Ubalblog

[  Mood: Happy ]
[ Currently: Breastfeeding my son and enjoying my birthday ]
A.K.A. Deja Dead – A Quick Review – Labour and Delivery – Part 3

Temperance Brennan is a forensic anthropologist who works for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, State of North Carolina as well as well as for the Laboratoire des Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Québec.

Deja Dead takes place in la Belle Province, specifically in Montreal, Canada’s most bilingual city two hours east of me. Temperance is called into consult on a series of brutal murders of women. She quickly becomes convinced it is a seriel killer, when those around her turn a blind eye to the evidence.

This is a gritty, engrossing novel that got me through the waiting part of labour and delivery. It also gives a lovely snapshot of Montreal, a beautiful and cosmopolitan city. Worth the effort. Go read this.

[  Mood: Sleepy ]
Exhasted. Need Sleep. Blog later.

[  Mood: Sleepy ]
A.K.A. Undead and Unappreciated – A Quick Review

Betsy Taylor’s life just got more complicated.

In the process of telling her not to attend her stepmother’s baby shower, Betsy’s father lets it slip that Betsy has a half-sister.

In addition, the vampire staff in Betsy’s nightclub don’t respect her and are going on strike.

Finally, she’s read the Book of the Dead a weebit too long and is suffering from temporary insanity.

Oh, and did we mention that her half-sister is the daughter of the Devil?

This book is a fun romp. It is not going to change you life, but you will enjoy the read. Cudos to MaryJanice Davidson for making the Devil a woman. (Although I kept seeing Ray Wise in a dress.) The book’s a quick read too, as I was done in one day.

Enjoy!

[  Mood: Sleepy ]
A.K.A. Proven Guilty – A Quick Review

This book opens with Harry, a newly minted Warden witnessing the White Council pass judgement on a young wizard who had broken the fourth law of magic. The judgement is decapitation. This called forshadowing and will become relevant later on im the book, although not this review.

Harry’s not to pleased with the excution when two members of the council come to him with slightly unofficial requests. One, find out why the Summer Court of Fae isn’t helping during the White Council’s war with Red Court of Vampires. Two, find out who is practicing black magic in Chicago.

So Harry sets off to deal with these two problems, when he gets called by a friend’s eldest daughter for help. Apparently there’s been an attack at the local horror convention, appropriately named Splattercon!!!, and they need Harry’s help.

Like with all of Jim Butcher’s novels, these three plots weave in, out and eventually around each other, leading to a satisfying conclusion. He is also clearly setting up for next few books of the series. Butcher has already proven himself to be a master of modern urban fantasy. This novel only serves to cement that position.

Go get it.

[  Mood: Sleepy ]
A.K.A. Glasswright’s Apprentice – A Quick Review

Rani’s family has scrimped and saved to buy her a place in the glasswrights’ guild. This is a step up for Rani, moving her from the merchant caste to the artisan caste. It is supposed to be a good thing.

Unfortunately for Rani, the glasswrights guild somehow manages to get involved in the assasination of the crown prince. Rani manages to escape the fate of her fellow glasswrights and sets out to discover who really killed the crown prince and clear her name.

The book is interesting, but requires a huge suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader for the plot to work. Had the author, Mindy L. Klasky, used divine intervention rather than a bunch of overlapping conspiracies, I might have bought in more readily.

Hit or miss.

[  Mood: Cool ]
[ Currently: Breasfeeding my son ]
Dharma and I have come to blows on this site more than once about the whole US/Canada thing. In that sick, we still love each other sibling kind of way.

A reoccuring theme is that Dharma thinks it’s ridiculous that I pay high income taxes. And like many Canadians, I simply grin and point to universal health care. Not having to figure out if I could afford an epidural during delivery was very nice.

So imagine my surprise when Todd Maffin linked to this page. US personal income tax is 37.7%. Canada’s is 35%.

Wow. That argument will be interesting next time it pops up.

[  Mood: Sleepy ]
[ Currently: Breasfeeding my son ]
A.K.A. Good Gouhls Do – A Quick Review – Going back to the birthing room pt. 2

Elizabeth Frasier’s big plan at the end of book 1, Good Ghouls Guide to Getting Even, has failed miserably. Oh sure, the football player who turned her is dead, but he wasn’t her sire and this means that she is still a vampire. So now she has got to figure out who her sire is, try and find the daywalking formula so the other vamps don’t kill her, keep up her GPA and deal with a love triangle.

This second book, while fun, lacks the freshness of the first installment. Still worth reading. Grade 7 and up.

[  Mood: Sleepy ]
A.K.A. Undead and Unemployed – A Quick Review – Going back to the birthing room

Betsy Taylor has problems.

1. She`s dead.
2. She`s risen as a vampire
3. She is apparently the proficised vampire queen.
4. No one told her before she slept with Eric the Vampire that doing so would make him her consort for the next 1000 years.
5. Her house has termites.
6. Some vampires still don`t want her as their queen.
7. A group of vampire hunters is targetting her people.
8. Her stepmother is pregnant.
9. Not all the vampires are happy she`s the queen.
10.The new season of shoes are out and she has no job and no money.

This book is basically supernatural chicklit. It has its tongue firmly planted in its cheek. Betsy is a vain, self-centered heroine who just wants to be left alone. Instead she has been thrust into greatness and is stumbling along, trying to find her way.

A fun read. Not going to change your life, but fun.

[  Mood: Sleepy ]
[ Currently: Breastfeeding my son. ]
A.K.A. Visions of Sugar Plums – A Not So Quick Review

Janet Evanovich has made herself richer than most of us by authoring the Stephanie Plum series. In it Stephanie is a mildly competant bounty hunter who tracks down the lower level FTAs for her cousin Vinnie’s bail bond service. Usually this involves some ridiculous, over the top capture scenes, like when one of the FTAs stripped naked and covered himself in vegetable oil to make it difficult to capture him.

These books are famous for several things: the number in the title (having done Ms. Grafton one better, she can keep writing these forever!!!); Stephanie’s ongoing love triangle with Morelli, the cop with commitment problems and Ranger, the bounty hunter who exudes sex; Stepanie’s car being destroyed (usually by an explosion); and the colourful cast of secondary characters, most notibly Stephanie’s Grandma Mazur.

This novella (the publisher is trying to pass it off as a novel – but I know a novella when I see it!) has Stephanie being startled by a man who suddenly appears in her kitchen. This man is tall, blonde and good looking. We should all be so lucky! His name is Diesel and he wants to help her find her new FTA Sandy Claws.

Where your mind went is where Evanovich wanted it to go. This story takes place at Christmas. There are elves, toyshops, cookies. There is even a scene where the elves use cookies to assault Stephanie in the toy factory. And you thought that stuff only happened in your dreams.

This story also differs from other Stephanie Plum novels in that there is a strong supernatural element to the story. This book, unlike the ones with numbers, is an urban fantasy. But this genre is not Evanovich’s strength. Rather, the suspension of disbelief required is a little much. The novella didn’t work for me. Evanovich should stick with her Keystone Cop inspired romance/mysteries.

Give this one a pass. Unless you are a huge, obsessive fan.

[  Mood: Sleepy ]
[  Currently: Eating Breakfast ]
A.K.A. A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton – A Quick Review.

My desire to reread this book has nothing to do with the clever reference from Reaper this past week. Rather, I have felt the need to go back and reread all of the mystery series that I love.

A is for Alibi is the first of the series that has come to be known as the Alphabet Mysteries. It finds heroine, Kinsey Millhone investigating the murder of a prominent divorce lawyer, whose been dead 8 years. Her client? The wife of the lawyer who was convicted for his murder and has just been released having served her time.

Kinsey is another one of those hardboiled female detectives that came out in the 1980s. Unlike V.I., she has not been bought by Hollywood and made into a bad movie, because Sue Grafton was a screenwriter and knows exactly what that big bad town does to books it buys. Grafton has stated that she will not let that happen to Kinsey.

This book is well written and moves along quite quickly. This book, despite having been published in 1983 has aged very well. It could have been written today, except for the lack of cellphones and email.

Overall a great read.