With the Goddess on my side, I conquer all

Fantasy | PC Cast | Elphame's Choice

This is part of the Goddess of Partholon series, which, per the publisher's blurb, is exceedingly popular. I found it difficult to imagine that the heroine and hero would actually face any difficulty in waltzing their way to a happy ending. After all, the Goddess is on the heroine's side, all the way from ensuring that she is born in satyr form to a human mother and centaur father, and is announced as the incarnation of the Goddess herself, right in chapter one.

On the other hand, I've never quite understood why such a stated-as-benevolent goddess would require such bloodthirsty sacrifices for good ends to result. It's not as if there are any real choices along the way, title notwithstanding.

Neither have I got my head around a rose-tinted view of a society in which there are tenth sons, who stand to inherit nothing, so they are super thrilled to have Elphame rebuild the ruined castle, rumoured (correctly, as it turns out) to be haunted. By benevolent ghosts.

Who show us what horrid creatures the ancient winged enemy were. But their descendants, equally winged, are human and stubbornly and relentlessly resist the call of their demon blood for several decades. Benevolently.

Aargh. Anyway, the second half of the book is somewhat better than the first, and the brother-sister dialogues are quite snappy and have a true sibling feel. Loving and benevolent though they are....

But I'm getting less tolerant of books with prophecies. Sigh. The older I get, the fussier I get.

Nope, not checking out more PC Cast books myself, but if you liked Twilight, this may well be up your alley, 170 year old hero, teen heroine, and all.

Werewolf jokes

Fantasy (Werewolf and Sorceress) | MaryJanice Davidson | Derik's Bane

Derik is a werewolf. Based on a prophecy that the reincarnation of Morgan le Fay is shortly going to be involved in the end of the world, he sets off to California to put paid to her. But the ditzy Dr Sara Dunn is too lucky to be true.

Lots of side-splitting dialogue and sitcom, with lots of romantic tropes mixed in. (A few very steamy scenes, so not really suitable for under-18s).

Sample this:

'You have to save the world.'Derik fought to keep his jaw from dropping. 'Me?''Yes, brain-drain, you. In fact, could you get started on that right away?'Moira clapped her hands. 'A quest! Just what you needed, oh, it's perfect, perfect!''A quest? Do I look like a Hobbit to you? I have to save the world? From what?'Antonia smirked. 'From who, actually.''From whom, actually,' Moira corrected.

It's totally funny. I laughed out loud so many times, the next person took the book away from me and started reading it himself--laughing from page to page while at it. Ha.

The end is a bit of an over-neat wrap-up, but you will forgive it for being a bit of a let's-finish-this-before-the-interval speed-solution since it could have well been dragged out beyond 198 pages, and become a drag itself. As it is, frothy and light, silly and funny.

Recommended for the laughs, and I for one am going to keep an eye out for more MJ Davidson books.

It's been a long time

It's been a long time since I last posted, but I haven't stopped reading!

Nope, I've just been postponing writing about what I've been reading. So I guess I'm a reader at heart, and not a writer. Ooh, who would have guessed? :D

So, here are the books I've read in the past couple of months, in no particular order. I'm dead sure there was one more, but try as I might, I can't remember its name or author. Sigh.

Saving Faith by David Baldacci
Derik's Bane by MaryJanice Davidson
Vanished by Joseph Finder (ha, now that's an ironic title if there ever was one, given the author's name!)
The Sticklepath Strangler by Michael Jecks
All the Colours of Darkness by Peter Robinson
Unfit to Practice by Perri O'Shaughnessy
XO by Jeffery Deaver
Elphame's Choice by PC Cast
Destiny by Elizabeth Haydon
Dark Visions (a short story collection of Horror stories)
Ma Dalton by Morris and Goscinny (a graphic novel aka comic)

So, I'll get my nose to the grindstone and tell you about these in a bit. If you have preferences as to the order I go through these, don't feel shy, let me know.