While this couldn't be described as a very deep book it does bring up some interesting points, what happens to people when they lose cases, particularly when the issues aren't necessarily obvious.

Kendra Ballantyne was a high flying litigator until scandal brought her down, now she works as a pet-sitter. When some of her clients start dying she's an obvious suspect. Fans of Janet Evanovich will like this, excepting that Johnson has given us only one choice for her main character, and it looks like she's rolled both of Evanovich's love interests into one.

Fun and undemanding.

The first of the Gardening mysteries and a good read. Rachel O'Connor is dealing with setting up her landscaping business and trying to convince her family to let her do her own thing, when one of her clients dies it looks like her employee may be responsible so she gets involved in the mystery to help solve it. Things get interesting when the detective turns out to be her ex-boyfriend for whom she still has feelings.

Cosy, lightweight and interesting.

An interesting, opinionated, literate view of Science Fiction, scarily enough now 20 years old. It examines the history of SF and then goes into a decade by decade examination of SF since about 1890. The chapter on the future of SF was extremely interesting, notably when you look at what actually happened in the late 80's and early 90's. A bit of a plough through book but interesting and well written with a lot of examples.

It was funny for me to read it in light of the fact that I've read such a chunk of the authors mentioned, particularly when I was younger. Now that I'm older I prefer Fantasy to SF but still this book made me want to revisit some of my teenage favourites.

Book two in the series and Emma is trying to find a way to save her mother, still wondering who to trust, it's a slow burner that gets more interesting towards the end, I am interested in reading the rest of the series but I'm still holding fire on whether or not I'm going to keep this series, it all hinges on the next two books.

Elena is pregnant and having to deal with the men in her life fussing around her when she accidentally gets her blood on the "from hell" letter, which opens a portal for some zombies, and a man. Murders in the style of Jack the Ripper start up and Elena has to try to solve this and keep the babies alive.

Interesting and quite fast paced this is quite a good read and I liked how Elena is developing.

FAQ

Why do some books get priority over others?

You know I'm not sure, some days I feel a need for shorter books, books around the 200 page length rather than the huge tomes of 400+ pages. It's just me. Sometimes my hands have problems with bed and larger books and I just want to enjoy a book not have my hands twitching so badly that I can't read the book due to the shaking. That is sometimes quite a shame really cause some of the better books are where the author goes to a lot of trouble to get into the characters and just write. On the other hand sometimes brevity is the soul of a good read!

I have been known to take a longer book and alternate it with a shorter book, almost as a prize for getting through so many pages.

I've also been known to do the maths on a book and work out what percentage I've read. Sad I know but sometimes my inner maths geek flares.

How come you have so many books out from the library?

I work there. There are certain privileges to working in a library!

Do you really read all those books?

Yup. See reviews on Bibliophil.org, see wyvernfriend as number 2! See wyvernfriend in awe of number 1! I also have a listing on LibraryThing.com, not quite as impressive as some others. But I am the third most prolific reviewer.

Tho there have been a few books that have, well, been abandoned. Sometimes I have read bad books because there was nothing else but, really, there have been some that have just been plain too bad to finish. I clock them on Bibliophil as unfinished and note why in the comments. These would come off the count and if I owned them would end up bookcrossed, hoping that there would be someone out there.

There have also been a few that have been a bit trainwreckish. So bad that I couldn't stop reading but I wanted that time back when I was finished.

Where do you get the time?

Work sometimes is pretty slow, and lunchtime, breaks and bed. I have to read for at least 15 minutes before going to sleep and I have quite a quick reading speed.

Do you re-read?

Sometimes. Some of my books are very tatty from re-reading. There will be a spate of re-reading when Harry Potter comes around.

You read several books at a time?

Yup. I'm easily distracted, and I usually have a few books on the go at any one time. There's a forest of bookmarks in books under my bed.

Books under your bed?

Many. Lots. Not as nicely organised as when we used to sleep over the bookshelf (a bed my husband made) but all there all the same. Occasionally they get pulled out and some discoveries are made but there are some books that have found rabbit holes in my house.

the links, why do you choose particular books?

The Links are to amazon.co.uk I'm an amazon associate, so far I've earned 0.00 from this. I do this more for the buzz of having a bookblog. I pick the link based first on availability and picture availability, and then I pick the cheapest. That is of course provided that there's actually a link at all to them. I read some old books and sometimes they're kinda rare.

The last in the series and what a finale, Kitty learns how to wield magic, Nathaniel learns more about himself and Bartimaeus learns more about humans.

Complicated politics and interesting characters makes this story live and breathe and be infinitely interesting.

Enjoyed this one, Soz's earlier years, when she has to fight for the right to go for training, almost losing her family. This was more concerned with events rather than a romance proper and I really enjoyed it.

Not as good as a Fragment of Time this is the story of Rosie, evacuated to the US during the war she returns to England to find that things have changed and that her sister envies and hates her. The people she knew then aren't the same either.

This book fell down mostly in not having a greater range of names within the main characters, I kept getting Joe and Jack mixed up in my head.

Having read two of this woman's works I don't know that I would have very much enthuaism for reading more, they were okay but didn't fire me with enthuaism for finding more by her.

The story opens with Helen snatching freedom from her opressive mother by marrying Heine Weber, a young greman, who is in England to escape the growing Nazi threat. When war breaks out tho Helen's world starts falling apart, particularly when Heine ends up in an internment camp. Then she loses her son Christophe to evacuation. How she copes with all this is the book's story.

Although this is book 1 of a series, the rest weren't published. I'm not sure that it isn't because it's not the best book and often reads like it was an exercise in writing fantasy. I found it at times tedious and at other times laughable, there was potential there but it failed.

It was readable but just barely and I wouldn't have hunted up the sequels to be honest. Several of the characters were paper thin and the bad guys had absolutely no redieming features.

Good but really not my kind of read. I'm not sure that expectation spoiled it for me but it was underwhelming.

Cara does magic that turns her into a warrior so that she can avenge her family, during her quest she has to make some very hard choices. A mythic story that has a lot of depth.

This series seems to be losing some of it's spirit. It just seemed to go on for a bit too long and felt almost like an excercise in writing a series rather than a serious inclusion in the series.
The fight between the magi and the jousters and the other magic users intensifies and starts to get serious. More and more children are turning up dead or drained. The Magi are planning to do more damage.

It is a problem sometimes with Mercedes Lackey that her bad guys rarely seem to have shades of grey involved.

Part of the Full series by this pair and it's a fun romp, however it would possibly be a better read if you read it with the rest of the series.

Maggie's ex-boyfrined is a psycho who just broke out of jail and is looking for her, or more accurately looking for the cash he stashed in her house (unknown to Maggie); Zach is an FBI agent who is assigned to care for her, add in the characters in Beaumont, South Carolina and you have a light, fun, read. Not as good as her other works but fun.

*

A great story. A wonderful character in Fiametta who is a strong-willed daughter of a magician-goldsmith whose father doesn't want her to be an apprentice, more because of her gender than any ability. So Thur Ochs is recruited as his apprentice, however evil magic gets in the way and they have to work together to defeat the evil and free her father's soul.

An interesting story about secrets and murders. Elves are dying of a plague and humans are dying while trying to be elves, where are the plagues coming from and why is the evidence being hidden as Finder looks for it.

Queen Aeron is now fighting for her empire and goes to find the legendary treasures of the empire.

fun, slight romantic comedy with superpowered people.

Jason can talk to fish and transform into a dolphin. He went missing after getting Lane pregnant, now he's back but will she take him back as a boyfriend.

The Iron Tree by Cecilia Dart-Thornton is an okay read. I think though that she tries too hard to evoke the legend quality in her work. Yes I know, and yes I reade the article by Ursula Le Guin about using a more mythic and mythically evocative language in fantasy to imbue it with difference and a feeling of otherworldliness but it sometimes just isn't right. I've read books, hell I used to read legends like they were going to disappear when I was younger and I'm actually used to the languge they use but this just falls flat, and I'm not sure why.

I have to admit that I also found the names to be a bit offputting and in once instance caused me to laugh out loud. "King Maolmordha O Maolduin of Slievmordhu" (there were accents in the original but I'm a bit lazy). Now, the O in that name means "of" so that name has two of's instead of maybe a Mac which would be "son of" which would be a bit better, (we won't go into the no "v" in irish issue). Then there's the marshdwellers one example of which is "Earnan Mosswell", pardon? Oh yes, celtic derivative first names, every single one, and English derivative surnames. Uh huh, that so works.

A typical few paragraphs read:

"Just as the fray reached its height a man, tall and lithe, came running out of the hovering haze of dust that still filled and obscured the defile. Uttering a crazy war whoop he rushed at the ambushers, his scimitar upraised. He moved like a peasant dancer - not with consummate sill but with supremem confidence. Striking to right and left, feinting, parrying, his eager blade slashed the air like a whirling, silver-spoked wheel. The edge bit into flesh like the north wind in Winter and dripped crimson with gore.

"The lunatic disarmed an adversary with a cunning stroke of his scimitar, then upheld his foe's chin on the point of his curved blade. The ill-matched eyes of the terrified bandit glazed over: behind his conqueror's shoulder he could see Death walking down the road to fetch him.

"'Avaunt thee, dog!' shouted the madman in his foe's face. 'I grant thee mercy. But never trouble us again!'"

Oh yes that's typical of the dialogue, high Shakespeare, even in the midst of crisis or fight. It just doesn't work, nor does the over purpled prose.

I'm sure she has fans and this is the fourth of her books that I have actually read. I did actually like the first one, but partially because I made allowances for "first book" this time I really didn't care if her characters lived or died, I have no urge to read the next one, not even on a curiousity to see what happens next.

This book was quite a fun read, if occasionally it did drag. Another story of romance with one of the knights of the round table, including adventures with the faerie world.