Secret Agents & Evil Geniuses

Curtsies & Conspiracies (Finishing School #2) by Gail Carriger (Little, Brown  Books for Young Readers hardcover, 5 November 2013).

Life at Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality is never dull, especially not for Miss Sophronia Temminnick.  She's excelling in her studies, but is also doing very well at getting in trouble.

Her nocturnal wanderings around the dirigible help her stay informed about things like who the vampire Professor Braithwope feeds from, and why the school is suddenly heading to London.  But although she doesn't know why some boys from Bunson & Lacroix's Polytechnique (a school for budding evil geniuses) are  joining them on this field trip, she does know that they are extremely annoying (except, perhaps for her best friend Dimity's brother Pillover).

Carriger has a wonderful way with language:  lessons include "tea and delusions"  and "portion allotment, puddings and preemptive poisonings".  Pillover shovels "mutton into his maw as if sheep were soon to be obsolete".

And the names!  "Lord Dingleproops", "Professor Shrimpdittle" and Sophronia's mechanimal pet sausage dog, "Bumbersnoot".

Readers of Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series and other aficionados of steampunk fiction who (for some strange reason) may not know of this series aimed at teens will love Sophronia's adventures.  It isn't necessary, though highly recommended that one begin withe the first book in this series, Etiquette & Espionage, where we meet Sophronia and learn how she ends up at Madmoiselle Geraldine's. 

If you haven't already pre-ordered this, what are you waiting for?



FTC Full Disclosure:  Many thanks to Little, Brown and Edelweiss for the e-galley of this book.

Engagement Ring

Blood Bath and Beyond (Immortality Bites #1) by Michelle Rowen (Obsidian mass market, 7 August 2012).

Sarah Dearly has only been a vampire for a few months, but she's engaged to a six-hundred-year-old vampire named Thierry de Bennicour.  She's madly in love with him, but even though he's not very open about his feelings (or anything else), she's pretty sure he feels the same way. 

After saying goodbye to her best friend (still human) who's moving from Toronto to Vancouver, she returns to the condo she shares with Thierry to find a large suitcase just inside the door.  Apparently, Thierry has received an "offer he can't refuse" from the vampire council known as The Ring.  Thierry was actually instrumental in organizing The Ring centuries earlier, but hadn't been involved with it for a long time. 

Although he refuses to tell her what hold they have over him, he does finally agree to her going along  with him on his first assignment.  Their destination is Las Vegas, where human corpses have been found for several days in a row, drained of blood and with fang marks on their necks. 

Sarah, however, is a trouble magnet.  Everything that can go wrong, does, including Thierry being falsely accused of murder and put on house (luxury suite) arrest.  He does manage to get the council to agree to let Sarah return home, but she can't just sit around and wait.  To her, the only option is to clear Theirry's name.

There are many, many paranormal novels being released lately, and this is one of the better ones.  With Sarah Dearly, Michelle Rowen has created an appealing protagonist, who, despite attracting trouble at every turn, somehow manages to keep going.  Rowen's writing is polished, and the story is lightly, wryly humorous.

At the end of the book is an excerpt from the second book in the series, Bled and Breakfast, though no publication date is provided.

Backwards in Time...

Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy #2) by Deborah Harkness.

One of the downsides of reading the first book of a planned series is waiting the many, slowly-passing months (sometimes years) until the second book is released.  Anxious fans of Diana and Matthew de Clermont are finally able to learn what happens after the cliffhanger ending of A Discovery of Witches.

Shadow of Night picks up immediately after the newlyweds time-jump back to Sixteenth Century England.  The purpose of their return is to find Ashmole 782, the magical manuscript that slipped out of Diana's hands in the 21st Century, as well as to find someone to to train Diana in witchcraft.  The reader might expect thoroughly modern Diana to have more trouble adjusting to the relatively primitive lifestyle, but she seems to have few problems.  And as a historian, Diana is in heaven, delving into the study of alchemy and revelling in experiencing what she'd previously (later?) only read about.

Both Diana and Matthew intellectually understand the necessity of not changing history through their actions, but they find it difficult not to apply their modern sensibilities to Elizabethan life. As Matthew already existed in the earlier time, he already has a home, a job, and contacts, making slipping in somewhat easier than it would be otherwise, although some of his sharp-eyed associates do note some behavioral inconsistencies.

 Both characters are more fully developed here than in the previous installment, and gone is Diana's emotional similarity to the lovesick Bella Swan.  The Elizabethan Diana, despite being in an unfamiliar environment and more dependent on her husband for behavioral guidance, seems more self-assured and less inclined to put up with Matthew's autocractic ways and secrecy.

Deborah Harkness

An interesting way of reminding the reader that the couple does not belong in the 16th Century is including chapters that describe what their families are doing in their present.  There are many, many characters in each of the places where the Roydons (as they are known in the past) visit in search of Ashmole 782, and luckily Harkness includes an appendix with lists of characters separated by time/location, though it may have served better at the beginning of the book.

It's fun to hang out with Matthew's cadre of famous 16th Century friends and acquaintances, and the experience of hunting for the manuscript is interesting enough that finding it doesn't feel as urgent as it did in the last book. It is necessary to have read A Discovery of Witches in order to understand Shadow of Night, but the second is a more interesting story.   This one is definitely a book to be read and digested slowly.




*FTC Full Disclosure: Many thanks to the publisher, who sent me a copy of the book for review purposes.

Teen Tuesday

Insatiable by Meg Cabot*

Although this series was intended for adults, I think it's equally (or maybe even  more) appropriate for the young adult market.

Insatiable introduces us to Meena Harper, a young woman who writes for a popular daytime drama called Insatiable, and has the annoying ability to predict how people will die.  Meena doesn'tbelieve in vampires, and is self-righteously miffed when she's informed that the soap opera will be introducing  a story arc featuring one.

Then, she meets Lucien Antonescu, who just happens to be the son of Dracula.  He saves her from certain injury due to an attack by evil bats.  She falls head-over-heels in love with him, and they begin to develop a relationship.

Of course, at first Meena doesn't believe that Lucien is a supernatural being, but eventually she begins to realize that vampires are much more common than she could possibly imagine.  She even has neighbors who are vampires, for heaven's sake!

The story is written in a charming tongue-in-cheek style, and is obviously Ms. Cabot's response to recent proliferation of intense paranormal romantic fiction.  Cabot does have stray from the facetious tone on occasion, but  on the whole, this is an enjoyable, laugh-out-loud interpretation of the genre.

The reviewer with Meg Cabot, earlier this year.

Meg Cabot is the author of many books for adults, teens, and younger readers including the Heather Wells mysteries, the Princess Diaries series, and the Allie Finkle series.  She also wrote the Mediator and the 1-800-Where-R-You young adult series under the pseudonym Jenny Carroll.

FTC full disclosure: This was a library book.*

Just finished reading

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness.

In the world of this book, there are humans and creatures. Creatures are supernatural beings, and there are three types: witches, vampires and daemons. Although there is no open hostility between the three groups of creatures, they do not commingle.

Dr. Diana Bishop is working on a paper at the Bodleian Library in Oxford when she comes across a book which seems to respond to her touch.

The Reading Room of the Bodleian

The last of the Bishops, an august New England family of witches, Diana prefers not to make use of her abilities, maintaining that she wants to succeed as a scholar due to her intelligence and hard work, not magic. Thus, she is somewhat surprised by what happens with Ashmole 728, as the manuscript is called.

She's even more surprised the next day when the library is filled with creatures of all varieties, apparently attracted by the "awakening" of valuable Ashmole 728, which had been missing for centuries. Rushing to escape the magical bedlam, she runs into Dr. Matthew Clairmont, who, though he happens to be a vampire, helps her to elude all those who are suddenly trying to get close to her and therefore, the manuscript.

Diana had returned the book to the stacks, and though she requests it again when she realizes it's importance, it cannot be found. She and Matthew begin to search for it, and as they get to know each other, they fall in love.

Dr. Harkness' universe proves that there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to supernatural beings. All three groups are different from each other, and from those described in other literature, though also the same in some respects. The vampires here are quite capable of being in sunlight, although they do survive on blood. Witches (female) and wizards (male) inherit their magic, although they do need to be trained. Not as much concrete information is imparted about daemons here, other than that they can be very powerful, and good or evil (as with all individuals).

Some of the romantic scenes are a bit trite; Diana comes across as a lovesick teenager early in her relationship with Matthew. Once past that, however, Harkness' writing is absorbing, and most of the characters are well-defined. What's important here is the Story, and a compelling one it is.

The ending is something of a cliffhanger, as this is the first volume of a proposed trilogy. The second book in the All Souls Trilogy, Shadow of Night, will be released in July 2012.


The Penguin Group is kindly providing a trade paperback copy of A Discovery of Witches to one of my readers. Please leave a comment below to enter. (Entries from the U.S. only, please.)

*FTC Full Disclosure: Many thanks to the publisher, who sent me a copy of the book for review purposes.

Just finished reading...

How to Party With a Killer Vampire by Penny Warner.*

Presley Parker's party planning business is doing pretty well. Her latest gig is a wrap party for a vampire movie, which is to be held in a cemetery.

The day before the party, as Presley is setting up, she meets some young adults who practice parkour. She warns them that they're trespassing, but they don't seem to care.

The next morning, they learn that one of them, known as "Spidey" is dead. At first it's assumed that he had fallen while running, but it's soon determined that he was murdered. The suspect list is long: any of the movie's cast and crew, some paparazzi, and the cemetery's creepy caretaker, Otto.

As usual, Presley doesn't think that the police are working quickly enough to find the killer, and puts herself in jeopardy by investigating on her own.

Presley is a charming protagonist, if a bit headstrong. Like many amateur sleuths, she walks into dangerous situations quite certain that she'll be able to defend herself. Often she's right, but occasionally she's wrong.

This is a light, quick read; occasionally funny but not at all frightening, despite the title.

Each chapter begins with a hint for planning the perfect vampire-themed party, and there are more ideas in an appendix.

The book concludes with a chapter of the next, as yet untitled Party-Planning Mystery, due in September of 2012.

*FTC Full Disclosure: Many thanks to the publisher, who sent me a copy of the book for review purposes.

Just finished reading...

The Diva Haunts the House by Krista Davis.*

In the latest book of the Domestic Diva mysteries, Sophie Winston is in charge of decorating a community haunted house. But her volunteers are resigning, complaining of seeing or hearing weird things. Sophie thinks they're letting their imaginations run a little too freely.

Meanwhile, Natasha Smith, rival diva, is again attempting to outdo Sophie by throwing her own Hallowe'en bash. The decorations in front of Natasha's house so realistic even the teenagers are frightened, but when Sophie pokes a dead pirate to prove to her niece that it's fake, she finds that the figure is a real human. The pirate is Patrick Starski, one of the guests at Natasha's party, and he's not just injured, but dead.

The police find two bloody marks on his neck, as though Patrick had been bitten by a vampire. Sophie knows this is not the case, but she's surprised by how many otherwise rational adults appear to believe that Patrick's death was caused by an erstwhile resident of Alexandria who claimed he was a vampire.

Sophie is truly a domestic diva. While morning coffee is brewing, she's whipping up a chicken marinade for her planned evening meal. When people drop by unexpectedly (which seems to happen on a regular basis) Sophie has frozen homemade baked goods she can pop in the microwave. Despite all this, Davis has managed to make her a likeable character who is enjoyable to read about.

Although this is already the fifth book in the series, the characters and plots have not grown stale. We are introduced to a new female police officer whose role might grow in future books. And, we still love to hate Natasha.

*FTC Full Disclosure: Many thanks to the publisher, who sent me a copy of the book for review purposes.

iDrakula

As a former young adult librarian, I still like to read books aimed at the age group, so when Bekka Black asked for people to read and comment on her new young adult project, I eagerly raised my hand.

The project, she explained, was an ebook, but not an ordinary, everyday one. iDrakula is a version of the classic tale transplanted to New York in 2010. Mina's boyfriend Jonathan Harker is his friend Randy's father Frank. He's been sent to Romania on business, and communicates with Mina by text message and email, until the batteries run out, and he is forced to be incommunicado.

For those who are unfamiliar with the Dracula story or vampire lore, screenshots include pages from the fictional Drakipedia and vMed, a virtual medical encyclopedia.

The book consists of iPhone and email screenshots, and will be available as an iPhone,iPod or iPad app this month for the extremely modest sum of 99 cents. A print version will also be available in early October.

It's a quick read, and lots of fun. Although I've only seen a black-and-white mock-up, the app version sounds intriguing, and I'm definitely going to spring for it.

Just finished reading...

Royal Blood by Rhys Bowen.*

Lady Georgiana Rannoch (Georgie to her friends), is again desperate. She has no job, no money, and her sister-in-law Fig has announced that she and Binky (Georgie's brother) will be joining her at Rannoch House in London. Georgie moved to London to avoid living with Fig, and wonders what to do now.

Once again, her relationship to the Queen works in her favour: Georgie is asked to represent the her Family at the wedding of her cousin (and old schoolmate) Princess Maria Theresa in Romania.

Along with a clumsy, inexperienced maid, and an overbearing chaperon, Georgie sets off for Romania. The wedding is to be held at Maria Theresa's ancestral home, a gloomy, isolated castle which was reportedly once inhabited by Vlad the Impaler, complete with a shadowy figure who prowls the halls at night.

The groom is from the Bulgarian royal family, and of course is accompanied by retainers and guards of his own. After dinner one night the Bulgarian Field Marshall Pirin collapses due to an apparent heart attack. Or is the ghostly prowler responsible for his death?

Luckily, the seemingly ubiquitous Darcy O'Mara is with the groom's party, and helps Georgie and her hapless maid to determine what's going on.

The fourth Royal Spyness mystery, despite the grim setting, is as charming as its predecessors. Highly recommended!

*Full disclosure: I received a review copy of the book from the publisher.

Just finished reading...

Wormwood by Susan Wittig Albert.

In the seventh of the series, China has been persuaded to get away from things, and goes to visit a friend in a Kentucky Shaker village to help out with a workshop. But her friend has ulterior motives: she's hoping China will investigate some unusual occurrences that cannot just be ascribed to Shaker ghosts.

This is the only one of the China Bayles books that is not completely written from China's point of view. There are several chapters that are supposed to be the journal entries of various early Shakers, which are very well written and impart a lot of historical information about the Shakers. I've heard from some of Wittig Alberts fans that they dislike this historical intrusion, and would just prefer a straight mystery, but I really enjoyed it.


Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris.

I expected to wait a lot longer to read the ninth in the Sookie Stackhouse series, but Katy ordered a copy from Amazon, and I was able to read it as soon as she finished (which was very quickly!). I, too, read it quickly, but I have to admit to some disappointment.

Now that vampires have been "out" for some time, the were community has decided to go public, too. Unfortunately, this does not go well for Sookie and those close to her. Her employer Sam's mother comes out to her husband, who shoots her. Sam rushes to her bedside and leaves Sookie in charge of Merlotte's. Sookie throws herself into the job, wanting to do the best she can for Sam, but her life becomes even more complicated when one of the local weres is found murdered behind the bar.

As much as I enjoy Ms. Harris' writing, I have to say that I think there's just too much going on in this book. Problems with vampires and weres are par for the course in Sookie's life, but when her otherworldly relatives start involving her in their problems it just seems to me to be too much for one narrative.

Despite those misgivings, I really did enjoy the tale, and am looking forward to the next installment in the series.

Just finished reading...

From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris

Wow! Is there ever a lot going on in this book!
Sookie is trying to settle down at home after the tragedy in Rhodes (see All Together Dead) with her new housemate Amelia, whose home was destroyed by Katrina.

The book is a series of incidents, rather than having a major plot.

Sookie fills in at the last minute as a bridesmaid for her friend Halleigh, when the original one is rushed to hospital. She learns more about her heritage, and the origin of her gift. And, as usual, she is called upon to act as a mediator for various supernatural communities.

I loved this book. It felt like I was spending a few weeks beside Sookie as she just went about her day-to-day business. She is such a likeable character, so concerned about doing what is right and not hurting people that she gets pulled into situations that she would rather avoid (like looking out for her brother Jason).

I'm eagerly awaiting the the ninth volume of Sookie's adventures.

Just finished reading...

Many Bloody Returns, edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner

I generally don't enjoy short stories because, well, they're too short. I get interested in the characters and the story, and feel frustrated when it ends. I bought this book anyway, because I'm a big fan of both the editors, and I'm not sorry I did.

The book includes stories by some of my favourite authors: Jim Butcher (whose entry is a Harry Dresden story), Charlaine Harris (who contributed a Sookie Stackhouse tale), Toni Kelner, and Elaine Viets.

I discovered some authors I hadn't read before, such as Rachel Caine. I loved her story The First Day of the Rest of Your Life, about a young woman's 18th birthday. That was one of the stories I wished would go on. As was Jeanne Stein's The Witch and the Wicked, about a witch who is a caterer.

That's not all, of course. I was thoroughly entranced by most... no ALL of the stories. I can't think of a single one I didn't like. And I'm definitely going to look for novels by the other contributors.