If you are wondering why I haven't posted...

I'm reading the hardcover of

Weights too much.  Unless I wish to see my chiropractor more than once a month this book stays at home. Attempting to read a chapter or more a night....

And I finally finished!!  I also confess to reading some novels since that I was itching to get to.  Review of those are coming. 

Enjoyed this completely, much more than Feast of Crows in which nothing happened except a bunch of people went in various directions while I the reader had to try to keep track of them all. Luckily in A Dance with Dragons some people die and I was thinking "good I won't have to keep track of so many damned people."  Not so fast...George R.R. Martin may kill off a few but he's gone and replaced them and I think added a few more characters too. No worries, Tywin fans can rest assured the dwarf carries on, and the additional characters only add exciting twists and turns to the saga.  Can't wait for the next one.  In the meantime, awaiting Season Two of the TV adaptation on DVD.

Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor.

With a coupon and a deal on all three e-books of the Hunger Games my Kobo was set to embark on a reading  marathon.  In less than one month I finished all the books just before the movie was released in Victoria area theatres.  I'm finding young adult novels are well written and offer up some great characters, thought provoking plots and interesting science fiction.  Katniss Everdeen is not comparable to Bella of Twilight and if I had a daughter making a choice of reading material, I'd like her to choose the Hunger Games based on Katniss's ultimate decisions.  For Katniss her family bonds were close, she cared for her home village and she had some decisions to make about her life.  Those decisions were not presented in an easy manner and this is what made me like the book so much.  I even enjoyed all three books, although there have been comments about just cleaning up loose ends, I didn't find that distracting from the overall enjoyment of each book.  I'm also glad I had all three to read as one larger book and maybe that made the story flow better than those who read each book separately.

Enjoyed the movie too.  Was glad to see the book was followed with minor changes that didn't change the basis of the story.

A Red Herring without Mustard

And so back to Bishop's Lacey I go to discover what  Flavia de Luce is up to in the third novel of this delightful series.  More murder, more mystery and Flavia cooking up mischief is held within the pages.  Surprisingly Flavia seems to be on the verge of growing up, afterall she can't be eleven forever, and there are a few passages where Flavia takes a more grown up route.  There is still the ghost of Harriet, her mother, haunting them all and the addition of discovering a bit more about her.  If you like a good mystery novel or Agatha Christie, then add Flavia de Luce to your book shelf.  You won't be disappointed.

I do have some questions about Flavia 1) the book does take place in September yet she doesn't seem to go to school 2) Will Harriet her mother return from Tibet?

With these burning questions I joined the Flavia de Luce fan club and drop in online to participate in the lively discussions with other fans.  Most of us do agree that there is more to the Harriet story than Alan Bradley is letting on, or is Mr. Bradley chuckling or possibly getting plot ideas?

Looking forward to I'm Half Sick of Shadows coming out in paperback.  I won't be adding this one to the KOBO as I want all of them, all six, on my shelf.  I probably will read them all again once the series is fully published. 

KOBO

I got a KOBO for Christmas!  I finished my first book, The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker. Tiffany Baker has not written a light read for her first novel, but rather a giant of a book.

I loved the opening line of this book "The day I laid Robert Morgan to rest was remarkable for two reasons. First, even though it was August, the sky overhead was as rough and cold as a January lake; and second, it was the day I started to shrink." 

And we learn who Robert Morgan is and his relationship to Truly Plaice the heroine of this novel.  I never like giving too much away in a book review, I'd rather people read the book and enjoy all the surprises as much as I did.  Truly Plaice has some major morale issues to deal with, but in days when herbal medicine was the only means available, humans lived with the seasons, understood life and death on a far more intimate scale than we do today.  The writing is beautiful in this novel and the characters are believable.

I certainly am putting this book on my favourites lists.  

Reading on the KOBO was a different experience.  I actually found stats one day and discovered I had turned 1900 pages! I made the font smaller.  I also won some awards, which can be turned off, one for watching during commuting time, one for reading when most people watch TV and a lunch time award too.  I liked having the book go to the page I was reading when I turned on the KOBO.  I could put the KOBO in sleep mode and quickly turn it on again.  Reading standing up was a lot easier too.  My chiropractor is happy because now I won't be carrying heavy books and I will sit up straighter too.

Angelology

This book is not part of the angel movement we saw  few years ago. Far from the cute cherubs,  this book is based on the reference in Genesis 6


When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them,the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.


Canielle Trussoni's book on angels is based on the Nephilim and how they as a race have been manipulating humanity. The Watchers sent to earth to watch God's perfect creation, man and how they fell out of grace. These are not your cute angels, these are the rebel angels, the fallen angels, the angels that walk the earth.


The book takes place in 1999 starting on December 23rd and ending on Christmas Day.  An appropriate read for December.


The book starts off promising and certainly in the vein of The Da Vinci Code and other great adventure books based on religious quests.  The middle section of this book was the best part, I found the beginning ok and the ending section to be sloppy writing.  It's as if Ms. Trussoni lost interest in her characters and the premise of this book.  As if a secret society of angelologists would choose license plates with Angel 1 for their vehicles when we know they are being watched by the Nephilim!! I thought the love story between Evangeline and Verlaine was juvenile. The novel takes place in 1999 but never mentions the internet and people never use cell phones yet both existed.  Also Verlaine is an art history graduate and doesn't know some basic art history knowledge. 


There was potential here for a fabulous well written novel but it just fell flat at the end.   The characters were well developed at the beginning and Ms. Trussoni should have just left well enough alone rather than trying to impose a love interest between the two main characters.  This could have been such a great read and certainly I had high hopes, fell flat at the end and was only a so-so novel. As this was a New York Times bestseller I guess I expected better.  I'm not saying don't read this book, just be aware that the ending isn't all that great.


Hoping the movie will be an improvement on this story.

Not Scarlet O'Hara

A bit of catching up to do on the blog posting.  I've read three books that I have been meaning to blog about. Here is the second...

This novel is about the Civil War and Mary Sutter, a woman who wishes to be a surgeon. The time period is the American Civil War and Robin Oliveira doesn't skimp on the details either.  I loved the characters in this book and the heartwrenching sacrifices the men and women had to endure during one of America's bloodiest battles.  Mary isn't Scarlet O'Hara, although she has much the same spunk, she's got far more compassion and grit.  The men who fall in love with Mary Sutter do so not because of her beauty but for her character, her determination and her passion for medicine.  Mary's character has to endure so much to finally arrive where she wished to be in life. I don't want to write a huge long review of this book because I really think it needs to be read slowly and enjoyed, plus I don't want to give too much away of the story line.

A slow read but that was due to having to slow down to take it in. A riveting story!

PS: Dear friends you cannot borrow this one from me.  It was given to me to read and pass along and I've already passed it to another reader to enjoy.

This book is the story of Marina Singh and her journey to the Amazon for the pharmaceutical company she works for, Vogel, to find her former mentor and discover what happened to her colleague Anders. What Marina discovers is beyond what she imagined and her time in the Amazon does leave her in a State of Wonder.  


Here we have the big pharmaceutical company concerned only about profits, doctors and reseachers wanting to do further work and thus hide their intentions from the company and one woman coming to terms with her past and moving forward.  The characters are well developed, complex and interesting people.  I will say the book took a bit of time to "take off" but once I was into the middle I understood the reasons for laying down all the details in the beginning. 
There are unanswered questions at the end of this book, but I rather liked that Ann Patchett didn't write a nice compact ending.  


This is the first book I've read by Ann Patchett and I would like to read some of her other ones. This wasn't a quick read and you really need to be in the mood for a book that makes you think and leaves you wondering.