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I had a surprising amount of time to read while in Vancouver - having to fly for 5 plus hours one way is useful for catching up on the reading material.

#14 - Dreadnought (The Clockwork Century, #3) by Cherie Priest


From the back of the book )


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#15 - Clementine (The Clockwork Century, #2
Back of the Book )


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#16 - Ganymede (The Clockwork Century #4 by Cherie Priest


The Back of the Book )


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#17 - To Defy a King (William Marshal #4) by Elizabeth Chadwick


Back of the Book )


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#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
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#11, Countdown: A Newsflash Novella by Mira Grant

The year is 2014, the year everything changed. We cured cancer. We cured the common cold. We died.

This is the story of how we rose.

When will you rise?


Eh, I was on a McGuire kick!  I enjoyed this, it was nice to see parts of what brought the Feed universe to live (heh, irony!) but, I don't know.  I'm not a huge novella or short story fan to begin with and this just didn't have the same kind of umph that the longer novels do.  What can I expect, I guess, since it is so much shorter but it was certainly my least favorite of anything she's written.

Again, maybe it's just my whole dislike of the novella/short stories showing through.
indiana_j: (Reading)
#10, One Salt Sea by Seanan McGuire

October "Toby" Daye is settling into her new role as Countess of Goldengreen. She's actually dating again, and she's taken on Quentin as her squire. So, of course, it's time for things to take a turn for the worse.

Someone has kidnapped the sons of the regent of the Undersea Duchy of Saltmist. To prevent a war between land and sea, Toby must find the missing boys and prove the Queen of the Mists was not behind their abduction. Toby's search will take her from the streets of San Francisco to the lands beneath the waves, and her deadline is firm: she must find the boys in three days' time, or all of the Mists will pay the price. But someone is determined to stop her-and whoever it is isn't playing by Oberon's Laws...

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.
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#8, The Tilian Virus by Tom Calen

The virus spread quicker than anyone could have imagined. Within days, over half the world's population became infected. Now a small band of survivors, led by high school teacher Mike Allard, must learn to live in a world ravaged by the deadly victims of the Tilian Virus.

Weaving together two separate time frames, The Tiian Virus is a tale of humankind's most dire hour. Faced with imminent elimination, humanity's last glimmers struggle to break through the darkness of a pandemic the world has never before experienced.


#9, The Tilian Effect by Tom Calen

Solace. Shelter. Safety.

For the survivors of the Tilian Virus, they thought their escape would lead them to a new beginning. But the effects of the virus reach far beyond simply infection.

A trusted member of the survivors hides a horrible past.

While in the wastelands of America, a new threat grows.

The bonds of friendship strain and shatter.

And the Tils become more deadly than ever.

The virus was just the beginning. Now the world must face the Tilian Effect.


*

Overall, these were really well done zombie books - the first one jumps back from present to past between chapters and that took some getting used to (and then he doesn't do that at all in the second one!).  Also, there were some editing issues (misspelled words being the most common) and, uh, a few moments were characters would go "NOOOO!" which, really, is silly.

But I enjoyed them outside of that.  I was thoroughly engaged and cared for the characters, the story was well paced in both and, while it won't win any awards, both books are good zombie books.  The third comes out in May.
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#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.
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#6 Ghost Story by Jim Butcher

Yeah, yeah, I finally got around to reading this.


Spoilers (like a year later) )
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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.
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4 in the 50 by 2013: Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James

Right, I have no idea why I downloaded this - this is, essentially, a murder mystery that takes place in the Jane Austin world of Pride and Prejudice after Elizabeth and Darcy have married.  I'm not sure what possessed me considering that while I love the movies, I really could never read the Austin books.  But, hey, murder mystery, why not?

Oh god, I really should have left it alone.  Which is really sad because the start was really good!  Well-paced, good grasp on characters, and the mystery was really gripping.

And then, it became less so.  I ended up skipping whole chapters out of sheer boredom (look, Darcy and Elizabeth are married and should probably be shown in the same room for more than a handful of pages), things kept being repeated and the mystery just stopped being entertaining.  I just stopped caring about anything right after I got half-way through the book.
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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.

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2.  Dead of Night by Jonathan Maberry (Kindle)

Here's an interesting bit of information for you and one of the reasons that I picked up the book in the first place.  My dad and Maberry were in high school together and had a number of classes together.  My dad mentioned him one day and I saw that he'd put out a few horror books, so I picked a Kindle version of one.

The book is pretty good and I'd say ranked against other zombie books, it comes in above the middle - not in the same realm as Feed but still pretty good.  The characters aren't always likeable, which is a good and bad thing, and he had an interesting take on how the infection came about and why it was released in the first place.  I did find myself lagging during the middle bits and just wanting to get to the end but overall it kept my attention.

I think my biggest thing really ended up being that I wished he'd expounded on some parts of the whole zombie idea thing and left off on some of the others.

(I really need to do a catch up post.  I had a great time out with Lauren last night and tonight I'm feeling a little under the weather thanks to the dinner I had out with the parents.  That'll pass but I think it'll pass thanks to me napping ...)
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There's a community called [livejournal.com profile] 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.

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