A Quick Update

I'm still here! LOL My recent cross-country move from Massachusetts to California really chewed into my reading time and I only just finished the book I started back in July: Breathers: A Zombies Lament by S. G. Browne, a review of which will be forthcoming in the next few days.

If you followed my travels via Facebook and/or Twitter, you know that we just moved into our new house in California at the end of October, having spent the summer living out of our RV (and the last 4 weeks previous, in a furnished apartment as the lack of space was driving us crazy). Anyway, if you want to catch up on any of that now, you can find links to my Facebook profile, my Twitter feed, and my Flickr photostream in the sidebar links. (If friend requesting and I wouldn't recognize your name, please mention you follow my blog as I don't necessarily approve all friend requests since my Facebook friends list has grown quite large and somewhat unwieldy.)

So though we've still got half a garage full of boxes left to unpack and sort through, I feel settled enough to start resuming some of my former activities again. So watch for that review shortly. And in the meantime, feel free to find and friend me on any of the aforementioned social networks. :)

REVIEW: Dance Upon the Air by Nora Roberts

My Rating: 6 out of 10 stars

I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would considering it's a romance. When I read a romance, the female lead needs to be a strong person. I get so frustrated over the swooning "I need a man" mentality. However, though Nell was weak in the beginning with her abusive husband, she eventually got past the mental block which often affects abuse victims and escaped the situation. That made me like her a lot more.

So after faking her own death, changing her name, and then fleeing to the other side of the country, she finds herself drawn to Three Sisters Island, where her destiny is calling her. But her scars from the past cannot be erased. Nell must eventually deal with the issues in order to move forward in her new relationship. Nell goes to work for a woman named Mia, a practicing Witch and Wiccan, who helps Nell to embrace the other half of her personality, the "witchy" side she never knew she had.

Of course, it's all happily ever after in the end. But what else would you expect from a romance. ;) The next two books in this trilogy are about Ripley and Mia respectively. Though I liked this one well enough, I haven't yet decided if I'm quite dying to read the others, simply because of the amount of other books I still have on my to-be-read pile.

BookCrossing journal page for this book

REVIEW: Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand by Carrie Vaughn

My Rating: 8 out of 10 stars

Kitty and Ben, now the dominant alphas of the Denver area, have decided to tie the knot and make it official human-style now as well. Despite her mother's objections, a big, expensive wedding doesn't appeal to either Kitty or Ben, so they've decided to elope to Las Vegas instead. But trouble seems to follow Kitty no matter where she runs off to, and beneath all the glitz and glamour of the Vegas strip lies a darker secret... one that will put the lives of both Kitty and Ben in grave danger.

This fourth book in the Kitty the Werewolf series is a bit lighter on the action than the previous books, but only slightly so. It focuses a bit more on Kitty and Ben's personal life and lets you see a bit deeper into that side of them, further endearing their characters to you. It may be the action which initially draws you in to this series, but it's the characters that will keep you coming back for more. Kitty and Ben rock!! :)

BookCrossing journal page for this book

REVIEW: Kitty and the Silver Bullet by Carrie Vaughn

My Rating: 9 out of 10 stars

I love the Kitty Norville series! I'm terribly disappointed in myself for falling behind on this series, but I'll be remedying that now as I'm currently reading book five, Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand, and plan to read book six, Kitty Raises Hell, immediately or very shortly after that.

In this fourth installment of the popular series, Kitty has returned to Denver to deal with family issues. Unfortunately, the alpha and his mate of the werewolf pack she ran away from is not happy to see her back in town. To make matters worse, the vampires have their own power struggle going on, and Carl's werewolf pack is right smack in the middle of the action, leading him to believe that Kitty is secretly aiding the potential usurper of the (Vampire) Master of Denver. With Ben at her side, Kitty takes a stand. But you'll have to read the book to find out what happens next! ;)

If you haven't yet started this series, what are you waiting for? Carrie Vaughn delivers an action-packed urban fantasy with tough yet endearing characters you can't help but fall in love with!

BookCrossing journal page for this book

REVIEW: Unseelie by Meredith Holmes

My Rating: 6 out of 10 stars

When Alfhild was a little girl, her grandmother called her a fairy princess and told her all of her favorite tales. She'd never imagined they were real.

Now as a grown-up, Alfhild has changed her name and fled Louisiana, and the paparazzi that's been haunting her since her half-brother's murder accusations. She's now taken up residence in her grandmother's ancestral home in England, where all is well until the morning she awakens to find a naked man in her rosebush: a faerie prince by the name of Cadfael. And then the games begin....

All of a sudden, Alfhild is unwittingly drawn into the Faerie realm, becoming a pawn between the sparring Seelie and Unseelie Courts. And it seems her half-brother Gulliver is here too, playing for the other team....

Like me, you're probably thinking, oh no, not another faerie book! Aren't all these faerie realm books beginning to sound the same: young girl gets sucked into the realm, discovers her faerie prince, yada yada yada, and when all is said and done, lives happily ever after. This is what I was afraid of when I first started reading. But fortunately, this story had a few different things going for it to distinguish it from the standard "faerie tale" setup, and unlike many of the other faerie-based stories out there, this isn't a young adult book. For starters, we have Alfhild's half-brother, Gulliver, and her best friend, Jackie, both characters in the story who follow Alfhild from the human realm into the faerie realm. There are also several other interesting species besides human and fey, and several mythical beings from the old legends such as Jack of the Green and Jenny Greenteeth. Some very interesting characters to be sure! The unconventional methods by which Alfhild attempts to bring victory to the Unseelie Court in their never-ending battle with the Seelie is quite entertaining (she's such a ditz! LOL) and didn't follow any of the preconceived formulas of other stories I've read.

According to an online interview with Meredith, this book started it's life as a NaNoWriMo project which grew into three separate self-published novels. These three novels were then later combined to become the single book it is now. During my reading, I actually did find myself thinking this seemed to be quite a long book, though reading on my Kindle I couldn't quite give a specific page count. If I were to hedge a guess though, I'd have to say it would probably be over 400 print pages. The finished product could have done with a bit more editing before being released however as there were some incidents of bad grammar and awkward sentence structure, and even a few conflicting facts within the story itself which, for an obsessive reader like me, detracted a bit from the enjoyability of the reading. For future books, I'd like to see a bit more foreshadowing, allowing the reader to speculate a bit. Instead, it often seemed the facts were laid down as they happened, leaving little room for such speculation. But I truly believe some of these skills will come with more experience as a writer. And despite these minor drawbacks, I did enjoy the story overall, particularly for the differences cited above which allowed it to stand out from the crowd.

If you enjoy a good faerie story, you should enjoy this as well, and can pick up a copy for your Kindle from Amazon, or directly from Drollerie Press in one of several other ebook formats.

A quick "me" update

To all who follow my blog and/or book reviews, I wanted to take the opportunity to fill you in on what's been going on in my life and explain the lack of updates out here in case you weren't already aware.

Over the last year, Mike and I have been prepping and preparing to sell our house here in the Boston suburbs and move out west to the San Jose area of California. Once we get there, we'll definitely be living in a much smaller place—and possibly even living out of our RV for up to six months while we house hunt—so we've been working on a major downsizing by going through all the "stuff" we've accumulated over the past 40 years, deciding what to keep, sell, or just throw away! I can't lug all this crap out there with me. It's time to simplify and lighten the load!

Anyway, over the last six months, this effort has picked up steam and the clearing out process has taken away from much of my reading time. It's no wonder I've only managed to read 10 books so far this year! =:-o

I already have some family out there: my sister, mother, and two nieces, and we investigated neighborhoods and different areas when we were out there previously, doing a few drive-bys and such, though we weren't prepared to make an offer on any place without having sold our house here first.

So, as soon as our house here is sold, Mike, the bunnies, and I are hitting the road in the RV for a cross-country road trip, while the rest of our stuff is shipped out via movers and whatnot. We'll probably take about three weeks to travel from coast to coast, exploring many parts of the country we've never seen before. I'm actually really looking forward to that, and plan to take and share many pictures along the way. Keep an eye out for those... if I don't post them here, I'll definitely mention where they are. You can also follow me on Twitter, or friend me on Facebook, to keep tabs on me. I'm looking forward to the journey and hope you'll join me, at least virtually. ;)


On a side note, all this clean-up has obviously stirred up quite a bit of dust, aggravating the heck out of my allergies, already piqued due to the pollen. With stupid Blue Cross Blue Shield canceling coverage for my prescription allergy medication earlier this year, I've taken the opportunity to try out some all-natural remedies like Oregano Oil and Butterbur while switching my body over to Zyrtec-D. But what a pain in the ass all this is! Because the sale of over-the-counter decongestant is used in the production of crystal meth, it's sale is quantity restricted, and I'm only allowed a two-week supply at a time, presenting my license at the pharmacy in order to even get that! Grrr....

But on the good side, I've been quite happy with the Oregano Oil. It hasn't completely replaced the Zyrtec-D (or the Nasalcrom and Naphcon-A which I also take), but it has supplemented it quite nicely. I haven't had nearly as many migraines as I usually deal with this time of year, especially with all the dust and pollen coming into my system at once. Sometimes I even forget that my 12 hours are up and it's time for another pill, something I never experienced before when I used to start getting stuffy again after about 10 or 11 hours. For the Butterbur, I haven't been taking that long enough to form an opinion one way or the other yet.

Kindle 2 skinified :)

Pictures of my Kindle 2 with it's sexy, new Paper Cut skin from DecalGirl. :) You can view the slideshow below, or for larger images, my Kindle photo set at flickr.

The Zombie Chicken Award!

Many thanks to Lori at Pure Imagination who awarded me the following Zombie Chicken Award. w00t w00t! :)

The blogger who receives this award believes in the Tao of the zombie chicken - excellence, grace and persistence in all situations, even in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. These amazing bloggers regularly produce content so remarkable that their readers would brave a raving pack of zombie chickens just to be able to read their inspiring words. As a recipient of this world-renowned award, you now have the task of passing it on to at least 5 other worthy bloggers. Do not risk the wrath of the zombie chickens by choosing unwisely or not choosing at all...

I shall now pass on the award to 5 more worthy bloggers as charged:

• Susan at West of Mars
  
• Breeni at Breeni Books
  
• Shaunesay at Shaunie's Happy Place
  
• Jen at The Movieholic & Bibliophile's Blog
  
• Tez at Tez Says