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Library Books, Indulgence

Library Books. As Good as Chocolate.

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Self Indulgence. Again.

I drove to the library to keep my husband company while he picked up a book for himself and I am mortified to say I walked out with twelve library books.

Ok. So I know I said I wasn’t going to review any more library books until I had my next novel well underway. Lies. All lies.

This is why you can’t trust people who promise you things over the internet.

When I got home, I started reading before I took my coat off. Talk about lack of restraint. On the other hand, it had been more than a week. And I was feeling malnourished.

The first book I devoured was Night School by Lee Child. I love the consistent quality of his characters. Because of that consistency, Jack Reacher is completely believable in the way that Superman is believable. The world those two men exist in is tailor made for exactly the sort of people they are, so it works out. Superman wouldn’t fit in at the neighborhood softball game (Think about it – No one would volunteer to play on the opposite team), and Jack Reacher seems allergic to the routine of daily life, but luckily for these two guys, they seem to thrive in their strife filled fictional circumstances .

Personally, I think anyone who moves to Metropolis, or Gotham for that matter, is out of his mind. Can you imagine the property insurance costs for citizens of those cities?

Now I have once again decorated my space with partially read library books, Jennifer Crusie is lounging on my bureau, Katie MacAlister is reclining on my night table, Faye Kellerman is lolling on the couch and J.D. Spikes’ The Possession is lurking on my Kindle. I feel so much better.

Besides this blog entry, what are you reading?

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.

book

Book Fasts Impact the Entire Globe

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A book fast can make you hungry. Eat a cookie.

I finally know who I am writing for the next romance which in itself is pretty exciting. The hard part initially, at least for me, is figuring out who my main characters are and why it’s imperative I write their stories. And now I’m jittery with anticipation. And I am commencing a book fast.

But the aspect of this writing process which affects you, is the book fast which commences the moment I finish the remaining novel sitting on my library shelf.

“Book fast.” Your brow furrows. “Is there a benefit to reading faster?”

Maybe. Although the pages might catch fire.

No. This is more of a “no book for you until you finish your peas” situation.

So once I finish Sophie Hannah’s The Carrier, part of her Zailer and Waterhouse series which I mysteriously missed in my voracious gobbling of her work, that’s it. No more reading until I am well along into Jock Durrell’s love story.

“So what?” you say. “How does this impact on me?”

Here’s how. A significant shortage of shelf space will ensue in my local library since I will not be storing the usual number of books at my house. A librarian attempting to jam too many books on a shelf will shove too hard and a patron in the next aisle will suffer a sore foot from the books which tumble onto it. He will stomp around the corner and complain to the head librarian.

The head librarian will head out to a café for lunch with her husband but will snap at him when he doesn’t deserve it. Her husband, on his way back to work, will honk angrily at a slow procession of cars in front of him. At the head of the procession, a visiting dignitary who hails from a small pugnacious country, will take offense. He will threaten to bring suit against anyone who writes a novel using his country as a setting.

You see how it goes. Never mind a butterfly sneezing. It’s my not reading which has impact.

More to the point, it means the Wednesday Book of the Week feature will go on hiatus for a while. Instead, every Wednesday I’ll either review old favorites of mine, which might be new favorites for you, or just blather on in my usual inconsiderate way about topics of my choosing.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.

 

book review

Book Review: They May Not Mean To, But They Do

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Here it is. Your every so often book review.

I picked Cathleen Schine’s book, They May Not Mean To, But They Do, off the library shelf because the cover implied a kind of light impishness. And I know a book review of this sort is a lot more fun when I am laughing as I write it.

However, while the book is occasionally impish, it’s definitely not light. More of a “flickers of lit cabin windows while wandering in the dark woods” type of book. So, not a comedy. I would, however, qualify it as an important read.

They May Not Mean To is the story of a family growing older together. Schine pays close attention to the implications of the matriarch’s widowhood on her adult children. But she focuses even more intently on the widow herself. The balance between how Molly’s aging and widowhood effect her versus how her new status effects her children makes the book compelling. It is fascinating in a horrible “Oh no, the car is stuck on the tracks and the train is coming” sort of way.

The characters are complex and well fleshed out. But I don’t think Schine necessarily intended the reader to walk away thinking, “I wonder what happened to Molly?” The reader might but that may not be the goal.

Instead, the story is more an Everyman-type exploration of family dynamics in the wake of loss.

Shine pays careful attention to Molly’s complicated emotions and desires. Molly simultaneously wants and doesn’t want to spend time with her grown children. She wants and doesn’t want to be alone. And her children are legitimately torn between their desire to help and their resistance to making significant changes in their own lifestyles to do so.

They May Not Mean To is a good argument for the “There Are No Right Answers” theory of life. But I couldn’t help feeling frustrated at the lack of concrete solutions as I closed the book. Maybe that’s the point.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. If you liked this book review, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.

Book Review

Book Review: The Bear and the Nightingale

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If you hate spoilers, don’t look at the picture of the horses. Oh. Too late. Now you’re stuck reading a book review.

I suppose if I were a truly omnivorous reader, I would value every reading experience equally. But I don’t. For instance, I avoid reading those small print multi-page mailings I occasionally receive from a credit card company delineating some minor change in its relationship with me, even though I know a tiny person hunched over a wee typewriter spent hours typing it with her miniscule fingers.

Furthermore, I am instantly suspicious of a person who writes a book review. Recommending books is a bit like recommending a sex partner. Just because the reviewer liked the way he made her feel doesn’t mean I will. Which sounds pretty hostile, especially for someone who is about to present you with a book review.

I’ve become choosy. Life’s too short to read books you don’t enjoy. I’ve found that like cooking dinner, the more work a book takes to complete, the less likely it is to be enjoyable.

Which is a long way of saying if I finish a book, I know I liked it. And I did like The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden.

I had forgotten how much I enjoyed fairy tales although I do think writing fairy tales for adults is risky business. Successful fairy tales for children, the stories which have survived over time, are not preachy. They are gory and harsh, with no perceptible political message. Maybe they had one once, but we don’t remember it now.

It’s harder for adults writing for an adult audience to resist the siren call of moralizing, especially since adult readers are prone to looking for secondary meanings. But Arden mostly avoids that, which is impressive because it is her first novel. Instead she kept me focused on a fascinating time in Russian history about which I knew nothing. And now can say I know a little bit.

If you decide to read The Bear and the Nightingale, be aware there is a useful glossary of terms in the back I wish I had known about to begin with. But because Arden writes so well, I didn’t really need it.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.