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 Everything is getting harder for Aislinn, the Summer Queen. She’s finding it harder and harder to resist Keenan, her king, who it seems she is naturally inclined to lust after. Keenan loves Donia, the Winter Queen, and vice versa, but with such opposing natures, these two struggle to make any kind of relationship work. Aislinn still loves Seth and wants to be with him, but he is a human in a faery world and it’s hard on both of them. Aislinn has lost most of her human friends and finds it hard to separate herself from the faery world, making everything more awkward for Seth, who can feel her separation from him. He determines to take drastic measures in an attempt to be with Aislinn forever, not realizing the potential consequences of his choice.
Much of Fragile Eternity is spent on the characters agonizing over one another. A natural, and easy, pairing would have been Aislinn and Keenan, the Summer royalty, who are almost doomed to love one another given the eternity that they are forced to have. Yet both Aislinn and Keenan love elsewhere, hurting both each other and their lovers equally. They can’t stop being drawn together even though they don’t love one another. It is a difficult time for all four people, and Marr explores the tough choices that they have to make with some finesse, even if it feels frustrating. I know I had trouble returning to this book because the relationships were so well drawn and so painful. It was hard to know where the book was going to end up.
Seth’s choice, about halfway through the book, made sense even though I wished it hadn’t come to that. His journey into the world of Faerie was the best part for me. He was finally at peace with his choice, becoming more than frustrated ball of love for Aislinn, and Sorcha is a great addition to the cast of characters. She’s strong, interesting, and simply feels mythical. She adds immeasurably to a book that is largely about tortured lovers by giving the story another outlet. Besides, I always love great worldbuilding and Seth’s journey was a stellar opportunity for Marr to engage in it. I was really looking forward to learning more about the world and I wasn’t at all disappointed.
Overall, I’m not sure this one lives up to Wicked Lovely or Ink Exchange. I think it’s telling that I had to put it aside and take a break from all the angst, and then I dreaded going back to it because I didn’t want the characters to be so unhappy or tortured anymore. To some extent this has always been true of this series, but I really had a hard time here. It also ends in a cliffhanger and the next book isn’t out until 2010. So, I’ll be biting my nails until then! I do plan to continue but next time, I’m going to approach Marr’s books with a totally open and relaxed mind, rather than one which didn’t really need more stress.
This was my first book for Carl’s RIP IV Challenge! I’ve actually completed the challenge now.
 When Molly Lane dies, two of her friends meet outside a crematorium to express both their remorse and their view of Molly’s last days. Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday are a pair of extremely successful men who at one point or another had an affair with Molly. Molly died in what they consider a horrible way; she just started to lose it suddenly, became ill, and required her long-suffering husband to nurse her. Clive, the most famous composer of his age, and Vernon, editor of a top newspaper, make a pact after Molly’s death that rebounds against them in a way they’d never expected.
On the back cover, this is described as “a sharp contemporary morality tale, cleverly disguised as a comic novel”, and I can’t say it better than that. The comedy to me appears to come from how ridiculous these men are, how they are so wrapped up in themselves that they can’t hear and don’t care about the outside world at all. By the end of the novel, they have each truly become like Molly, lost to the world without realizing what has happened to them. They’ve been overtaken by an illness, and that illness is, according to Ian McEwan, the ills of public society and the selfishness that it takes to ignore the needs and wellbeing of fellow humans while taking care of number one. The disturbing thing is that neither of them realize it; what they’re doing is so normal to them that they don’t understand what’s wrong. They think they’re adding to society when really they’re just adding to the problem.
Anyway, in that way, this novel is so deep in so few pages that it’s hard to say whether or not I liked it. This is one of those books that I want a class on. There’s a lot here to pick at and just writing that paragraph above has helped me clarify it in my mind. I think I could write a paper on it. It’s less than two hundred pages long, so it didn’t take me very long to read, but it packs in so much thought-provoking material in with the ridiculousness of the situation. The worst part is that, when dissected, the behavior of neither of the characters is ridiculous. They’re doing what has been done countless times before and that is eerie and worrying, especially given the extreme dislike I felt for both of them by the end of the novel. Really the problem with the novel is that it isn’t a very good story. The story and the characters exist only to prove McEwan’s point, which is a strong one, but it doesn’t work very well at a surface level.
In conclusion, there is a very good reason that Amsterdam won the Booker Prize. It’s a truly haunting commentary on society that still manages to be slightly ridiculous enough to make it interesting. I haven’t even touched on all the issues here, but I can tell I’m going to continue thinking about this for some time to come. It isn’t as good as a book as Atonement is, in my humble opinion, particularly because it is shallow in everything but its overall meaning. I still think it’s worth a read.
 This is book four in the Sookie Stackhouse series and this review may contain spoilers for the first three books. For the first book in the series, see my review of Dead Until Dark. I’m reading this as part of the Sookie Stackhouse challenge hosted by Beth Fish Reads.
After the disastrous events in Club Dead, it looks like Bill and Sookie’s relationship is officially over. Bill heads on a trip to Peru while Sookie remains in Bon Temps, making a New Year’s resolution not to get beat up again. Life doesn’t return to normal, however, because on the way home from work Sookie spots Eric running around naked. When she gets him in her car, she realizes that he has amnesia and has no idea who he is. Not only does this new, sweeter Eric fluster Sookie, but she learns that there is a were-witch coven at work who cast this spell on him. Worse, the coven is extremely dangerous. It looks like Sookie may not keep her New Year’s resolution after all.
Like nearly everyone else who has been reading these books, I have been crossing my fingers for Eric and Sookie to get together. His sex appeal just oozes off the page, and here he’s sweet, old-fashioned, and totally perplexed in addition to ridiculously sexy. How can this go wrong?
Well, after reading this book, I’m glad that the reviews for the next one promise no romance. Poor Sookie’s heart has been totally put through a wringer. Between Bill and Eric, I feel sorry for her! There is also Alcide, who I wouldn’t mind having a little more screen time. It doesn’t help that her brother goes missing and she is once again stuck helping to save everyone, even though she’s not actually anything paranormal herself. It just never ends. Although if it did end, there wouldn’t be much of a series! I also was very intrigued by the nearby town that Sookie discovers and its residents. I didn’t see that coming at all, but it’s an interesting twist and I hope they stick around to wreak a little bit more havoc.
Anyway, this isn’t much a review, it’s more a random collection of various thoughts which have popped into my head. Regardless, I am really enjoying this series! My new library has all the rest of the series and I couldn’t be happier. Expect more reviews soon! In the meantime, Dead to the World is another great addition to this series, which I am definitely thrilled I started.
 When her grandfather dies and Lily Balfour hears gossip at how far her family has fallen, she begins to despair. She, her mother, her aunt, and her slightly strange cousin Pamela live in a dilapidated Tudor mansion, poor as dirt since her father died in India when she was a little girl. Some say the Balfour clan is cursed. Lily throws off that idea and decides to head to London to find a rich husband before it’s too late. In London she comes across Major Derek Knight, a war veteran from India waiting for money from his men and taking the opportunity to seduce as many women as possible while he’s there. Lily has already found a willing mate, a rich but slightly stupid man willing to infuse his low class status with Lily’s blue blood. She is irresistably attracted to Derek but must put him out of her mind for the sake of her family, at least until Derek suspects her husband-to-be of corruption. Exposing that plot will put both of them in danger of losing their lives and perhaps their hearts as well.
Oh, Gaelen Foley. I loved your books so much when I was young. Where has the spark gone, I ask? It must be true that The Spice Trilogy, of which this is the second book, is not up to your usual standards, because while I enjoyed this book, it was lacking the magic. The magic that makes me fall in love with your characters and want to read your books again and again.
I’m not sure where this went wrong. I certainly felt the sparks between the main characters and I did think they comported themselves well in their budding relationship. I loved that Lily’s cousin Pamela wrote novels and that her mother disapproved; I loved the idea of the collapsing Tudor mansion. I think my problem with this novel was the two main characters. Even though Lily is poor, she is still a fairly typical romance novel heroine. Gorgeous, submissive, the usual. She has a secret, but it’s not original or interesting, and doesn’t matter at all when she confesses it to the hero. Derek is big, manly, obsessed with war, the usual. He’s the reformed rake and while I love reformed rake stories, this one wasn’t working for me, possibly because despite the gorgeous women on his arm and in his bed, he never changes much. Their love story didn’t sweep me away.
As I said, this one’s lacking the magic. I loved Gaelen Foley because her romances always seemed a little darker than normal. One of the earlier ones had a rape scene, one featured a female bandit, and so on. This one is just a little ordinary. I think its only redeeming feature is the fact that Lily’s betrothed isn’t actually a bad man, just a desperate one. He was fairly interesting, but not enough to save this one from the “average” shelf. I enjoyed it, but it’s not converting anyone to the genre.
For a truly charming story of poor girl needs to marry rich man, go with How to Marry a Marquis by Julia Quinn.
Available via IndieBound, Powell’s, Amazon, and Amazon UK.
 On the Prowl is an anthology of novellas by four urban fantasy/paranormal romance writers, so I’m just going to treat each story separately.
Alpha and Omega, Patricia Briggs
I adore the Mercy Thompson series, so moving on to the Alpha and Omega series was practically a given for me. This short story was surprisingly more substantial than just a teaser. Anna thinks that she’s the most submissive wolf in her pack; turned without a choice, she is threatened frequently by other pack members and has been subject to gang rapes and other such cruelty. When she sees a man missing on the news and realizes that her pack leader has not only turned but sold him, she finally calls the Marrok, the leader of all the werewolves, and he sends his son Charles to investigate. The connection between Charles and Anna’s wolves is immediate and he helps her to realize she’s not worthless after all. I liked the relationship between them and the fact that they don’t exactly act on their animal impulses. Restraint is something that doesn’t happen very often in this type of novel and I love that Briggs’s characters are always building their actual relationships, not just hopping into bed with one another because they want to. I feel that this is a delicate handling of Anna’s horrible situation and I liked the resolution of this story. I’m looking forward to reading the next two in the series but I do think that I could have stopped here satisfied at how it stands alone.
Inhuman, Eileen Wilks
This story reads much more like a teaser for a series. Kai Michalski is a physical therapist who also believes she’s a telepath. She’s friends with Nathan, a police officer who isn’t exactly human. When suspicious deaths begin to occur, Kai is immediately blamed thanks to prejudice against magical people from politicians and because another creature has taken her form, fooling credulous officials. While all her affairs on earth are cleared up, thanks to a handy deus ex machina that Nathan can summon at will, the story ends in a massive “buy my book if you want to know what happens now”. It’s a shame because I did like this one, although somehow it managed to feel too long, perhaps because it is all background and not really a story on its own. I might be interested in reading the Lupi series, of which this is a part, but I am not in a rush to do so.
Buying Trouble, Karen Chance
This was my second favorite story in the anthology. Claire has the ability to calm magic around her, so she’s been hired at an auction house to prevent the magical devices going wrong until the duped customers can get them home. One night, however, she discovers that she herself is on auction because of her skills; she can be killed and her abilities drained to make a bomb. Lucky for her, she is rescued by a Fey, Heidar, who realizes that there is even more to Claire than she herself suspected, not to mention a reason for her pesky attraction to all Faery men. This story alone was actually very funny at times and I really liked the main characters, Claire and Heidar. It struck a good balance between action, humor, and romance, and it was a great self-contained short story, not an ad for a book like the other three are. After reading this story I put a request in at my library for another of Karen Chance’s books.
Mona Lisa Betwining, Sunny
This was my least favorite story in the anthology. Basically, it felt like an infodump with lots of sex attached. Mona Lisa is a new Monere Queen, but she’s special because she’s half-human. In this story, she’s called to account for the death of another Monere Queen, who was part demon, and she laments the death of one of her lovers. She also makes an unpleasant discovery about herself. A lot of the story consists of recounting what happened before to get to this point. In the meantime, she has sex with two different men and one of the scenes made me very uncomfortable. The story is only 60 pages long, so at least it went by quickly, but I probably would have skipped this one if I’d known. I went on Sunny’s website and it turns out that her books are mainly paranormal erotic romance, which I really don’t like, so that explains my reaction to this. Her novels have won a number of awards so I’m assuming they have more actual plot and less recapping, but I don’t intend to try them.
If you have this hanging around, I’d recommend it for the Read-a-thon, which is coming up soon!
 Bone Crossed is the fourth book in the Mercy Thompson series and this review may contain spoilers for the earlier books. To start at the beginning, check out Moon Called [my review, Amazon].
Even though Mercy is struggling from the fall-out of the last book’s events, trouble doesn’t leave her alone. She’s chosen to be alpha werewolf Adam’s mate, but before anything can be finalized, her vampire friend Stefan appears in her house at the edge of death. Turns out Marsilia, the mistress of the local vampire seethe, has discovered that Mercy killed two of her vampires and that Stefan helped to cover it up, and so she has declared Mercy’s life forfeit, and that of her friends. Just in time, an old friend appears asking for Mercy’s help; a ghost has taken over her home. Mercy takes the opportunity to leave her friends safe by removing herself from the area, but in the process attracts the attention of the crazed vampire in Spokane. How is she going to get out of this one?
While this was a little bit of a let down after Iron Kissed, which would have been hard to top, there is still a lot to like about this installment of the series. Mercy has a lot to recover from since she was raped and she finds that she doesn’t just get over it like often happens in fiction; no, she has panic attacks, she cowers, she has trouble even kissing Adam. Adam, of course, more than proved his worth with patience and understanding and I liked the way that their relationship developed.
These books wouldn’t stand alone very well, but that isn’t a criticism here. The events from previous books are still ongoing, while the book has its own plotline to keep the action going and provide new excitement. It’s a little like plotting for a TV show; there is a bigger conflict and then there is the driving force behind each individual episode. Everything has repercussions, but the ghost storyline allows Mercy to develop and heal a little by herself.
I’m definitely still recommending this series and eagerly awaiting the fifth book!
 This is book two in The Hunger Games trilogy.
I’m going to follow everyone else’s lead and totally skip plot summary for Catching Fire. This is a thoughts post more than a review. I don’t want to give anything away, so we’ll just say that Katniss is back home but her troubles are greater than ever. She has a lot more riding on this than just her own survival. I had no idea where this book was going and I was thrilled about that. It’s another heartstopping, breathtaking ride. And no, the prose isn’t great, and to be honest the beginning is a little slow, but when I hit the middle nothing else really mattered. I had to know what happened. The book went in a direction I hadn’t even imagined, which makes it all a much better experience. Of course, the cliffhanger is just as intense as I’d expected. I normally hate cliffhangers, but there was no way I was missing out on this. I was sure I was going to be spoiled and I wasn’t, so I’m grateful for that. At least I knew the cliffhanger was coming and I’m glad that Suzanne Collins is hard at work on number three. I must know what happens!
While I’m here, I’ll go ahead and declare I’m on
I’m not sure I’d have even realized there was a Team Gale if not for twitter! I can see the case for him, but I’ve always had a thing for adoring beta males.
I’d totally recommend this series. It isn’t great literature but it is an incredible, suspenseful story. Well worth reading.
 I read this lovely little book for Heather’s read-a-long at Age 30+ … A Lifetime in Books.
Cranford is a story that is hard to describe. The little town of Cranford is populated mainly by older women, mostly single or widowed. There are a few men about, but they are largely of a lower class, whereas many of the women consider themselves of gentle birth and do their best to act accordingly, especially Mrs. Jamieson, the town’s matriarch. The book revolves around Mary Smith, a frequent visitor to Cranford who often stays with the Jenkyns sisters, two unmarried older women who enjoy some status as children of the late rector. Most of the chapters, however, center in on Miss Matty, the younger of the sisters, whose gentle heart endears her to the entire town.
This was not at all what I’d expected from it, and not in a bad way at all. My previous experiences with Gaskell consisted of North and South and Mary Barton, which are both very concerned with the rise of industrialism in the north. Cranford is much more a picture of genteel life as it might have been during Gaskell’s lifetime, in a small town where women rule all. Each of the women is made distinct by her own actions as they socialize, like Mrs. Jamieson who is a complete snob, the elder Miss Jenkyns whose sternness overrides any other aspects of her personality, and Miss Matty, a sweet woman who is too easily led by everyone around her.
There is no real plot here. The chapters can almost be seen as a series of little stories regarding the inhabitants of Cranford, tied together by Miss Matty’s presence. There is a general movement towards what happens at the end but it isn’t compelling reading; this is a book to live in, to get to know the characters, to begin to care about what happens to them. It’s short, but it accomplishes these goals with ease and opens a window into life as it was. I was reminded mainly of a more sedate Jane Austen, less concerned with irony and overall plot but still depicting a genuine picture of an upper class society and its ills. She does still use humor to depict the ridiculousness of their situations; my favorite is when one of characters is complimented on her lace and launches into a story of how it had a little trip through her cat’s digestive system! I liked the book and I was completely charmed by it, but this isn’t a book for the impatient among us.
Cranford reminded me of how much I adore nineteenth century literature. There is something so inherently appealing in Gaskell’s style, in the modest but earnest ways of her characters, and in the quiet community life that they all share. I can’t say this is a world I’d ever want to live in, but I definitely loved visiting.
(Cover note: I have an old hardcover edition in a set of classics without ISBNs, so I chose a more recent cover for this post)
 When Sir Harry Valentine moves in next door to Lady Olivia Bevelstoke and her family in London, rumors start to fly. Olivia hears that he killed his fiancee and she starts watching him through her bedroom window, convinced he can’t see her but perplexed when he wears strange hats and throws papers into the fire. She decides that he is a very peculiar man. Harry, trained by the War Office, knows Olivia is spying on him, but it’s not until they meet that he hears the rumor that a Russian prince is after her, a Russian prince who may be a danger to the state, and that he must stay near her. Forced to stay close together, Harry and Olivia learn that rumors aren’t the only thing that happens in London; love does too.
This lacks the intensity of a truly great romance novel but is a funny, heartwarming read anyway. Olivia and Harry make so cute a couple that in real life, half of us would be a little sick watching them. Julia Quinn is great at building a friendship bond between the characters, making a relationship that is way beyond passion, and that’s certainly true here, since there is only one love scene and if I recall correctly, it isn’t even very long. Possibly it’s that lack of intense chemistry which is missing, but we’re still left with the feeling that this couple will be very happy together. There are some adorably romantic scenes, like the many window conversations the couple has, particularly when they read to each other across the short distance. Quinn includes another hilariously bad pulp novel which results in some very entertaining scenes.
I also felt that the suspense plot fizzled a little. There is an event towards the end which didn’t fit quite as well with the quirky, cute tone of the book, trying to add in more suspense. I just felt it was somewhat annoying, even if it served a purpose in the plot. The ending, however, made up for that with some of the sweetest scenes I’ve ever read. After the cringefest that was The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever, I am relieved, and look forward to her future work. What Happens in London is not as great as the Bridgerton books, but worth a read for romantics.
 This is book 3 of the Southern Vampire Mysteries. For the first of the series, check out my review of Dead Until Dark.
Sookie’s vampire boyfriend Bill has a secret. He’s been spending all his time hunched over the computer and lately doesn’t even pay Sookie attention when she gets home from work. Sookie is even more confused and upset when Bill tells her that he’s going away for a while, to Seattle, which she automatically knows is a lie. When Eric approaches her a few days later and tells her that Bill’s been kidnapped, Sookie doesn’t know what to think, but she goes along to save him, teaming up with a surprisingly attractive werewolf along the way, at a creepy club the likes of which she’d happily never see again.
It seems to be about the third book of an urban fantasy series that everything clicks for me and I just want more. That is definitely the case here. All of a sudden, I really just want more Sookie. I loved her voice in this novel; it felt very distinctive and southern and perfectly pitched to what was going on. I could completely sympathize with all of her money woes, her relationship woes, and even her physical pain (luckily I’ve never been beaten up, so I can’t empathize, but I felt so sorry for her). I felt like she was my friend and I wanted to make her happier.
Something I really like about this series is that the relationships are not infalliable. I could sense in the last book that Bill and Sookie weren’t necessarily going to stay together, and while she was certainly hurting for it, I think it takes the story in a much more interesting direction if she’s not tied to one particular person (or vampire). Bill has proved the dangers of falling in love with a vampire and part of me wonders where Sookie is going to go next. I hope she doesn’t go back to Bill. I think I know where she’ll go, but I can’t tell you how much I wish I had Dead to the World right now! Unfortunately my library’s copy is out, my new library doesn’t have a copy, and I don’t really have the money to spare to go buy the whole series, but when I do, I’m really looking forward to continuing.
Anyway, that is besides the point. I think that Club Dead is my favorite of the three I’ve read so far. It’s easy to love a book when you love the narrator. I hope that Sookie finds the confidence and love she needs and I will totally continue reading to find out.
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