Sunday, February 14, 2010

In Which I State the Obvious

So I'm halfway through February and I've read, and by read I mean finished to the end, half my chosen list already. Here's what I've learned:
  • I don't care for Mario Acevedo's books. An acquaintance of mine told me she didn't like The Nymphos of Rocky Flats but I didn't listen since her idea of a tasty book is extreme horror. While this book wasn't "horrible," I didn't like Felix Gomez enough to keep reading. I also didn't like the habits of Mr. Acevedo's vamps, especially when eating: they pour blood on all their food. Pasta and beef would have a very red sauce for example. I guess I've become used to reading vampire stories where they feed off the hoof, so to speak, but the mental picture of regular food covered in blood bothered me. Sorry Mr. Acevedo, I really wanted to enjoy your books since I have two others to add to the first one in the "outbox."
  •  I'm not sure why but I ended up with five books about vampires in my pile this month. Two of them were familiar; I had already read the first books in Kresley Cole's Immortals After Dark series and Meljean Brook's Guardians series. The third one is mentioned above but the last two, they were pleasant surprises. Staked by J. F. Lewis and Red-Headed Stepchild by Jaye Wells were completely different takes on vamps. I plan to review these two a bit more closely later and I will be picking up Lewis's sequel, Revamped, from the library in the next few days.
  • I finally finished the Nicola Cornick trio that I bought last year. I had never read a full-length book of hers before; she did a short story in an anthology that came out late '09 and had a reprint of a novella by Mary Balogh and introduced Courtney Milan, a new author whose first book I own but have yet to read. Cornick's trio focused on a village in Yorkshire, England in the 19th century. The local town squire decided that he would enforce some ye olde medieval laws so that he could rake in some moolah. The law gave him the authority to claim a substantial percentage of each eligible unmarried woman's money if they didn't get married by the end of the year. Thus, a new marriage mart was born, as were many headaches. This trio was about average for historical romances set in that period: Oversexed couples overcome heartache, pride, and social injustice (?) in order to find true love. Nothing wrong with that, per se, but not the best efforts I've read either. 
  • I'm thinking that for next month's challenge I won't be picking random books but may go in a different direction (kinda) - choosing a few authors of whom I have several books or a series and finishing them. C. T. Adams and Cathy Clamp's Tales of the Sazi series in one possibility as is Anne Bishop's Black Jewels. Those two suggestions came off of the first page of my inventory on LibraryThing so I know there's lots more to choose from :) Or, pick a genre and stick to it all month. Also, one of these months Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice may be on a list. I keep telling myself that I will read it someday. I'm probably the last woman in America that loves books that hasn't read it yet.
  • I have a feeling that I won't be getting into Napoleon's Pyramids anytime soon - it just isn't holding my interest. Roxanne St. Claire is iffy too. Maybe I'll get through the others :) Just maybe...
P.S. I'm falling behind on my reviews again. Reminder: think about Staked and Red-Headed Stepchild and write down what pops. Do this for Kelly Meding's book and Deidre Knight's books as well.

    No comments: