Irrepressible Perserverence

#12, Touch of Power by Maria V. Snyder

Laying hands upon the injured and dying, Avry of Kazan absorbs their wounds and diseases into herself. But rather than being honored for her skills, she is hunted. Healers like Avry are accused of spreading the plague that has decimated the Fifteen Realms, leaving the survivors in a state of chaos.

Stressed and tired from hiding, Avry is abducted by a band of rogues who, shockingly, value her gift above the golden bounty offered for her capture. Their leader, an enigmatic captor-protector with powers of his own, is unequivocal in his demands: Avry must heal a plague-stricken prince—leader of a campaign against her people. As they traverse the daunting Nine Mountains, beset by mercenaries and magical dangers, Avry must decide who is worth healing and what is worth dying for. Because the price of peace may well be her life….

I loved Snyder's Study series but this is the first time I've ready any of her other series.  This had the same feel of that series - for good and bad.  I say that because I recognized several of her tropes right off the bat from having read the Study series and so it sometimes felt that I was reading those books, just with different characters and settings.  Even, or especially, the romance was pretty much the same formula.

Not that it was bad, just really too familiar!  I liked the whole plague part and the magic set was interesting (though the book seemed a bit long and I did scan several chapters to get around some of the details that I felt were not moving the book along) and the characters were fine (sometimes the language felt too modern in their speeches?).  Overall a fun, quick read and I'd certainly read the sequel when it comes out.

#13, Raven Calls by C.E. Murphy

Suddenly, being bitten by a werewolf is the least of Joanne Walker's problems.

Her personal life in turmoil, her job as a cop over, she's been called to Ireland by the magic within her. And though Joanne's skills have grown by leaps and bounds, Ireland's magic is old and very powerful….

In fact, this is a case of unfinished business. Because the woman Joanne has come to Ireland to rescue is the woman who sacrificed everything for Joanne—the woman who died a year ago. Now, through a slip in time, she's in thrall to a dark power and Joanne must battle darkness, time and the gods themselves to save her.

Oh Walker Papers, how I love you.  In all honesty, I think the only thing I was sad about was the lack of Morrison (but Gary was so kick ass that it was okay) but that's the romantic in me sulking. ;)

I don't think I could ever say anything bad about this series (and that's not because I read C.E. Murphy's LJ, promise); this is not a series that you can jump in the middle of, you have to read the first one to understand exactly what's going on and the character growth.  But, as always, not only do the characters kick ass but Murphy brought in several new characters and made me care about them by the end of the book.  Which is kind of hard to do in a series when you're so used to caring and keeping track of "core" characters.

Lots of fun, like always. :D

#10, One Salt Sea by Seanan McGuire

I think out of all of this series, One Salt Sea is now my favorite.  I read the rest because they were fun romps and a bit silly, if really well-written, but this one.  Man, yeah, I'm now sold on McGuire (though her new series doesn't hold much interest for me).  And I was very pleased to note that this is one of the first in the Daye series where Toby doesn't spend every other chapter getting stabbed, shot or beaten.

I mean, unpleasant things happen of course but it was a nice change of pace not to have her limping around for most of the book.

#7, Seeing Redd (The Looking Glass Wars) by Frank Beddor

Alyss of Wonderland's rules has only just begun and already those who prefer chaos to peace are threatening to destroy everything worth imagining. Trailed by newly appointed Royal Bodyguard Homburg Molly, Alyss is doing her best to keep pace with the non-stop demands of being Queen while attempting to evade Molly for a few private moments with Dodge. Alyss's life is already a challenging mix of duty, love and imagining when a series of phantom sightings set fire to an urban myth of her imperial viciousness's return and have everyone...Seeing Redd.

I'm a complete sucker for retold stories, like fairy tales, but I love when Alice in Wonderland gets a retelling (Syfy might not do well on most things but I really liked Tin Man and Alice).  This is the second book in The Looking Glass Wars and it really wasn't as good (which wasn't great to begin with) as the first one.  It's not bad, I just found that I didn't care for anyone in the book - the first at least focused a lot on Alyss and on Hatter but this one just seemed really disconnected.

I'll read the third one just to finish up the series but I'm not as gung-ho about it as I once was.

A Posse of Princesses by Sherwood Smith

I was uncertain if this was technically YA but the fact that I just saw that it's published by YA Angst probably answered that for me.  It's a cute little story about a princess who goes with other princesses and princes to meet the Big Prince; attend balls and picnics, hopefully fall in love.  And then it goes off the rails and they find themselves in unexpected trouble.

I don't read YA all that often because it generally doesn't catch my attention.  But this is a cute, well written story with good characters.  I had some issue with how a few things were worded and how one character kind of changed in mid-stream (or that's how it felt to me, anyway) but, other than that, it was a quick, light read.

3.  The Infection by Craig DeLouie

Oh man, between work and general exhaustion, the reading took a really big hit in January - two books in total, blech.  Anyway, I finally finished the third, The Infection, as I've been in a real zombie reading/watching kind of mood lately.

For a book that I bought on a whim, it was pretty good.  The whole zombie / random mutating monsters thing was, well, it was what it was.  Exciting and a bit overkill at times.  But the characters and their reactions to the chaos and each other were very believable.  I found a few typos in the narrative but not many - enough to jar me out of that particular page but not enough where I couldn't get back in.

And, warning, there is a sexual assault scene at one point.  DeLouie doesn't go into great detail but it's there.

There's a community called 50bookchallenge and it's pretty much exactly what it says on the tin - you try and read 50 books in a year.  In 2009, I read 82 books (I didn't track prior to that) but over the last two years, that's dropped down to 44 and then 45.  Not horrible but I know I had long dry spells of no reading at all and it's nice having an actual number to try and hit.

I don't know if I'm going to join the actual challenge comm or not but I'll keep track of it here, at least.

1.  Cold Fire (The Spiritwalker Trilogy, #2) by Kate Elliot

The follow-up to Cold Magic and probably every bit as good as we continue to follow Cat and her cousin Bee as they try to get to safety following the fall out from the previous book.  It obviously didn't go as planned.  It's an alternate universe that, in the author's own words, is an "Afro-Celtic post-Roman icepunk Regency fantasy adventure".  It can get kind of convoluted at times and a little overbearing but, all in all, the characters are great, the magic system is interesting and the romance is very nice.  (Also, there's a free 'chapter' on Elliot's blog that, um, expounds upon one romance scene.  *fans self* ;) )

I essentially read it in less than 24 hours and it's been a long time since I've done that.