Lots of Books
This week I read a lot of books. I went to the Library on Wednesday to return STORM FROM THE SHADOWS by David Weber, and while I was there saw the new L. E. Modesitt book, IMAGER. So I poked around a little, and also saw SECOND SKIN by Caitlin Kittredge, UNFALLEN DEAD by Mark del Franco, and DEATHWISH by Rob Thurman. What do these three books have in common? They’re all new books in a series, of series that the entire Baltimore County Public Library system doesn’t have any previous books for. So I mentioned that to the Branch Manager and he promised to try and rectify that. I also picked up LIVING WITH GHOSTS by Kari Sperring.
I haven’t read LIVING WITH GHOSTS or IMAGER yet, but of the other three books I got from the Library, only UNFALLEN DEAD really impressed me. The others weren’t bad, but they weren’t really stellar either. I don’t think I’d bother to buy the others in the series, though of course I already own NIGHTLIFE, the first book in Thurman’s series. I’m a bit tempted to donate it to the library, honestly. It’s not a bad book, but they can use it better than me.
On Friday, I went by B&N like I always do before Chilis for dinner. I picked up their very last copy of Ilona Andrew’s MAGIC STRIKES (I had to make the poor customer service guy go root around in the back for it, too). While I was waiting, I saw Jaye Well’s RED-HEADED STEPCHILD just sitting on the customer service desk, asked if I could take it, and they said sure. So I got it too (I don’t remember how I found out about it, but I read the first three chapters on B&N’s website and liked it. It’s not a super awesome book but it’s a solid read with a UF protagonist who is neither whorey nor super overconfident, which was nice). As I was leaving, much to my surprise, the new Cassie Palmer book, CURSE THE DAWN by Karen Chance was already on the shelves, even though it’s not due out until the 7th. So I went back to Customer Service, made sure I wouldn’t get them into trouble by buying it early, then when they said they were allowed to put it out before the due date, asked if they also had TURN COAT avaialble early…
Unfortunately, they couldn’t help me with that.
MAGIC STRIKES was definitely the best of the bunch. I was afraid that most of the hype around the book wasn’t justified, because I own the other books in the series and they weren’t worldshatteringly awesome, but I have to say I was impressed by Andrews’ improvement. Not that she was a bad writer before, but she’s gotten miles more awesome. I love everything about MAGIC STRIKES and there were moment where I put the book down and laughed hysterically for whole minutes. (Notably the whole scene where Kate, Curran and Dali look and Jim and go What, we didn’t mean to make it look so easy.) Great book and I can’t wait for the big showdown with Roland.
Unfortunately, I shouldn’t have used up so much time this week reading, and I won’t be able to get to IMAGER or LIVING WITH GHOSTS, because my to-do list is looking a little scary.
* Appellate Brief, due Monday
* Rent Court write-up, due Monday
* Property Reading, due Monday
* Con Law reading, due Monday
* Oral Argument prep, due Tuesday
* Employment Contract, due Thursday
* Tower of Nine work
* Lithmeria work
* Veiled Secrets & Dark Pretenses posts
…etc