Book reviews. Finally. Sort of.

This one is great. Read it if you haven't yet.

The Spymaster's Lady by Joanna Bourne. Terribly embarrassing cover though. Especially since Grey isn't described as LOOKING like his. Gah.

This may even go up into the league of Kinsale and some Ivories for me. Possibly. Dangerously good writing and characterization. Without a lot of heavy breathing and goopiness. You know how I am about sentimentality.




I finished Demon Angel and Demon Moon ages ago, but never wrote about them. They're obviously quite good too. I really like Colin. Meljean Brook is such a great writer too. Funny, but a great world-builder. She has such interesting IDEAS behind her constructs. I love working it all out.

I'll admit though that I'm getting nervous about reading on in this series. Three is usually my breaking point. With Falling for Anthony, Demon Angel and Demon Moon, I'm at three in a series, and I REALLY liked hero and heroine in the last book read. This sets me up for heartache if I keep reading. I'm screwing up my courage to keep going. What a wimp. But a consistent wimp -- I know my limits and am anxious to bump up against them.

Also, I've been catching up on my James Randi backlist. Read both The Faith Healers and The Truth about Uri Geller in one week. His indignation as he relates how a fraud is perpetuated is a marvelous thing to roll around in. I think that's why I love reading him so much. I think that's why I stick around in education so much. I know it can be better, and I get indignant to see people pretending that the only solution to the world's ills is to ignore a problem. I admire Randi a lot. A lot.

Which makes it somewhat difficult that Dear Butcher works in a natural marketplace. He keeps bringing home a suggestion here and a suggestion there which are mostly based on woo-woo thinking. It makes me crazy. Mercury causes autism. (Then WHY do the rates of sutism diagnoses go UP nationwide after thimerosal was taken OUT of children's vaccine preparations?) Gluten causes autism. Uh huh. Red dye allergies cause autism. Uh huh. Processed sugar (hello? The body doesn't know whether it's processed sugar or not. It's all glucose to the cells.) is evil. Soy is good. Unless it's in chicken nuggets. Then it's bad. There are days I want to shrink Randi down into a small necklace sized buddha figure and wear him around my neck.

OH! My least favorite book this month. Pressed upon me by not only one mother, but also a teacher as well. Actually it's not one book, it's a series. The Indigo Children. Has anyone heard of this rot? I'd link to various websites, but you can google it yourself. Believers of the Indigo Children theory surmise that children such as my son have indigo auras and this explains why they are not social when they are around children with different colored auras. They cannot participate easily in this existence because they are more firmly connected to the "other plane". Do not worry parents, they will grow up to be exceptional Spirit Mediums. In the meantime, clothe them in indigo scarves and hang indigo crystals from their bedroom windows to focus their abilities.

I'm now on some sort of weird mailing list and receive New Age catalogs filled with scarves and dreamcatchers and crystals and herbs, all in various shades of blue and purple. Not to mention the dogearred books that are pressed upon me with anxious shaking hands. Read this. Read it. Let me know what you think. It's like living next door to a Jehovah's Witness.

Other things worthy of mention that I've read recently:

The Vanishing Vicountess by Diane Gaston. Much fun. I enjoyed this one quite a bit.

Your Wicked Ways by Eloisa James. Great set-up: Husband and wife who do not like each other but who are attracted to each other. The man is an idiot in bed, and the wife is something of a shrew. Enjoyed seeing it unfold, but the musical portions did not ring true for me. I just didn't jump far enough into the worlds of composers to latch onto the themes presented. But I loved the set-up, no doubt.

Many articles on Comprehensive Sex Ed. Because, you know, we wouldn't want to actually TEACH someone how to stay safe during sex. This was on NPR's Talk of the Nation last week too. Such a big topic, one that can be obviously addressed, but one that will cause huge drama locally because we cannot wrap our little heads around the fact that kids DOOOOO have sex before marriage. Really. They've been doing it before marriage all along. You don't go passing laws against things people don't do, now do you? No. You pass laws and write down moral codes based on what people are already DOING. Jeez louise.