What do super spies do when they retire? Buy a beach house on a little island in the South Pacific? Spend their days squirreled away in basement offices in D.C., drinking bad coffee and filing reports no one will read? Maybe they don’t get to retire — maybe they just keep on working until they blow their cover one last time.
In Original Sin: A Sally Sin Adventure
The world is going crazy around Tom Crandall in Neil McMahon’s L.A. Mental
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Every Step You Take: A Memoir
Jock got interested in ballet at the ripe old age of four, while watching Edward Villella dance on the Ed Sullivan Show. (He was performing a piece from Jewels, by George Balanchine, who he would later dance for at the New York City Ballet.) His parents took his request seriously and enrolled him in ballet classes. At 12 years old he auditioned for the School of American Ballet and was awarded a full scholarship. After a brief interruption in his training, he returned to New York with his family and at 14 years old, his family left, leaving Jock alone in New York City, with no income (other than his school stipend) and no adult supervision.
I can’t tell you how excited I was to get Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy
It certainly gets off to a good start! In “Curses” by Jim Butcher, Harry Dresden — the only Wizard listed in the Chicago Yellow Pages — is approached about removing a very old curse from a local sports team. I have a tremendous crush on Harry Dresden and I enjoyed the story immensely — it’s exactly the sort of local flavor I love in the Dresden Files stories.
My favorite story of the bunch was “Priced to Sell” by Naomi Novik, author of the Temeraire series. I was completely unfamiliar with Novik’s work, although I will certainly be adding it to my watch list. This is a story of the cut-throat Manhattan real estate market. Tough enough, in this economy, but even tougher when your clients are vampires, goblins and other magical creatures. You know it’s going to be trouble when the condo board isn’t concerned that your client’s a vampire, they’re just worried that he’s less than 100 years old. [Read more →]
Oh, was I excited to get this book! I loved the first book in the series, The Strain — recommended it to everyone who was tired of sparkly vampires. The Fall was a little less successful (often the case with the middle book in a series), but still a very good read. I have been anxiously awaiting the final installment, in part because I figure the movie can’t be far behind.
The Night Eternal
Judy McFarland’s life is a mess. Her marriage is crumbling, her school is going bankrupt, her best friend just died. She’s started to think about escape — her youngest son will be graduating soon and then she could leave, get a divorce, do whatever she wanted. Unfortunately, she doesn’t wait until after graduation. In Rebecca Coleman’s The Kingdom of Childhood
You really want to feel sorry for Judy. The school she has loved and supported for more than 20 years is financially unstable. Her husband, Russ, is withdrawn, caught up in his own career struggles and out of touch with the family. Her daughter, Maggie, away at college, is rebelling against the very principles her parents found so important. Her son, Scott, is silent and sullen (a typical teenager). Her best friend, Bobbie, died of cancer and every day, Judy has to walk by the classroom where she used to teach. It’s a miserable situation for anyone. [Read more →]
Zero History
Zero History is about fashion…sort of. It’s about underground fashion — so secret that there are no stores, no catalogs, no websites. There is only a mailing list and if you’re lucky enough to be on it, maybe there’s a cryptic message. The meet might be in Tokyo. Or London. Or Perth. Bring cash. [Read more →]
The cover of this book says: “Infidelity can be deadly.” Murder on the Down Low
According to Wikipedia, “on the down low” refers to men who identify as straight, but still have sex with other men in secret. Obviously, this is not limited to the African American community, but this novel’s focus is on black women and their reaction to it. A group of friends — Venetta, Special, J.C. and Nichelle — are determined to avenge the death of their friend, Maya. Maya died of AIDS, and she was exposed to it by her fiance, Eugene, who is on the down low. They want to use the law to get justice for Maya and to bring the issue to the attention of the larger community: they file a lawsuit against Euguene for wrongful death. [Read more →]
Sometimes, a book makes lovely reading, even when the subject matter is very sad. Partitions
In 1947, the border between Pakistan and India was closed. It was not a peaceful closing. Muslims and Hindus caught on the wrong side of the border found themselves in great danger; by some estimates, up to a million people died. Partitions
What do you want your loved ones to do with your body when you die? I’ve actually had this conversation with my family; both my parents want to be cremated. I also want to be cremated, and though I’m not entirely certain what I want to do with my ashes, I hate the thought of them sitting in an urn on someone’s mantle. So I liked the premise behind Roastbeef’s Promise
The rest of the family is not entirely down with this idea, but Jim, aka Roastbeef, decides to drop out of college, take his beat-up car and hit the road. In theory, hilarity will ensue. [Read more →]
This is going to be a tough review to write.
I can tell you how The Map of Time
First thing I loved about this novel: the Narrator. This is not just any omniscient narrator — this one has a charming voice and a lovely way to tell a story.
“Assuming you stay until the end of this tale, some of you will no doubt think that I chose the wrong thread with which to begin spinning my yarn, and that for accuracy’s sake I should have respected chronological order and begun with Miss Haggerty’s story. It is possible, but there are stories that cannot begin at their beginning, and perhaps this is one of them.”
Sometimes, you need a little junk food for your brain. This book was a lot of fun — if you’re a zombie junkie, you’re going to love it. Ross Payton is someone who has spent waaaaay too much time thinking about the undead among us. In Zombies of the World: A Field Guide to the Undead
The book starts with a section on the origins of zombies and current research into their condition. Zombies as a source of cheap, clean energy? Why not!
“Zombies expend tremendous amounts of energy moving their corpse bodies, as their decaying systems operate more inefficiently than a living human…Yet, they walk endlessly until slain. Once the secret of the Omega Anima is cracked, the possibilities are endless: immortality, endless clean energy and more.”
I can’t imagine why no one ever thought of designing cars that run on zombie power! [Read more →]
Forgetting English
The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime
“I can break it down into three simple things,” said Bob Brenly, who followed a nine-year big-league career by managing the Arizona Diamondbacks to a world championship in 2001. “Respect your teammates, respect your opponents, and respect the game.”
I had a crisis a few weeks ago. I was on an airplane, diverted from my original destination, and I didn’t pack a back-up book. Luckily, we eventually got off the plane in Indianapolis, and I picked up The Ice Princess
The theme of the book seems to be cold. Even the corpse that starts the story is frozen.
“Mercifully, the corpse’s eyes were shut, but the lips were bright blue. A thin film of ice had formed around the torso, hiding the lower half of the body completely…The knees also stuck up through the frozen surface. Alex’s long blonde hair was spread like a fan over the end of the tub but looked brittle and frozen in the cold.” [Read more →]
Eric van Lustbader’s third installment in the Jack McClure series, Blood Trust
Here’s a tip: driving through downtown Chicago traffic is not the time to try and absorb the details of quantum physics. Dangerous stuff, that. The Grand Design
“How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves? How does the universe behave? What is the nature of reality? Where does all this come from? Did the universe need a creator?”
Those are weighty questions and a tall order for any book. Of course, there are no concrete answers, but modern science has made a lot of progress, despite those who would hold it back. This book was a fascinating look at one of the approaches to the answers. [Read more →]
Dominance
Keeping the Feast: One Couple’s Story of Love, Food, and Healing in Italy
It’s always tough to come into a series of books in the middle. I imagine it’s hard for an author, as well — to make sure that new readers have enough information to understand the story, without boring your longtime readers. A Lonely Death
A Lonely Death is part of the Inspector Ian Rutledge mystery series. Rutledge is a war veteran with a ride-along: he has the voice of one of his soldiers, Hamish. As I’m new to the series, it took me a bit to sort out that Rutledge feels a lot of guilt over Hamish’s death and the voice of his old comrade nags at him, chastises him, scolds him…and occasionally gives him clues. [Read more →]
