Recent reads

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.