Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Love in the Afternoon


Title: Love in the Afternoon
Author: Lisa Kleypas
Series: Hathaway Series (Book 5)
Genre: Romance



Beatrix is the youngest of the Hathaway family. She is not your typical lady of the times. She loves nature, animals and wearing breeches.

Christopher is away at war and then comes home with emotional as well as physical scars left from the battles.

Prudence, a friend of Beatrix's, was sent a letter from Christopher while he was still away at war. He wishes for Prudence to write back to help him get through the horror that is war. She is unimpressed by the things he talks about, and Beatrix offers to write back for her. Beatrix feels that someone should write back to him and starts to routinely write back and forth with Christopher.

But she signs all of her letters Prudence, thinking Christopher would not want any letters back from her. He once had said that Beatrix should be left in the barn with the horses. She was hurt and remembered that, but was able to put it behind her to help him in his time of need.

The two fall in love and Beatrix sends Christopher a letter telling him she can no longer write to him. Since she has been masquerading as Prudence, she is hurt too much by loving him and he not knowing who she is.

Christopher comes back from the war and seeks out Prudence. He expects the woman who he has been conversing with through the letters and wants to marry her. Eventually, since Beatrix and Prudence are nothing alike, he figures out that he was not actually exchanging letters with Prudence. He also figures out it was Beatrix and the two have somewhat of a whirlwind romance.

I adored the letters that the two wrote back and forth. There were so many beautiful passages and words of love. The two seem well suited for each other and I enjoyed seeing Beatrix finally get her chance at love.

The only issue that I had with the storyline was Christopher and his post-war issues. They were a legitimate concern and I thought very well written until he seemed to just take a stance and get past one concern he had. I felt like after all of the development of his problems, that they deserved a more thorough chance to be resolved.

Monday, October 18, 2010

The Reckoning


Title: The Reckoning
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Series: Darkest Powers (Book 3)
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal


The Awakening ended with Derek, Simon, Tori and Chloe being safe with Andrew and a group of supernaturals who are against the Edison Group and what they are doing. Or so we thought. Of course, that is not the case and the group has to think of another way to run and get away from a few individuals in this group.

It is all about who to trust and what to do. Are they doing the right thing to get away or just running into the arms of the enemy. It takes them several attempts to seemingly get it right.

This is the last installment of this trilogy. There will be another trilogy (Darkness Rising) that comes out in April. It will not involve the same main characters, but will be set in the same "world" and I think eventually there will be some crossover.

I continued to enjoy the budding relationship between Derek and was sad when the book ended. It ended very much on a starting of a new relationship, but after watching the two struggle, I would have loved to see something of them together. I really felt for Simon and Chloe when she had to turn him down and could barely keep from covering my own face in embarrassment.

We see the return of some other characters: Liz, Aunt Lauren and the Edison Group. A very suspense-filled second half of the book. I thought it was a decent ending for this trilogy, but a good way to leave things open for the rest of the series to come.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Heart of the Matter


Title: Heart of the Matter
Author: Emily Giffin
Series: None
Genre: Adult Fiction; "Chick Lit"



Tessa and Nick have a seemingly perfect marriage to the outside. He is a plastic surgeon (skin, burns, reconstruction - not choice plastic surgery) and she is a stay at home mom with their two kids, ages 2 and 4. He works a lot and is called away on the night of their anniversary for an emergency.

Valerie is a single lawyer Mom with her son Charlie, 6. Charlie falls in a fire at a birthday party and badly burns his hand and face. This is what Nick is called away for on his anniversary.

In short - Valerie and Nick have an affair. We see their relationship grow and Tess and Nick struggle with problems.

I have read all of Emily Giffin's books and wonder why I do. This time it seemed to just go too far. I'm not saying that it was not well written or that the characters weren't believable or three dimensional. But when I finished this book I felt cheapened and depressed.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Waking the Witch


Title: Waking the Witch
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Series: Women of the Otherworld (Book 11)
Genre: Paranormal


Savannah is no longer the spoiled, unpredictable young girl that she was when we first met her. She is now 21 and just trying to prove that she can take on her own case.

While Lucas and Paige are on vacation in Hawaii, Savannah gets a call from a friend of Lucas' about a case that he wants someone to work on. Savannah jumps on the chance to prove that she can work on the case alone.

She finds a small rural town in Washington, where there have been 3 murders over a large year span and what looks like some supernatural occurrence. Savannah gets a little more then she bargains for with a witch hunter, Druid, more witches and a type of "religion" that borders on supernatural. She is there to find the killer, without getting killed herself.

I really enjoyed seeing this part of Savannah. She is a grown woman and trying to make her way in the world and not be exactly the same as the do-gooding Paige and Lucas or her dark magic Mom. She shows a lot of her personality and her struggle to become her own person, a person I think I would like to hear more about.

I did not, however, feel like this was part of the Women of the Otherworld series. There was little to no interaction with many of the characters that we have known and read about for so long. The only person we see is Adam, and I love the connection that is growing between the two. I'm interested to see what's next after the cliffhanger at the end of the book. Spellbound is Book 12, released in 2011. It is again going to feature Savannah.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Hunger


Title: Hunger
Author: Michael Gran
Series: Gone (Book 2)
Genre: Young Adult/Science Fiction



It's three months after that adults "poofed" and food is running low. No more candy, cookies or ice cream for these kids. Now it's a jar of Relish or Can of gravy if you're lucky. Unfortunately, this doesn't look good for the neighborhood pets/strays. Although it's not described or mentioned directly, there are enough hints to know that just about all pets/strays have also been eaten.

In addition to the food shortages, it appears that the normal kids are getting powers as well. Most seem to be for defensive/survival reasons. Not to mention the continuing mutation of the animals in the area.

There is a little less of Caine vs. Sam in this book, but it does come up again, giving this book a suspenseful ending.

There is a quote on one of the books' cover that says this is like a modern day Lord of the Flies. To me this was a huge turn off. I hated that book in high school. It's one of the few books that I just can't stand. Although I had such strong feelings about that book and such mild ones about the Gone series, after this installment, I totally see why it is marketed as that.

I highly enjoyed learning more about the FAYZ and why exactly this is all happening. It has a fairly reasonable (as reasonable as a science fiction story can be) explanation behind it all. Again, I had somewhat of a hard time getting through the book - it was interesting enough that I wanted to continue to read it, but not so much that I couldn't put it down or would go out of my way to read it.

At the end it appears that the kids are trying to start to recreate some sort of civilization in the FAYZ. I'm guessing their world will continue to crumble in the final story - Lies.