Title: Damia
Author: Anne McCaffery
Publication date: 1991
My Grade: B
My Review:
Tag: book reviews
Bookit Review: Stone Cold Fox
Title: Stone Cold Fox
Author: Hailey Edwards
Publication date: 2015
My Grade: B
My Review:
This short novel, or novella, is an adventure for Mai, Thierry’s best friend from The Black Dog series. It starts off with Mai attending a fandom convention in Texas dressed up as Jareth from her favorite movie Labyrinth. She is kidnapped by her childhood best friend and his brother, who want her to remember things that happened when she was younger, but she can’t. She’s forced to re-evaluate her memories, and how much trust she puts in her friends, and her family.
Although it seemed almost too easy of a solution in the end, I did find this an enjoyable quick read. I could definitely go for some more Kitsune books.
Hailey Edwards is going on my list for authors I am pre-disposed to read when new books come out.
Bookit Review: New Dog, Old Tricks
Title: New Dog, Old Tricks
Author: Hailey Edwards
Publication date: 2015
My Grade: B
My Review:
I enjoyed this book. It finishes the over all arc, in interesting ways. I still felt a little lost among the background information, but Its less noticable this way. We finally meet the Morrigan in person, and I can’t help but imagine Katie McGrath as the actress for the role should they ever make this into movies.
We get a little more backstory on Mac, Theirry’s father, and have Theirry coming to terms with both her family and her love for Shaw. Mai and Shaw take a backseat for awhile. This book is primarily Theirry in Faerie, so most of her Earth friends are not in it much.
There are more spin off novellas & Novels. I’m not reading the new series staring Gemini, at least now now. I did read Mai’s spin off novella Stone Cold Fox, which will be the next book.
What I do love about this book is how the end result comes to be. I won’t spoil it, but it was an inventive way to end things.
Bookit Review: Lie Down With Dogs
Title: Lie Down With Dogs
Author: Hailey Edwards
Publication date: 2015
My Grade: B
My Review:
This book, the third in the Black Dog series by Hailey Edwards, is the best so far. The story actually seems complete, the minor plot arcs are finished and not left to wonder. Characters are actually developed, and information about Thierry’s past and her family is given.
There is actually a mystery for Thierry to solve in this one. She’s kidnapped again, but not till towards the end, and it happens because she’s investigating something, not because some prince decides he wants an advantage in the royal competition.
The one thing I keep noticing is that she keeps saying that Thierry isn’t her name, but everyone including her parents calls her that. I can only guess in the next book we will learn it or it was a one-time plot plan that never panned out yet never was completely irradiated.
This book sets up the final book (which I am currently reading) quite nicely as well.
Bookit Review: Dog with a Bone/Heir to the Dog
Title: Dog with a Bone / Heir to the Dog
Author: Hailey Edwards
Publication date: 2014/2015
My Grade: C
My Review:
I read these two swiftly together so its hard to really seperate them into two reviews, thus, I am doing a single review for both books.
Dog with a Bone is the first book in a series of four, and is a novella. I get the sense it was written last because the original intent was it to be a trilogy (the other 3 books) but she wanted to set things up and wrote this.
The action is good. The characterization not so much. I’m going to continue reading and hope that the main character Thierry (And thank goodness in the second one they actually sound that out because I couldn’t figure out how to pronounce that) gets some depth. The most developed character in the book series so far is Rook, and he’s not even the main character.
Basically its not a horrible book, I’ve read worse and I don’t have much to complain about except that there is too much of the action and not enough of the heart that makes us care about what is going on. But this is a series, so I will continue on.
This story also contains a lot of mythological/fantasy characters that I’m unfamiliar with and wish I understood better. Perhaps that hinders my enjoyment of the series.
Bookit Review: The Bette Davis Club
Title: The Bette Davis Club
Author: Jane Lotter
Publication date: 2015
My Grade: B
My Review:
This is a story about Margo. It starts off with Margo at her niece’s wedding when the bride takes off and Margo’s sister hires her to chase after her niece. She is accompanied by the groom, Tully, and the two end up going on a road trip across the US in pursuit, driving an 1955 sports car.
I actually enjoyed this book. It plays around with cliches, and Margo’s almost always wrong in her assumptions. She runs into a few interesting characters. She also spends most of the ride reevaluating what she knows about her past, although the ‘flashback’ chapters come later then one would expect, and don’t tend to go into quite enough detail.
There are a few romances in the story, although the main one seems to happen without any lead up. There are period mentions of how cute the guy is, but that is it till the end of the book. Georgia’s story is confused as well.
Its a good read for a lazy afternoon, though.
There is a bittersweet element to this story. Ms. Lotter was a professonal writer, writing columns in Seattle Newspapers but this is her one and only novel, which was self-published shortly before her death. After she died, her family was contacted by a publishing house which published the version I read. The daughter wrote a forward to the book.
Bookit Review: Lyon’s Pride
Title: Lyon’s Pride (book 4 of 5 of the Talent & the Hive series. Book 7 if you include the Pegasus prequels as part of the same group)
Author: Anne McCaffrey
Publication date: 1995
My Grade: B+
My Review:
As many of you might already know, Anne McCaffrey’s The Talent & The Hive series is what gave me a love of Sci-fi/Fantasy. Its the reason I got into Star Trek, Star Gate and probably even why I gave Star Wars a chance.
My mother had bought earlier books and had them in a box that I stumbled upon. My first book was Damia, (although I later read The Rowan), and I made my way down the line, picking up the novels I didn’t already have.
This is the fourth book of the series, and continues the story of Damia’s oldest three children as they continue to deal with the Hiver situation. Laria, Damia’s oldest Daughter is Prime (leading telepath/telekinetic) on Clarf, the alien homeworld of the MrDini. Thian and Rojer are helping the joint naval organization of Humans & Mrdini track and and observe the Hivers, a group of insectoid beings who think of nothing but colonizing, destroying all other life forms in their path.
Given that this is part of a series, its hard to review without having alot to explain. Its very much a book of transition before the series finale, 2000’s The Tower & The Hive. We see the three main characters develop into adults. Rojer, the youngest at 16 at the start of the novel (perhaps 17-18 at the end of it), has the biggest emotional journey to go on as he is threatened by a MrDini Captain beat on annihilation of the Hivers. Laria deals with the complications that come with running an important Tower, including learning when to find better coworkers. Thian adjusts and settles more into his talents, leading his brother and several cousins in exploration of the Hiver Quadrant of the galaxy.
While Rojer has the most impactful story in this one, there is alot of information about the Hivers, who have been the antagonists since book one.
I recommend this book to anyone, mostly because its one of my favorites. I do however recommend you at least start with Damia, which is book 2. The actual first book is the Rowan, but some of the story is recovered in book 2 by Afra.
Bookit Review: Jane, Stewardess of the Air Lines
Title: Jane, Stewardess of the Air Line
Author: Ruthe S. Wheeler
Publication date: 1934
My Grade: B-
My Review:
When I was younger, I liked this story alot. Reading it as an adult I found it less likable. Its not a horribly written story, but there isn’t much to grab onto. The main character, Jane Cameron, is pretty much a Mary Sue. By that I mean she has no flaws. She graduated in the top of her class, is calm under pressure, is a natural at flying a plan, and anytime something big goes down she’s asked to be part of the responce team simply because she is so good at what she does.
I’m not sure she has any flaws except being in transit when people call her. None of the other characters are really flushed out. Quite a bit of them aren’t even given names. Its a little difficult to figure out the passage of time because things seem to happen immediately even though realistically you know it must have been weeks.
On the positive front, its a Female protagonist who is not stuck in a love Triangle, who goes and gets what she wants from her career. Even when people doubt her because of her gender, she stays firm. And that is something I’m always glad to see. Its especially good in a book written in the 1930s.
I definitely think this is a book that is good for younger readers if you want a book that focuses on a female protagonist. Its a relatively easy read. Some questions may be had due to cultural changes since 1934. For example, Jane gets paid $125 a month. Using a online converter I found that is basically like being paid $2,232.14
Mr. Washington, I presume.
So as I said in my last post, I’ve made an attempt to start reading books about Presidents so I can say I know something they did while President besides be President. I decided to start in order, because I might as well. (A legitimate “because of reasons” responce).
So we start with George Washington, our first president. Or rather our first president once we got the right constitution in order.
George Washington is a pretty well known President. Its hard to forget the name of the guy who basically had to set up the office himself. I found a book available through Kindle Unlimited and started to read, to see if I could learn anything different about our President.
It wasn’t exactly the most enlightening book I ever read as far as a bio went, but I got some new impressions. Basically George Washington’s reasons for joining in the revolution had some tints of ego (the British Military wouldn’t accept him as an officer because he was American born.) and really all he wanted to do was settle down on his farm and make money.
What was interesting was his involvement in Western Pennsylvania. He actually owned land in the Ohio River Valley, and wanted to build a canal into Virginia, this controlling the shipping of the area. Smart Idea that never went anywhere (sadly for Washington).
But basically he would go home, set it to rights again and be happily ordering people to farm for him when Congress would whine and bring him back in again.
All Washington wanted was a break. I think he probably hated congress as much as we do now.
Maybe I should have chosen a different book, and I’m sure that the following presidential summaries will be better if only because I’ll write them sooner after I read the book.
In summery
- Washington wanted to join the British Army but they wouldn’t let him be an officer because he was American Born.
- He basically designed the office of the Presidency because no one had been there before.
- He hated the ideas of political parties, but Jefferson and Hamilton couldn’t let us have nice things
- All he wanted to do was hang out with his wife and look after his properties in the quiet of Virginia.
Resolutions & Goals
Every New Years, a popular tradition is to make a set of resolutions for the coming year. And its almost a tradition to fail at keeping them too.
This year I’ve decided I’m not making resolutions. I’m making goals. While its not really all that different, when you say “Goal” that puts less stress on meeting it while still being a motivator. It also allows you to be more flexible. If a goal needs altered, it feels less like a failure.
My goals for 2016 are as follows.
- Write on this blog every day.
- Write on 750words every day. For those who don’t know, 750 words is a website that is dedicated to keeping people writing by setting a daily goal of 750 words. You go on there and you get points for keeping up with your writing. It also gives you statistics on the mood of what you wrote, how many pauses and breaks you took (basically any break in typing over 3 minutes) and various other data. Its a good tool if you have trouble getting yourself writing. Its also a good place for brainstorming because it saves all your entries for the month, so you can go back and see what you wrote when you just sat down and wrote for 30 minutes or so.
- Revitalize my graphic design portfolio. Revitalize my love for graphic design. Start an Etsy store and start earning income for what I went to college for.
- Get a new day job. My current job gives me too much stress for not enough money to pay all my bills.
- Read 52 books. My friends and I have a yearly project where we try to read at least 50 books in a year. I decided to make it 52 this year as there are 52 weeks in the year. As I have only once made it to 50, we shall see if this was a good idea or not. The basic premise is that I will read books available in (e)print (ie Fanfiction doesn’t really count, sadly) on their own (so book on short stories is one book, you can’t count it by story). Also it needs to be primarily reading, so math text books don’t count either.
It will effect this blog as I will do a review/end notes for each book I read this year. I will also keep a page listing all my books for the year along with links to their review/commentary post. This will be tagged/categorized as bookit (Does anyone else remember that program? I hope it still exists.)
- Read a book on each president so I know one thing about each of them other then they were President at some point. So far I’ve only done Washington, and of course I know all the presidents Post Reagan. I might make this a running post of mine. Perhaps that is tomorrow’s Post topic – What I learned about Washington.
- Draw each day.
- Finish an original novel. Also finish a couple of my fandom related projects. Get my WIP list down to under 10 (its at 30+ right now)
- Learn to drive.
I don’t know how many of these goals I will manage to achieve, but I felt that writing them all down on a post might give me more motivation to keep it. After all, I told everyone I would do it, didn’t I?
So here’s me keeping at least one of my goals for the day. Now to just do my 750 words writing and start reading Jane, Stewardess of the Air Lines by Ruth Wheeler which is an old novel. The copyright inside my copy reads 1934.
Sokorra Lewis 