Flight into Fantasy

I’m thinking of following in the footsteps of my good friend Barb and just using my website as a blog. And, given that I have a job and thus more disposable income now, I’m thinking of purchasing http://www.discerningreaders.com and playing with making it an interactive site, with a blog, maybe a forum, and maybe podcasting.

Of course, that’ll wait until after I’ve moved into my new apartment, where I won’t have to share the Internet with anyone.

Also, I’m sad to know that I won’t be able to do Blogathon this year. I’ll be right in the middle of moving hell on the day that Blogathon is officially scheduled, but the idea of blogging for charity is terribly appealing to the geek part of my nature, so perhaps I will hold an unofficial personal blogathon sometime when I have a spare 24 hours.

Talking it Out by Jenny ni Carthy and others: This is a very very dated guide for those people who want to start support groups for victims of domestic violence. As in, I was two years old when this thing came out. And reading a textbook is rarely much fun, especially when the invormation is so dated. But a lot of what ni Carthy says is highly relevant to people still working in domestic violence advocacy and I plan on using some of her ideas because I work as an advocate on support group night at the shelter. C for this one.

Finders Keepers by Lacey Savage is the second book in the Paranormal Mates Society series offered up by Changeling Press. In this short story, our heroine is half-telepath and half-clairvoyant, and not good at either, while our hero is a genie.

The bar was set pretty high with this series for me because of the Willa Okati story I reviewed yesterday. And I liked Savage’s contribution, though for different reasons. Claudia, our heroine, isn’t on the paranormalmatessociety.com website looking for love. She’s being paid to find Aladin’s magic lamp, and she thinks that Xander will lead her to it. So she manipulates him to try and get him to do so.

Xander is a lot of fun. As a geenie, he just wants a normal life. He has some trust issues, but they rang true for me, and despite my initial meh reaction, I warmed to the character.

But Claudia's by far the cooler of the two, even though she isn't the geenie. She's sexy and manipulative (although she denies it), and she isn't a silly prude like a lot of romance heroines.

I think Lacey Savage is also going up there on my authors to watch list. B+ for this one.

ETA November 17, 2007 – I'm trying to sort my tags out better, so I've added grades to these books, given what I remember of them.

This book–or really, it’s a short story, but it’s published by an epublisher as a single title so it counts as a book–is a lot of fun. It’s the beginning of a series of interrelated novels that Changeling Press, the epublisher of which I referred, released in February, the premise behind which is a website, www.paranormalmatessociety.com, where people of paranormal persuasions can go find love. The website was designed by Satan, or Scratch, as he prefers to call himself, as a means to cause more torment in the supernatural community. But there's a silent, determined angel in pursuit of him, and the Norse god Loki is also out to make Scratch's life interesting.

The book is short, and it's an erotic romance, so things go along about the way you'd expect them to. The sex didn't particularly do it for me, because I've never really understood the turn on for straight women to two or more guys getting it on, which is a whole other subject for discussion. But the sex in this book felt real. There was no feminization of any of the guys involved as so often seems to happen in some of the fanfic I read.

But what was a lot better than the sex for me was how damn funny this book was. I'm not at all familliar with Ms. Okati's other work, and a Google search turns up a website she's obviously reenovating, but I love me some humor, and this book is worth reading just for the fact that it's so damn funny.

You can order the book from Changeling Press:

http://www.changelingpress.com

It's not terribly pricey, and it's a good story. B+ for this one.

ETA: I'm neatening my book reviews so they're more easily searchable and going back and assigning letter grades where I can.

This short novel packs quite a punch. It tells the story of Maggie Pitsfield, the summer she's twelve. Maggie has a lot on her mind–she's in summer school because of an accusation she made against her teacher, she has six different personalities which come out and embarrass her, and she's also harboring a secret that slowly comes out as the novel unfolds.

In only 150 pages or so, this book paints a much more convincing picture of a troubled young woman. I just wanted to reach into the book and give her a hug, which is always a good sign.
ETA: I'm going through and grading books to make it easier to search my book reviews. I think I’m going to go with an A- for this one, because it packed a huge wallop for such a short book.

Books read this year: 43
I think, it being halfway through the year, this means I’m a little behind in my goal of reading 100 books, but not by very much.

Oh and also? A good online friend is sending me a computer that is like new. It’s better than any machine I’ve ever used. And right now it’s someplace in freaking Illinois. All three boxes of it. We wants the computer now, preciouss!

I’ve read a lot since the last time there was a book post, so we’ll just hit the highlights:

The Sweet Potato Queens’ Book of Love by Jill Conner Browne
God Save the Sweet Potato Queens by Jill Conner Browne
The Sweet Potato Queens’ Big-ass Cookbook and Financial Planner by Jill Conner Browne
The Sweet Potato Queens’ Field Guide to Men: Every Man I Ever Loved is Either Married, Gay or Dead by Jill Conner Browne
The Sweet Potato Queens’ Wedding Planner and Divorce Guide by Jill Conner Browne

I loved all of these books and seriously read them all while suffering from a massive summer cold that is still hanging on. She's hillarious, witty, and insightful. I recommend reading what she has to say.

The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint

I really wish I could recommend this book higher. It just didn't work for me. De Lint at his best is fucking brilliant, but his later works just lack the sparkle of his early stuff. Even this book, which thankfully only references Jilly Coppercorn once, just didn't do it for me. Mostly this was because I wasn't convinced by de Lint's teenaged voice. Imogene, our plucky heroine, is only the kind of teenager you'd find in a de Lint book–plucky yet somehow wise beyond her years. She didn't strike me as authentic at all, and therefore I couldn't enjoy her story as much as I'd have liked. However, Adrian, the ghost whose unlife gets sort of embroiled with hers was a fun character and by far more sympathetic, for me at least.

Edited to add some grades: Given that I am really tempted to go out and buy the SPQ books on Audible just so I can listen to them being read, I'd say they're definitely all A books. The de Lint I'm giving a B- grade to, just because my memories of the book are pleasant, and he's by far better than a lot of other urban fantasy authors I've read since.