The Blue Fairy's Bookshelf

Mother Ocean, Daughter Sea Diana Marcellas, 2001 Recent eBook release - I received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley for the purpose of review. Premise: Brierley is a healer by birth, in a land where the people who had magic in the blood were thought to have been all killed long ago. Her calling brings her into politics and danger, and she’s not sure where her destiny will lie, or what she wants it to be. There are things I really liked about this book. I like the way Brierley’s magic works. I love her connections with previous generations of witches, knowing them mostly through secret diaries. I really like her philosophical musings about the place of those with magic, the choices they make to hide themselves. I like the hints about what could have gone so wrong between two peoples long ago. I love love LOVE her relationship with a late-introduced character, Megan. But then there’s a romance and everything is terrible. Some spoilers follow. Sure, it was rela...

Death at Victoria Dock (Phryne Fisher, Book 4) Kerry Greenwood, 1992 Premise: Miss Phryne Fisher has been a magnet for trouble before, but it’s still startling to be shot at while driving down the street. After witnessing a killing at the docks, Phryne is determined to see the killers pay, no matter if it leads her and her household into further danger. No, you’re not seeing things, I didn’t review books two or three. I did read them. I’ve really been enjoying Kerry Greenwood’s work for the past year. It’s great light bus reading. I wanted to mention this one in more depth because while I liked books two and three, this one really brought the things I liked in the first book back to the forefront. In the intervening time since book one, Phryne has settled her new household, and even added to it, taking in two orphaned girls. The double plot of this novel follows both the investigation of the murder of a young anarchist and the disappearance of a well-off young woman. Bo...

Catwoman: Volume 3: Under Pressure Ed Brubaker, Paul Gulacy, Sean Phillips, Diego Olmos, 2014 Premise: Sequel to No Easy Way Down . Selina returns from her road trip to find that the East End of Gotham needs her help more than ever. But she’s standing alone against a tide… Collects Catwoman #25-37. And so Ed Brubaker's run on Catwoman comes to an end, not quite with a bang. The writing is still pretty decent, although the larger plotting feels disjointed and awkward. The art however, is just bad. Paul Gulacy more or less ruined this book for me. It isn't so much that the characters are ugly, although they are. It's that they change drastically depending on the angle and are unrecognizable. If you didn't tell me that was supposed to be Holly and Karon, I would never have known. All of the women are frightening face on, with weirdly grotesque shading. It made it really difficult for me to enjoy the story, especially when the prior volumes had such good art. ...

Tales from High Hallack, Volume 3 Andre Norton, collection published 2014 Recent Release. I received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley for the purpose of review. Premise: A collection of Andre Norton’s short stories. No real uniting theme. I read this book some time ago, but put off writing about it. Partially, honestly, under that old rule: “if you can’t say something nice…” Was it a bad book? No. Not terrible, but neither was it great. Maybe these are the leftovers and volumes one and two are stronger? This is just a set of middling stories. Andre Norton was extremely prolific, so some of her work is bound to be just 'fine'. A few of them were quite good, but nothing that really stayed with me. At this point, I don’t even remember which stories I liked or what they were about. I ate up her short novels as a teenager and have read and enjoyed a few in the past few years, but I guess her short stories don’t really work for me. 2 Stars - An Okay Book...

Man, 2014 was a year, huh. It's definitely been an odd year for me. I have been reading, but not so much posting reviews. A few reflections from the year: I read the Paradox series by Rachel Bach, really enjoyed them. I took up with both of Kerry Greenwood 's cozy mystery series, as they make excellent bus and airplane reading. Total read so far between both series: eight! As a side note, this year I traveled twice for my job, which is twice more than ever before. I reread one of my favorites ( Memory , by Lois McMaster Bujold) compulsively for a few weeks during a particularly stressful time. I reread the entire Star Wars Thrawn trilogy this fall. It was less good than it was when I was a teenager, but still okay. I expanded my genre window, reading literary fiction, memoir, YA, historical thriller … I've continued to cut down on the number of comic series I buy as single issues, but bought a ton of graphic novels I haven't read yet. Even so, I read a bunch...

Crossposted from Mainlining Christmas This year, I am taking on The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries , a 674 page tome containing 59 individual stories about the Christmas season. Conveniently, it’s broken up into blog-post sized sections. This is post eight, section ten, the end! A Classic Little Christmas The Flying Stars , G. K. Chesterton - Oh, I actually quite liked this. Christmas Party , Rex Stout - Really good except for the unfortunate racism. The Raffles Relics , E. W. Hornung - Unlike others starring a ‘classic character’, it makes me want to read more about the character. The Price of Light , Ellis Peters - Definitely a favorite in this book. Classic Cadfael: just lovely and sweet and Christmassy. A Present for Santa Sahib , H.R.F. Keating - Odd. I guess it could be charming in some lights. Not sure about the dialect.. The Christmas Train , Will Scott - A charming crook fools the police. Not amazing but decent. Markheim , Robert Louis Stevenson - Huh. takes a...

Crossposted from Mainlining Christmas This year, I am taking on The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries, a 674 page tome containing 59 individual stories about the Christmas season. Conveniently, it’s broken up into blog-post sized sections. Here’s the seventh post, section nine. A Puzzling Little Christmas Sister Bessie , Cyril Hare - Not bad. Not awesome. Somewhat expected tragic twist. That’s the Ticket , Mary Higgins Clark - Ha. Not a bad little story, cute resolution. Death on the Air , Ngaio Marsh - Fine resolution, pace was a bit off. The Thirteenth Day of Christmas , Isaac Asimov - Super cute bit of fluff. The Christmas Kitten , Ed Gorman - A lot of buildup for not much substance. The Santa Claus Club , Julian Symons - *snurk* the butler did it, naturally. These were a little bit of a let down after the last section, but most of these stories were still pretty decent. Similar to the “Surprising” section, all of these stories had at least a bit of a twist or a reve...