it already, and what you think?

3.) The blog post - is Tom's very amusing review of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which I saw on Simon S's Twitter feed (yes, Twitter - I'm there occasionally!)  Turns out Tom and I have a mutual friend called Carly from Real Life.  She also blogs, or blogged, here.  And now the indefinite chain of blog-links-to-blog-links-to-blog is in full force...

Book Review: First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones

Title: First Grave on the Right

Author: Darynda Jones

Series: Charley Davidson #1

Release Date: February 1st 2011

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Age: Adult

Charley sees dead people. That’s right, she sees dead people. And it’s her job to convince them to “go into the light.” But when these very dead people have died under less than ideal circumstances (i.e. murder), sometimes they want Charley to bring the bad guys to justice. Complicating matters are the intensely hot dreams she’s been having about an Entity who has been following her all her life…and it turns out he might not be dead after all. In fact, he might be something else entirely.

I don't know why I haven't read this book before! What was I thinking?

First Grave on the Right starts with Charley being awaken by a ghost, who was killed and wants to know who and why. Apparently, his case is linked with two other deaths, and Charley, with the help of her uncle, is going to give peace to them.

But Charley is also a 'private investigator', and she was just beaten by an angry husband. But is doesn't matter, she has so many things to deal with, as the incredible hot guy who keep appearing in her dreams and well, doing amazing stuff to her.

Confession time: I'm in love with Charley, and I want to be her best friend! (Forget Cookie). She's so much fun and doesn't give a damn about other people. She enjoys life and she see the dead...but I think she actually likes it.

And don't make me talk about Reyes *sigh*. He's hot in a creepy way. Weird, I never thought I could like a character like him, but here I am. I have to say I was uncomfortable with the way Reyes and Charley met when they were teens, but ignoring that, he fulfills my unknown desires for bad men. (?)

The author, Darynda Jones, knows how to grab my attention. I started this book and I couldn't stop until I finished it. I even dreamed about it. I like it so much, the twists, the characters, the humor, that I had to get the second book right away, ignoring my to-be-read pile.

Let me just say this, if you like characters with strong personality, hot and maybe creepy guys, crazy twists and paranormal stuff, you need to read this one ASAP.

More about this book at www.daryndajones.com, Goodreads, Amazon, The Book Depository.

Bloggiesta Ole!

Bloggiesta is back! 

It's time! Do you plan to fiesta with us the weekend of March 30, 31 and April 1? Do you have things you'd like to do on your blog that you haven't managed to get to in forever? Do you want to do those things with lots of other bloggers from all over? Talk things over with them? Bounce ideas off them? Learn from them? Teach them too?

If so, you will not want to miss the latest installment of Bloggiesta! A blogathon created nearly three years ago by Natasha of Maw Books so we could do those very things listed above!

So, Bloggiesta is an event for bloggers like me who want to improve their blogs, learn new stuff and make new friends :) I'm going to participate, if you want to, here is the link with more information and sign up: It's All About Books

Country Moods and Tenses - Edith Olivier

It's no secret that I love Edith Olivier's The Love Child (by the by, any of you who are enjoying Eowyn Ivey's The Snow Child, I definitely recommend The Love Child as a companion read).  I keep reading more books by Olivier, and being disappointed that they're not as good... Well, this blog post mentioned Country Moods and Tenses (1941) as their favourite of her works, and it sounded like it might be useful for my thesis, so I got a copy online and read it speedily.  And I paid a teeny bit more to get this unusual and beautiful cover, created by Olivier's friend Rex Whistler.

Sorry the photo is a bit dark, but you get the impression.

Well, long story short, it won't replace The Love Child in my affections - but it's still rather a lovely book to have on the shelf, and is quintessentially Olivier.  The more I read by her, especially her non-fiction, the more I realise that she sees herself primarily as a countrywoman, and as a Wiltshire-woman.  She was mayor, after all.

Country Moods and Tenses is subtitled a 'Non-Grammarian's Chapbook', and in it Olivier outlines village life in five grammatical tenses/moods: Infinitive, Imperative, Indicative, Subjunctive and Conditional.  The associations between these and the chapters is somewhat fanciful (Indicative for travelling; Conditional for the changes of modern life; Subjunctive for human relationships, etc.) but it's as good a method as any for discussing the countryside in a period where traditions and village-individuality was already fast disappearing.  There's plenty of country folklore, which Olivier swears by:

Birds and animals have many habits which indicate the coming weather to a wise watcher.  If the partridges are still flying in coveys on February 1st, it foretells a late spring; if they pair as early as the last week of January, the season will be an early one.  Pheasants crow in the night to warn of the approach of bad weather, but lately they have decided that German bombs are as bad as tornadoes.  They are extremely sensitive to the sound of a coming raid, and can hear, or feel, the fall of a high-explosive bomb quite twenty miles away.  Then at once they lift up their voices in shrill chorus.

But it is not just the flora and fauna in which Olivier is interested.  She turns her attention to the human inhabitants of Wiltshire, including many photographs.  Those of scenery are a little underwhelming (being in black and white, they offer rather less than modern day equivalents) but the many and various photographers (including Cecil Beaton) have captured some astonishingly natural shots of labourers and villagers.  These were the most interesting to me.  Indeed, through Olivier's country moods, it was human behaviour which most appealed to me. Those of us who are familiar with E.M. Delafield's Provincial Lady will identify with this excerpt - which, by the by, is one of the elements of Olivier's countryside which certainly hasn't changed:

In spite of the country genius for making festivals out of buying and selling, nothing can prevent a Sale of Work from being a terribly dreary affair; yet every village must have at least one every summer.  For weeks beforehand the whole parish is busy with preparations.  A garden is lent; the morning arrives; the stalls are prettily arranged; and then, a few hours before the time fixed for the opening ceremony, the goods have to be hurriedly scrambled into the schoolroom to escape a deluge of rain.  Everyone agrees to make the best of it.  A leading lady of the neighbourhood declares the sale open.  The clergyman makes a tactful speech.  The members of the audience look feverishly round.  There is nothing at all to buy, and nobody to buy it.

One of my problems with Olivier's writing elsewhere is that her writing is rarely witty - all a little too earnest. So I was grateful to find the above section, with its Delafieldian tones.  Although Country Moods and Tenses does lean towards the solemn for the most-part, these little flavours of humour help elevate the book.  And Olivier finds humour in her observations about the countryside she so dearly loves, in both present and past.

In the Middle Ages, the traveller in Europe (or even in England if he went beyond his own county) had to be an adventurous fellow indeed.  Morrison, who published one of the earliest road-books, tells his readers that they should certainly make their wills before leaving home; and one of his first bits of practical advice is an instruction on the different technique of duelling in each European country.  He tells the traveller that he will meet with more thieves in England than anywhere else; but he adds this encouraging postscript: "Having taken purses by the Highway, they seldom or never kill those they rob.  All private men pursue them from village to village with hue and cry."

It is the future which Olivier cannot observe with laughter, from her 1941 vantage.  She worries about universal education meaning that village children no longer learn a trade, or follow in their parents' farming footsteps; she is concerned about the buildings which are insensitive to their surroundings; she fears that village will become homogeneous, losing their customs and heritage.  Who's to say that she was wrong?

But this certainly isn't an exercise in hand-wringing.  Olivier writes joyfully about the countryside, even while documenting its changes.  Who knows quite what her purpose was in writing Country Moods and Tenses?  Surely she couldn't have hoped to stall the changes.  Perhaps she just wanted a simple set of recollections.  It would be impossible to encompass all of 1940s village life in one book, but Olivier does capture at least her enthusiasm.  I'll finish with one sentence, entirely honest, which demonstrates Olivier's ethos - as well as the shifting sands she was up against:

And no one with a first-hand knowledge of the two could possibly prefer a screen decked with film-stars to a sty full of little pigs.