This is about the third time I have started a new post since my last actual post was published. I keep getting distracted or just lose interest in the middle of it. Let's hope that I can make it through this one 'cause I have several things I want to talk about. Here goes...
The Huxtable family series by Mary Balogh: one the whole, disappointing. Individually, surprising. The first one, First Comes Marriage, was good but not great. Vanessa was a nice character but not terribly interesting. The second one, Then Comes Seduction, was thisclose to being a wallbanger for me. Katherine Huxtable was borderline annoying and Baron Montford was a total asshole. The way he treated Katherine at the beginning of the book and his whole attitude in general totally turned me off and I'm not sure who I disliked more: Katherine, the one who agreed to marry him or Jasper, for being so clueless about his feelings and motivations. I had a hard time finding a reason to finish the book but I powered on through because I had a feeling that the third one was going to be good. I was right - At Last Comes Love may be my second favorite book of all Balogh's books (right behind Slightly Dangerous). Margaret, the eldest sister and family matriarch at her ripe old age of 30, deserved a wonderful story. She marries the Earl of Sheringford, Duncan Pennethorne, a social pariah who she should have avoided like the plague. Instead she finds the man of her dreams. I was so relieved when I read this last one because the first two were so lackluster and I expect better of Mrs. Balogh. (I did like Jasper, Baron Montford, in At Last Comes Love though - he was the only one who initially supported Meg and didn't judge Duncan for his past.) I have enjoyed just about every one of her books and while there were a few exceptions, they aren't going to discourage me. I'm not going to get my hopes up about the concluding book in this series, Seducing an Angel, the story of Stephen, the youngest Huxtable and earl of Merton. It comes out in several weeks. Series grade: B-/C+
TV: First and foremost, R.I.P. Bea Arthur. The Golden Girls is probably my all-time favorite tv show ever. I watch it or at least turn it on everyday. Since Lifetime gave up the syndication right to it and WE and Hallmark Channel now have it it's all Golden Girls, all the time. I even made my husband a fan of it (it wasn't hard). My favorite character was always Dorothy because she was the strongest, the most outspoken and the least obvious of the three. Blanche was the sexy one, always in-your-face with her sexuality and unembarrassed of it. Rose was the sweet one, the one with the least amount of common sense but the biggest heart of the four. Sophia was the funniest one, operating without the filter between her head and mouth, insulting yet truthful. But Dorothy was the one I could most identify with or at least the one I most admired. She wasn't beautiful like the others, dumped by her louse of a husband who she was married to for 38 years, she was the rock of the foursome. Always allowing herself to be the butt of jokes and the straight man most of the time. She also had the happiest ending since she got to be the one who married by the end of the show. This lady had balls and wasn't afraid to let people know it and we will miss her.
Also in the subject of tv: The Unusuals. This new show from ABC has completely grabbed my attention on Wednesday nights at 10. I don't watch much tv anymore; I have a bunch of bookmarked links to entertainment websites that I haven't used in many months. Our tv is almost always on but I read during most of my downtime. But this show grabbed my eye because of Amber Tamblyn. I like her spunk and will watch her in whatever. She is not the star of this show however and we actually tune in and watch it while it's on, not later off of the dvr. It's about a police precinct in NYC that gets all the weird cases - a cat thief, a store that caters to people who want to murder someone, etc. It's funny but serious with a great cast and entertaining plot lines. Please watch it - good shows on television are hard to find and we (me and the husband) would like this one to stick around.
Finally, Robyn Carr. I read about her Virgin River series on Book Binge. Casee and company raved about Virgin River, the first book in the series so I figured I'd give it a shot. I got lucky and grabbed a copy on BookMooch (it's pretty high in demand). I read it the other day and now I'm hooked. Let's not kid ourselves - they're romances - but they're real. The first one is about a widowed nurse/midwife who escaped the grind of LA to northern Californian town that is barely a spot on the map. It made me laugh and cry and I can't wait to start the second one, Shelter Mountain, later today after I've finished my errands and such. I'm so glad I've found someone else to read. I read so much and so fast (I'm modest too, can't you tell) that finding an author with staying power makes my day. I'm grabbing up copies to keep since I can definitely see myself rereading them. That doesn't happen to me very often at all.
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