The Long Run and Other True Stories by Mishka Shubaly.

There's a game I like to play sometimes, in which I imagine myself writing a letter to my younger self. I.e. after three years at Oxford, I imagined trying to explain to my eight year old self that this exotic city I was seeing for the first time on a trip with my parents would one day look very mundane. Or every time I finish another book I imagine holding it up to four year old me and saying, "See. You did it. Don't ask how long it took; you'd probably cry."

By far one of the strangest letters, though, would be to my twelve year old self. That was the year I was in seventh grade, and I had first period history and whatever period math with this kid from Canada, Mishka Shubaly. We didn't ever really talk to each other. Our fathers were both glider pilots, and I think we exchanged about four words on that topic. By eighth grade, his family had moved away.

This was before the internet and email were available to the public, before Netscape turned the world wide web into the image laden, interactive experience it is today. I think the next time I ran across Mishka was when I joined Facebook, more than a decade after seventh grade. At that time he was nursing a self destructive substance abuse habit, so although he accepted my friend request and I visited his website and MySpace page, he wasn't really there. I remember thinking that this was too bad. Even though I barely knew him and wouldn't recognize him if I saw him, he had seemed nice enough.

Our friendship, though, was the kind made for Facebook. We weren't best buddies used to talking every day. We were acquaintances. In middle school we saw each other in the hall, sometimes, and knew each other's names. Every now and then one of us might have overheard the other making ridiculous comments, and on even rarer occasions we might have flashed each other a sarcastic thumbs up. These are the interactions perfectly preserved in the form of the Facebook feed, comments format, and "Like" feature.

The fact that both of us had become writers meant that our virtual paths began to cross more often, and somewhere along the line, he sobered up. I can't say when exactly we transitioned from two people who really didn't know each other to two writers who kept in semi-regular contact via social media. He began to write Kindle Singles and became a rising star. I began to indie publish chick lit and he still admitted in public that he knew me.

I quoted him in one of my books, and he tweeted about it to his fanbase. I joked with him in Facebook comments and garnered more than one suspicious glare from female admirers who wondered if I were competition (which, given I'm Mormon, married, and a mother of two small children, I find hilarious.) One night I got an email from Mishka that said something to the effect of: "Emily, I want to do a collection of all my Kindle Singles and I just emailed Jeff Bezos to ask if he'd be willing to do the foreword, and he emailed back right away to say yes. Will you format it?"

And so I did, of course. He sent me all of his Kindle Singles plus some bonus material, essays he'd published elsewhere. He sent me all the draft covers for each and we went through and figured out which ones to put on the pieces. He threatened to drive me crazy asking for constant changes, but I must say, he fell short of that.

If I were to write a letter to my twelve year old self, it would go something like this:

Dear Emily,

Twenty-seven years from now you will be trying to get your car checked in at a body shop and waiting on a promised rental car that is not there, when Mishka Shubaly will message you on your cell phone to explain that Jeff Bezos just emailed an updated draft of his foreword. You will need to put it in Mishka's ebook before upload time. As a result you will have some very tense conversations with several people at the rental car firm and end up being given the luxury sedan that the employee on site drove to work in that day. You will drive the entire length of Santa Fe with Mishka's texts pinging on your phone and get home just in time to get that forward redone and the file sent.

Oh, and the reason that random guy from Ms. Hue's class will be texting you is because that kind of thing happens now in 2014. You are also beta-reading his first novel and he owns a paperback of one of yours - you'll discover this when a mutual friend complements you on it and says, "Mishka loaned me his copy." By 2014, you'll even have met up with him again in person a few times, once in front of a pirate ship in London, where you greeted each other with a hug, and another time at a taco restaurant in Los Alamos, where neither of you lives anymore.

In fact, twenty-seven years from now you will talk to that guy, sitting a few tables away, more often than you speak with anyone else in this classroom. It's a long story, but a good one. I suppose I should also explain what cell phones and ebooks are and who Jeff Bezos is, but you'd likely find that every bit as confusing as the thought of being friends with that guy over there sporting a skater cut.

Enjoy the next quarter century and change,

Yourself

All of this is a very longwinded way of saying, The Long Run & Other True Stories: Foreword by Jeff Bezosis out and for sale. Go buy it. It contains fantastic writing by Mishka Shubaly who is a great guy, and - I'm very happy to say - an old friend of mine.

It's a giveaway to celebrate the release of STOLEN MAGIC by Stephanie Burgis!

To celebrate the release of Stolen Magic by the wonderfully talented Stephanie Burgis, she is holding a giveaway of one witch's heart ring, which I designed for the book! To enter, go to her post with pictures of the ring and an outline of the rules, here.

And I highly recommend this series. These were some of the most fun, heartwarming books I've read in a long time.

My interview with Ian Tregillis, on Black Gate

Today's post is actually a link to an interview of Ian Tregillis I posted last week on Black Gate, one that I am writing this corresponding post for now, after the fun disruption that was Ellen Datlow's Kickstarter campaign - which got funded in full, by the way!

I interviewed Ian when I was home in New Mexico this last summer, and it was one crazy interview because we kept cracking each other up and making jokes that were rather out there. He and I have spent WAY too much time alone on long car rides and hence have taken already lame jokes and dragged them out past the outer limits of absurdity.

So I did a lot of editing on this interview so that it's exclusively about our time together in Critical Mass, a writer's group of pros in northern New Mexico, and Ian's Milkweed Triptych, which is on of the most awesome novel series there is. And no, that's not a lame joke made absurd. I'm being honest there.

Head on over and listen to Ian and I crack each other up (and maybe you'll find us funny too), and then head over to the nearest bookstore or book website and buy Ian's books! Also, here is Ian's website.

Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde

Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I always like spending more time with Thursday Next in her weird and wild world of alternate steampunk historical Britain in the 80's, and if that seems like a lot of adjectives strung together, then you need to take a deep breath before picking up this book. It's jammed full of subplots - so many that I'm not really sure which one I'd call the main plot. Thursday is told by her time traveling father that if Swindon doesn't win the SuperHoop (the world cup of the lawn croquet world) then a chain of events will lead to Armageddon, so there's that. Then there's also a character from fiction set to become the dictator of the UK, and no one can figure out which book he's from. Thursday wants to apprehend him, and his rise to power is supposedly tied to the SuperHoop. Add in Thursday's non-existent husband (a big evil corporation killed him as a child via time travel), Hamlet being stuck in the world of non-fiction while the characters in Hamlet and The Merry Wives of Windsor stage a coup and try to combine the plays, two people out to kill Thursday: a minotaur from fiction and a contract killer called the Windowmaker (due to a mistype in the first set of stationery she ever ordered), Thursday losing her job at SpecOps, a plot to save banned Danish books from being burned, and then some Neanderthal rights issues. Those are the bigger plots. There are also smaller ones, like bringing the President back from death's door and suchlike.

While I do enjoy Fforde's writing, I also miss the relative straightforwardness of The Eyre Affair, which is just a great book. I'm hoping the rest of the books in this series don't keep getting more convoluted (and yes, I know they've all been out for years, I'm slow).

Ancient, Ancient by Kiini Ibura Salaam

Ancient, Ancient by Kiini Ibura Salaam
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've had the privilege of knowing Kiini for over a decade. We were classmates at Clarion West in 2001. One of the best things about that workshop was the people I met; Kiini and I write in very different niches in the genre, and yet she and I have been able to trade a lot of advice and anecdotes on the business of writing. She's also brilliant. Here's my review of her latest collection:

Salaam's a true master of the craft; I read her to learn as much as to enjoy. Her plots are delicately constructed, but I think of them in jeweler's terms. They are the setting for the gems that are her scenes that ooze passion, emotion, and sensuality. With clever formatting, she achieves cinematic intercut scenes, modulates the voice of characters to let us see them from the inside, and shows the scene from different such perspectives, your head spin if it wasn't all so enthralling.

People who know my work should note, Salaam writes with an unabashed sexuality. If you prefer my LDS chick lit, this is *definitely* different. Be ready to check preconceptions and inhibitions at the door. In Salaam's world, the depths of one man's shame are as expansive as our universe and the fall of an angel from a religion older than time evokes a soft pain washed away by morning. A former student of Octavia Butler and Nalo Hopkinson, Kiini Ibura Salaam takes the genre in new and mind blowing directions.

View all my reviews on Goodreads

Insurgent, by Veronica Roth

Insurgent by Veronica Roth
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Tris and the rest of the refugees from Dauntless have escaped Chicago after enduring a horrific night in which they were forced to murder defenseless civilians. Now they're in the Amity compound and safe, right?

Wrong. The forces that led up to the disturbing end of the last book are still in play, and even worse, it's hard to know who's on which side. The one thing you do know is that being Divergent means you're marked for death, and Tris and Tobias are still Divergent. This, plus their troubled relationships with their families should make their relationship stronger, right?

Wrong. The stress of being hunted takes its toll on these two, and they're still teenagers in their first relationship after all. As the story unfolds, you're left wondering whether these two will pull through, or will they come apart just like the world around them.

It's just disgusting that a writer this young writes this well. Veronica Roth's sequel is spectacular, in my opinion, because it avoids so many pitfalls that sequels can fall into. It has a story and isn't just the same beloved characters wandering around without much plot. Things get complicated and people we care about get hurt, and by the end, Roth has raised the stakes yet again.

In this book prepare to:

1) see another side to Tobias and learn more about his past. It's much more complicated than you'd think.
2) watch the main character suffer and struggle and even screw up in some heartbreaking ways. That's what makes her ultimate triumph all the more satisfying.
3) see the setting from entirely different perspectives. You spend some time with Amity, overhear Faction leaders discuss politics, and infiltrate the ranks of the factionless. And then there's the ending, which changes everything, but I'm not giving that away.

It's a well crafted book when all the elements have depth and become more interesting upon closer examination. I highly recommend this one!

This series begins with Divergent.
View all my reviews on Goodreads

#SundayShorts and Under the Needle's Eye on Ritesh Kala's Book Reviews

I know, I'm behind on my blogging again. Let me catch up here. An innovative blogger has developed the new #SundayShorts meme. This is a fantastic opportunity for people who read, write, and love short stories. Participating bloggers blog about a short story or anthology or collection on Sunday and backlink their reviews to the original meme creator, Cabin Goddess's, post.

Ritesh Kala was awesome enough to feature Under The Needle's Eye for his #SundayShort this weekend. Go check out his post. If you like short stories, jump onboard this meme and blog them on Sundays! (And if you want to blog about anyone from Needle's Eye, I'm happy to put you in touch ;-)

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Divergent by Veronica Roth
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Beatrice was born into the Abnegation faction of post-apocalyptic Chicago, where people are either in one of the five rigid factions, or are factionless refugees living amongst the rubble of the former city. Most people, at the age of sixteen, take an aptitude test to find which faction they are best suited for, and then choose the faction they would like to join. The vast majority stay with their families, because faction trumps blood and if they leave their family's faction, they loose all contact, or near enough.

When Beatrice goes in for evaluation and is put in the simulation, she learns that she can have control of herself, and therefore to lesser extent, her surroundings. Hence her result isn't conclusive. There are three factions she could join, but there's no way the examiner is putting that in her report. The examiner explains that this means Beatrice is Divergent, and that is a deadly condition. Deadly because such people tend to have a lot of tragic accidents when no one is looking.

The next day, in the choosing ceremony, Beatrice selects Dauntless, the faction dedicated to eradicating fear, and leaves her Abnegation family behind. From the choosing ceremony, she and the other initiates run out of the building and must jump onto a moving train to get to their faction headquarters. Not all of them make it, and thus Beatrice, who renames herself Tris, is thrown headfirst into training regime that breaks the weak, and from which it will be very hard to hide her Divergent condition, even though her life depends on it.

It is absolutely disgusting how young this author is. I don't have a problem with someone landing a book deal when they're 21, or hitting the New York Times Bestseller List when they're 22. What makes me so disgusted is that this woman deserved both. She is *that* good at an age when I was still learning how to format a manuscript, let alone write one worth reading.

But my issues aside, I unreservedly recommend this book. It rides the wave of post-apocalyptic fiction that's big right now, but isn't derivative in any way. This isn't Hunger Games or Uglies or Angelfall. It's a work all its own, and the beginning to what promises to be an exciting trilogy.

Are You Lonesome Tonight? by Mishka Shubaly

Are You Lonesome Tonight? by Mishka Shubaly
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read one version this essay a while ago, one night when I was up due to insomnia and trawling Facebook to see what old friends and acquaintances were up to (Mishka's a former classmate). On first read, it's a textbook example of how to control the flow of information and keep the reader right where you want them, to have them believe they know the story and then turn that belief on its ear in the space of a few words.

When it went up on Amazon I bought it, because it still stood out in my memory, and on second read, I was able to appreciate the ironic humor, the unlikely optimism, the statements so true that they're both hilarious and depressing (such as that love would make a pretty terrible drug. Drugs are more reliable and much, much easier to come by.) It's a talented individual who can take random life events and spin a coherent and compelling narrative, and a rare one who can find humor when life is anything but funny.

I should note, for anyone who read the previous version, this one is not the same. It's revised and longer, and tells much more about what came after the end of the relationship.

The Long Run by Mishka Shubaly

The Long Run by Mishka Shubaly
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I don't normally read drug memoir essays. I'm tired of long, arrogant ruminations by people who've wrecked their lives and believe that in the process they have learned some deep truth about how existence really is this pointless wasteland (does it ever occur to them that if you destroy anything, it tends to look pointless and wasted afterwards?) and those of us who haven't dared to live on the edge subsist in a fiction of our own making (really, if I want to see truth, I think not taking hallucinogenics is the way to go, but hey, that's just me.) I'm amused by the idea that a gritty description of the smell, taste, and texture of vomit spewed into a gutter is a great artistic accomplishment.

This essay, however, walks the sword edge of truth between needless glorification of alcoholism and simplistic platitudes about getting clean. Shubaly's drinking didn't wreck his life in the conventional sense. He's one of those people with enough brain power that he can subsist on a cocktail of drugs and alcohol and still get straight A's in school and hold down a job. By the same token, quitting drinking didn't land him in a blissful existence full of love, acceptance, and beauty. Rather, this essay reads like a journey through the proverbial tunnel to the light at the end, except the light isn't the kind that warms you up and makes the world look glorious (he tells the reader what drug to take if you want to see that one), but rather the kind that illuminates life as it is, with all its shabbiness and drudgery, its disappointments, hard choices and all around frustrations. Most important, it faces head on the fact that once you give up one obsession, life will still ask you, "So what now?" and while the answers might come more automatically with practice, they will never get easier.

I am glad Mishka's back and willing to tell the tale of where he's been. He and I were middle school classmates, people who could probably recognize each other on sight (if we're looking), pronounce each others last names (Shubaly has the stress on the second syllable, if I remember correctly), and have on rare occasions said something to the other, and on even rarer occasions said something that requires more than a smirk, chuckle, or sarcastic thumbs up in response. For years we've been connected on Facebook, but only recently have I seen him tearing up the virtual hallways with his crazy sense of humor and posting the odd (in all senses of the word) comment on someone's wall. There are a lot of things I was happy to leave behind in middle school, but I'm glad my association with Mishka wasn't one of them. Life isn't always pretty, but it's the people we share it with and who pace us on the long run that make the journey worthwhile.

Above World by Jenn Reese

Above World by Jenn Reese
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Set in the far future when humans have taken evolution into their own hands, there isn't a single unmodified homo sapien in this book. Instead people have diverged into sea dwelling Kampii (we'd call them mermaids), deep sea deepfell, airborn aviars, desert centaurs, and subterranean snakemen - all of the vivid imagery of fantasy rendered as science fiction. The story kicks off when Aluna, a Kampii about to receive her tail (they do this by swallowing a gene modifier) questions her village elders about their policy of absolute isolation from the rest of the world. Their very existence depends on technologies, such as the gene modifiers and necklaces that allow them to breath underwater, that they no longer know how to make or repair, so when it fails, so will their civilization.

Aluna and her best friend head for the Above World, and I won't spoil the adventures they have there in search of HydroTek, the company whose logo is on their breathing necklaces. I'll just say that there are a lot of cool settings, and some awesome fight scenes, both of which pay homage to Reese's other talents. Besides being a writer she is also a graphic designer and a martial artist. There is also a wonderful cast of supporting characters who can fly, swim, sing, shoot venom, and control computers through a furry animal interface. Admit it, that list has at least piqued your curiosity. I'm glad this is the first of a series, as I look forward to seeing what happens next.


  

The True Adventures of Hector Kingsley by Kindal Debenham

The True Adventures of Hector Kingsley by Kindal Debenham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Right from the beginning, I was hooked. Of course, it's hard not to be when a story opens with the hero being held up at gunpoint by two hired killers, one of whom is a werewolf. This is some of the best steampunk I've read because it captures not just the whirling gears and Victorian aesthetic, but also the Victorian language and setting of London. In Debenham's world, humanity has found a material called the Distillation which alters the fundamental nature of matter. It will make a gear spin of its own accord or make a mechanical wing flap. When a person is exposed, their fundamental nature is augmented. Hunters take on some of the aspects of their hounds. Fiery tempered people become fiery in the literal sense of the word. These Changelings live as outcasts in polite society.

Hector Kingsley works as an investigator in this milieu, solving cases with both his natural intellect and the help of some Distillation technology. A nobleman with a blast crater in his front yard wants to know who made an attempt on his life. A school for Changelings in the industrial sector is victim to some hateful graffiti that the owners fear may be a warning of worse to come. With the help of a hilarious woman bounty hunter (from the rough and tumble USA) and two of his Distillation Changed friends, Hector has to put all the pieces together before lives are lost.

So why the four stars? Well, it'll have five when I post a copy of this review on Amazon. Here I'll just point out, for what it's worth, that there are some logistical issues. The most obvious, to me, was that a character who is taken hostage has the ability to walk through walls, which would make her very hard to catch or contain, so I didn't quite understand why she was in any danger. Some special Distillation handcuffs might be in order there. There was quite a bit of repetitive language - i.e. the main character would narrate twice things like his happiness that he wasn't dropped off too far from his home and thus was able to get there straightaway. And there were some English/American translation errors. The "first" floor of a building here in the UK is what we Americans would call the second. What we'd call the first, Brits call the ground floor. One wouldn't put a foundry on the first floor over here. All minor stuff, though, and not enough to detract from a good fun ride. I'm glad to see this is one of a series.
 

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don't expect my review or other ones like it to deter people from reading this book. Anyone who follows this series is going to want to know what happens to the characters they love and the world they inhabit. Though I don't often think this, I hope the movie franchise Hollywood-izes the finale. Without giving too much away, I felt this ending was an attempt to portray what would really happen to people in the circumstances these characters have been in.

There are two problems with this, though. 1) Readers will be used to reading these books as an escape from real life, not to have gritty reality rubbed in their faces and 2) I didn't find it realistic. See, the thing is, I know people who've been tortured. One of my teachers was a survivor of Robben Island and has been one of Amnesty International's highlighted prisoners for a year. A letter writing campaign moved him from one torturous situation (I don't remember which, because before being on Robben Island and after, he was shunted around to work camps and other horrific places) to a slightly less torturous one. Another advisor of mine was imprisoned in Chile's national stadium, which was converted in to an enormous prison when their Marxist government was overthrown. I've known people who were child soldiers, refugees, and the survivors of genocide attempts, so when I say Mockingjay is unrealistic, I don't mean that I merely wish life were different.

I felt that this series started with a promise, that Katniss was going to be someone whose journey mattered, and I felt this third book fell a little short of that promise. Her final act of rebellion is shrouded in a haze of psychological detachment. It's hard to say why she did it. The love triangle is resolved for her, not by her. My biggest disappointment, though? Peeta. He was the survivor of the Hunger Games who lacked the ruthlessness to win them. He was a classic example of someone who's witnessed atrocities and not allowed himself to be changed by them. I fully expected him to go on to have a major role in the new political system, and what happened instead made me wonder why I'd been following his journey all this time. I don't regret reading this book at all. I had to know how things turned out, but I think the characters I met in the first book really were capable of more.


 

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was very glad to have this to read the moment I finished Hunger Games. In this book, the plot gets going when President Snow visits Katniss to tell her that her actions in the Games have brought Panam to the brink of rebellion, and if she doesn't quell it, she and many other inhabitants of the districts are going to die. It's clear that Snow has it in for her, and he may even have toyed with the rules of the games to put her in danger once again.

Meanwhile Gale has made his move to court Katniss, but she's stuck pretending to love Peeta. The poor girl isn't free to figure out whom she really loves. She doesn't dare love anyone, because she knows that every bond she has with anyone else is a weakness, it's one more person the government can go after in its relentless manipulation.

I did have a few gripes though. I thought Snow's demand that she pretend to love Peeta was a little ridiculous. The inhabitants of the Districts read whatever they wanted into her beating the Gamesmasters. Her showing up and pretending to be in love with Peeta isn't going to make any real difference. I also thought Katniss was unbelievably dim about the mockingjay symbol and people's attempts to get through to her.

But it finished with a bang (literally) and launches the reader right into the finale. A very good second act of the trilogy.

Open Minds by Susan Kaye Quinn

Open Minds by Susan Kaye Quinn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Obviously I'm going to support fellow Scribblers Cove blogger, Susan Kaye Quinn. When I saw that she'd written a book about telepathy, I did cringe, as I overdid telepathy in my teens and was really burnt out on the concept. But much to my joy, this book managed to make it new, interesting, and different. In this world, everyone's a telepath and that changes all of human interaction. Technology now uses a mind interface and people rarely talk aloud, or even touch skin to skin.

The main character, sixteen-year-old Kira, is a zero, which means she hasn't developed any telepathic abilities yet. In this society, that makes her a cripple, one who'll likely never get a higher education, marry, or have children. Only, when her best friend tries to kiss her, she panics and he passes out. It turns out she isn't a zero after all. She's something entirely different and more than a little frightening.

And with that setup, the plot goes rolling forward. The prose is clean and easy to read, the action moves along at a good clip, the characters are well rounded an face real moral dilemmas that have no easy answer. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes near future science fiction, stories about telepathy and psychic powers, or any teenager with an inner geek to satisfy!

  

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

No real surprise that I loved this book, as it's right up my alley. If you liked Scott Westerfield's Uglies, you're probably right in the target audience for Hunger Games. Katniss Everdeen lives in a post apocalyptic Appalachia, now called District 12, where the upper class keep stores in town, the underclass work in the mines, and everyone fights poverty and starvation. Their raw goods are shipped to the Capitol, which appears to be in the Denver area or somewhere like it, where the citizens live lives of luxury and excess, and enjoy their annual Hunger Games.

These require each District to send two children, drawn by lottery, into an arena to play Survivor - though rather than voting people off, the losers die. And you can have more than one loser a week, or even a day. When the action slows down, the Gamesmakers unleash firestorms, droughts, mutated animals, or whatever else they can dream up to get the action going again.

When Katniss's little sister has her name drawn for the Games, Katniss volunteers in her stead. What makes this premise effective is the concept of the Games, where the reader knows no one is safe and nothing is sacred. Toss in a bunch of sympathetic characters like Peeta, the other tribute from District 12 who has a heart of gold and a silver tongue, and Rue from District 11 who is a small child barely able to lift a weapon, and the stage is set for real drama.

I confess I did get annoyed whenever Katniss lucked out of a situation. It sometimes felt like the author pulled her punches, but you know what? The finale was so strong that I did not care one bit once I reached the end. I loved the resolution to the Games and the subsequent final note of the novel. Reading this was a great way to spend an afternoon.

 

Don't Fear the Reaper by Michelle Muto

Don't Fear the Reaper by Michelle Muto
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've been aware of Michelle Muto for months, but only just got around to reading one of her books. She's an up and coming indie writer whom I hope we'll be hearing a lot more from.

If it weren't for holiday craziness, I'd have read this in one sitting - partly because it's well written and easy to devour, and partly out of desperation to see if things ever get better for the protagonist. I should warn you, the main character commits suicide in the first scene, and Muto doesn't pull punches when describing the scene, sensations, or the horrified reactions of family when they discover the body.

Once dead, Keely Morrison finds herself in purgatory, which in this case is right here on earth. Her welcoming party are a demon and a reaper, no angels, which doesn't bode well for where she'll end up, but here's the catch, there's some dispute among the higher powers over where she ought to spend eternity and the decision won't be handed down until her funeral. Her job in the meantime is to avoid any temptations that will take her out of heaven's reach.

But how easy is that to do in Keely's situation? She killed herself out of grief in order to find her sister, Jordan, a murder victim. The murderer is still at large and not slated to go to trial. Demons offer her the chance to take out her revenge on him, but if she does, that'll condemn her to hell. Add to this the fact that her demon escort, sent to tempt her, isn't always clear cut in his motives. Is he really trying to help her sometimes, or is that just another layer of deception?

Add to *that* the fact that Jordan is still in purgatory herself, when Keely assumes that she'd have gone straight to heaven. The story there puts yet another twist on the moral dilemmas of the plotlines. I'll admit I did predict the ending, but I still enjoyed sitting back and watching it unfold.

  

Dragon Haven by Robin Hobb

Dragon Haven by Robin Hobb
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love Robin Hobbs' Rain Wilds setting, a rain forest steeped in ancient magic that spreads through the human population like a cancer. In this most recent trilogy, the wielders of said magic are back in the world. A clutch of malformed, undernourished dragons travel with their appointed keepers (people so touched by magic that they are misfits in their society) search for an ancient city that may not even exist anymore.

As with most of Hobbs' books, it's the rich detail of the setting that makes the book so enjoyable. I love the characters too, especially the women who are drawn as individual and strong. These traits make life more difficult for them in their respective societies, and Hobbs doesn't gloss that over.

There is some clumsy plotting, including a deus ex machina ending and some stagnation in character development - where a character struggles with an issue, has a transformative experience that ought to advance them through their struggle, but then continues on struggling as if that experience had never happened. That may be realistic, but it can get in the way of a good story. The other positive points in this book allowed me to ignore these flaws, though. All books have some flaws, this one was still a great read.

This trilogy starts with Dragon Keeper (Rain Wilds Chronicles, Vol. 1) , and the first books Hobb wrote about this world are the The Farseer Trilogy (Assassin's Apprentice, Royal Assassin & Assassin's Quest) 3 vols. .

        

The Double Comfort Safari Club by Alexander McCall Smith

The Double Comfort Safari Club by Alexander McCall Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As you can see, I'm a real fan of this series, and this one didn't disappoint. Set in Botswana and centered around the lives of two women who run a detective agency plus their families, the setting and characters now feel like old friends. There was real drama in this one; Phuti Radaphuti is changed forever. Other plotlines include an inheritance from a well to do American. Mma Ramotswe must find the safari guide described in the will. And Violet Sephotho strikes again. This time she steals a house! There are the usual happy coincidences that keep the characters' lives running smoothly. After reading so many of these, my expectations are adjusted accordingly.

These books, for me, provide a nice break, especially when I've been reading books that haven't flowed smoothly. Those always slow my reading down, but one of these books speeds it right back up again. If you like the series, I'd definitely recommend this one as well.

This series begins with The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency.

 
         

The White Queen by Philippa Gregory

The White Queen by Philippa Gregory
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was ready for this one to be tedious, because it is set during a tedious era, in my opinion, the Wars of the Roses when the houses of York and Lancaster keep snatching the throne of England back and forth from each other. Gregory keeps true to the history, so yes, there is some tedium, but she picked a fantastic main character, Elizabeth Grey, who becomes Queen of England against the odds. At the time, people suspected her and her mother of witchcraft because she was an older woman, a widow, and had little to offer the King in terms of political advantage.

Philippa Gregory researched this woman's background and discovered that she may have considered herself an enchantress, thus giving fodder to the rumor mill. Elizabeth is a fascinating viewpoint character, a woman from another time and a mysterious, occult culture.

There are a lot of loose ends in this period of history, though. Key players go missing and it isn't known if they were killed, hidden away or if they fled. Gregory has done impressive research and put together some very plausible theories that kept me interested. But do be ready, as you read this, to watch England get torn apart by war over, and over, and over again.