Coming soon: BEA and PHXCC!!!

Well, it’s that time of year again! The sun is starting to beat down in earnest in my fair city, and soon S will be heading off to Book Expo America in New York, and I to Phoenix Comicon. So much excitement on the horizon!

I’ve perused the programming for PHXCC this year and I’ve made my tentative list of panels to see. I’ve pored over the convention center maps. I’ve dug out the books I want to get signed by attending authors. I am READY! Let’s have a look at some of the fun stuff scheduled to go down this year…

While there don’t look to be as many traditional fantasy authors as there were last year, there are still many authors I love whom I’m excited to see, and plenty more I’ve heard of but haven’t yet read their books. Richard Kadrey, who writes the Sandman Slim novels, Max Brooks of World War Z fame, Michael A. Stackpole, prolific author whom I most often associate with Star Wars books…the list goes on, with many familiar faces from years past, as well as new-to-PHXCC authors joining the fun. Here’s a smattering of some I’m really looking forward to seeing on panels/getting my books signed by them…

• Ann Leckie!!! Hugo and Nebula award-winning Ann Leckie!!! I’m reading Ancillary Justice right now, and it is sooooo good. It’s not the kind of book I’m tearing through, but I’m taking my time and savoring it (and, to be honest, trying to make sure I keep everything straight in my head). So excited to meet this lady!
  
  
  
  
• Max Gladstone!! I haven’t picked up any of his books yet, but people really, really love him. I’ve been trying something new this year, where I download a Kindle sample of books from all the authors at the con I’m interested in but mostly unfamiliar with, to get a feel for their writing and try to decide if I should pick up a copy of their book at the con to get signed, or just wait and check it out at the library. Last night I read a sample of Three Parts Dead, and I liked it—it felt fresh and complex, and even though the sample wasn’t really long enough for me to get a full grasp of the world, it was enough to make me want to read more. Very intrigued!
  
  
  
  
• So, Cherie Priest—I already know I like her writing, right? So why haven’t I already bought and read Maplecroft?!? Good question. This is another one I decided to read a sample of to aid me in my purchasing decisions, and those were the questions I was asking myself when I’d finished. I remember her talking about this Lizzie-Borden-fights-Cthulhu-with-an-ax story the first time I saw her at PHXCC in 2013, but I never got around to picking it up when it came out last fall. The sample, however, hooked me—it ended and I wanted moooore! Will probably be picking this one up.
  
  
  
  
• Naomi Novik! I have a pile of her Temeraire books at home that friends have recommended to me but I just haven’t started yet. Last year at PHXCC, though, I was given a sample of her forthcoming standalone novel, Uprooted. Fast forward to now—here’s what the back of the book looks like:
  
  ALL OF THE BEST PEOPLE HAVE GREAT THINGS TO SAY ABOUT THIS BOOK. Seriously, the only endorsements that could’ve bumped it up even higher on my insta-buy list are Holly Black, Megan Whalen Turner, and Elizabeth C. Bunce. So…I bought it. Of course, right? Can’t wait to dive it!
  
  
  
  
• Pierce Brown! He was at PHXCC last year, but I hadn’t yet read Red Rising. Quite soon after the con, I dove into the free copy of it that I got at the Del Rey booth, and though I wasn’t that into it for the first 150 pages, the rest of the book was so good that I loved it even with the beginning that had been blah for me. And then when Golden Son came out this year…man, that was a phenomenal book. None of the things that I hadn’t liked about the first book were present in this book, and everything that I loved about it was there and made even more awesome! It was relentlessly paced (so much so that I couldn’t allow myself to read it on nights when I had to be at work early the next day), and just plain riveting. It’s sci-fi, but in my head it’s more like historical-fantasy-sci-fi…I love all the Rome-ish stuff, and the political maneuverings are reminiscent of some of my favorite historical fantasies. Would it be too much to hope for a sneak peek of Morning Star at PHXCC…?

That’s just a smattering of the authors I’m most excited to see on panels, but there are sooo many more! As for the panels themselves, there aren’t as many on my absolute-must-list as there were last year, so I’d been hoping my schedule might be a little less jam-packed this year, but as I look over it again, I’m realizing there will be more than enough to see and do, and a few tough decisions when panels conflict. Here are my top 5 panels I’m looking forward to as of now (not counting author spotlight panels), with the descriptions from the PHXCC website. Any of them sound intriguing to you?

1. Historical and Fantastical and Maybe a Little Magical (featuring Cherie Priest, Django Wexler, Joseph Nassise, Michael Martinez, and Viola Carr). “What happens to history when reality is breached by more than just a person or 2 that never really existed? How does it stand up when strange, mystical, and/or magical occurrences take hold? Spice up history, make it more enjoyable with un-reality.”

   Yay for historical fantasy! Or at least, fantasy taking place in a time in history…?

2. Here on Earth (featuring Ann Leckie, Chuck Wendig, Jason Hough, Jay Posey, Myke Cole, and Pierce Brown). “Science Fiction doesn't always have to take place in unknown space on unknown worlds. This panel celebrates Science Fiction on our planet Earth. Discussions and comparisons on how Earth-centric Science Fictions compare to the typical space opera.”

   I like Science Fiction. I like Earth. I like Science Fictions involving Earth. I’m not sure how I feel about this capitalization. Should “science fiction” really be “Science Fiction?” I’m not sure, and now I’m way off topic.

3. Author Batsu with Sam Sykes (featuring Cherie Priest, Delilah S. Dawson, Myke Cole, Peter V. Brett, Pierce Brown, Scott Sigler, and Sam Sykes). “Our hapless authors join Sam Sykes for another batsu game! (Batsu: the Japanese word for 'punishment,') Each panelist is charged with performing a task under pressure. If they fail, they will be subjected to a 'horrible' punishment. Sounds fun! Right?”

   Who doesn’t like a little schadenfreude? (Yeah, try to tackle that one, spell check!) The Sam Sykes panels are always amusing.

4. Unashamed Full Frontal Nerdity (featuring Django Wexler, Jason Hough, Michael Martinez, and Naomi Novik). “A panel for authors to gush about the facets of their research that surprised and delighted them.”

   I love supernerding, and especially supernerding about research!!

5. Del Rey Superfight (featuring Jason Hough, Naomi Novik, Peter V. Brett, Pierce Brown, and Scott Sigler). “Who would win: Starlord with machine guns as legs or an ocelot that's really really emotional? How about Iron Man who hasn't slept in three days or Godzilla with an endless supply of trampolines? The Del Rey authors battle it out in a game of Superfight.”

   Um, what? This sounds amazing. And hilarious. Count me in.

And that’s it from me tonight! Any authors not on my shortlist that you’re super-psyched about? Any awesome panels you think I should check out and report back on? Hit up the comments and let me know! Only a few more days to go…

Genre-ally Speaking: Lock In, by John Scalzi

Title: Lock In
Author: John Scalzi
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication Date: August 26th, 2014
Read: June 2014
Where It Came From: Paper ARC from BEA*
Genre: Sci-Fi-Mystery-Thriller
Rating: 4 Threeps

It’s been over a month since I read Lock In (tore through it in a matter of days, in fact), so this review probably won’t go into specifics as much as I usually do. And I think that’s a good idea for this book—part of the joy of reading it is trying to puzzle out the threads of the mystery for yourself as the stakes for the characters increase and the tension ratchets up. But first, let’s talk plot!

Chris Shane is a new FBI agent, working a murder case in the D.C. area with his partner Leslie Vann. It sounds like the beginning of your usual crime thriller, but here’s the sci-fi twist: The world Shane and Vann live in is one that has been shaped by a flu-like virus that swept the globe 25 years previously. Most people who catch the disease just experience mild flu-y symptoms, but 1% of the infected—which doesn’t sound like much, but amounts to millions of people in the US alone—end up “locked in.” That means they are in their bodies and fully conscious, but are unable to move, respond, or make use of those bodies beyond just being, well, alive. The world has changed in many ways to deal with the situation and accommodate victims of Haden’s syndrome (they’re called Hadens for short), such as with the development of the Agora, an online space for Hadens, and the creation of robot-like devices their consciousness can inhabit to move around in and interact with the physical world. Another salient point—some non-Hadens have the ability to be an Integrator, or someone able to let a locked in individual inhabit their body for a time and experience the world as the non-locked in do.

So, back to Shane and Vann—they are working on a Haden-related murder case, and it looks like an Integrator is their prime suspect. This complicates the situation in ways I’m sure you can imagine. Was the Integrator himself the perpetrator? What if he was integrated with a Haden at the time? Surely there must be safeguards against that…? Hmmm… As they trace the trails leading out from the murder in many directions, the mystery expands to encompass politics and greed on a much larger scale, while also focusing down on those caught in the crossfire of the hidden players in the game.

I quite enjoyed Lock In. Shane is an engaging narrator, and his first-person voice propels us through the story. In typical Scalzi fashion, it is a very smooth, fast-paced reading experience, with writing that feels effortless and pages that fly by. The world is certainly different from the one we inhabit now, but it’s still similar enough as to be very recognizable—no flying cars and vacation jaunts to outer space here, but rather a vision of a near future that has been altered by something easily conceivable (like, y’know, a huge epidemic we are ill prepared for), but that humans are adapting to. People keep on keeping on, doing normal human things, both good and bad. I also love how the story conveys the far-reaching effects of the murder and the plotting behind it, since it is certainly something with consequences for the entire world, but also narrows in on the effects on a very personal level for the main characters and other people involved.

Some of the things that really stood out to me in Lock In:

• The pacing. This is probably one of my top awesome things in the book. Scalzi really nailed it, creating a reading experience that is relaxed enough for you to be able to process all the information coming your way, but still be a page-turning thriller that keeps you guessing what lies beyond the next chapter. From reading the jacket copy you know Chris Shane is an FBI agent, but then on page two you find out he is a Haden—boom, first surprise (which may then cause you to consider your pre-conceived notions you didn’t realize you had about characters, as it did for me). Also wonderfully paced was the information about who Chris Shane is—he is the narrator, so it’s difficult for him to hide things from the reader, but since his background is so obvious to himself, he is able to sort of obliquely think around certain details of his life, with the result being that we know he is somehow famous, but we don’t know why. Scalzi teases us with it as we wonder why the heck everyone knows who Chris Shane is, and the suspense and anticipation that build leading to that reveal is pretty damn great.

• The humor. The trademark Scalzi humor was definitely present in this book, but at the same time it didn’t seem like quite as much of a focus or its own character as it is in some of his other books. And that is in no way a criticism—just an observation. Like in Redshirts, or the funny bits in Old Man’s War--they have a style of writing and kind of witty, punchy humor that I have come to associate with Scalziness, and Lock In feels a little different. Humor is still very much present in it and very recognizably Scalzi, but it comes through the filter of Chris Shane and his situation in this world. For me, it’s a new facet of Scalzi funniness, and I like the versatility it demonstrates.

• The twisty-turniness. The whole situation with Hadens, Integrators, and threeps (the machines Hadens can use to function in the physical world) quite brilliantly lends itself to all sorts of twists and surprises in the mystery as you try to figure out and predict who precisely is involved, and why, and with what motivations, and where they are, and WHO they are, and what are they doing, and—well, you get it.

• The smooth-like-buttah reading experience. I already went into this a bit, but the ease and speed with which I tore through Lock In is really a testament to the skill behind the writing. To create an entertaining, suspenseful, and emotion-tugging mystery that’s this much fun and speed-inducing to read is an art.

The only part I had questions about involved some of the details of the climactic scene. Without getting into spoiler territory, there were some scientific-technological aspects that I, with my not super techno-savvy skills, tried to follow through mentally to their ends, and I wasn’t sure I was completely clear on it all by the time the scene wrapped up. But it didn’t have a negative effect on my enjoyment of the book as a whole—it merely gave me ideas of questions I could ask Scalzi if I ever see him at Phoenix Comicon again. :) Overall, I really enjoyed the book—it is both sweeping as a thriller on the grand scale, and also affecting on the micro scale of individual human interactions and emotions. It's a good one for Scalzi fans and sci-fi fans, of course, but I’d also recommend it to general thriller and mystery audiences; I think it’s definitely a book with crossover appeal. (…there may not be any semi-colons in Lock In, but I thought there needed to be at least one in this review!)

*As ever, much as we are grateful for the copy, our review is uninfluenced by its source.

Book Review: Landline, by Rainbow Rowell

Title: Landline
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: July 8, 2014
Read: June 2014
Where It Came From: BEA
Genre: General fiction
Rating: 4.5 Metallica T-Shirts

The Quick and Dirty:

Landline is a perfect beach read, a novel that is gripping, affecting, and page-turning. This isn’t a surprise, seeing that it is written by Rainbow Rowell, whose 2013 YA releases proved she has a style that is easy-to-read and content that is equally funny and tender. In Landline Rowell takes her skill at focusing on the little moments of relationships—dialogue that has ellipses from awkwardness, half smiles, hand holding, and where eyes are looking—and seamlessly applies it to a 17-year relationship from its first date to a time when there are children and careers to balance.

The Wordy Version:

When Georgie McCool gets an opportunity to pitch her dream show, she has to cancel her family Christmas plans to get scripts written by their deadline. Her husband, Neal, says he understands her need to work through the holiday, but takes their two young daughters to his mother’s home in Nebraska for the week, and then never picks up his cell phone when Georgie calls. Panicking because she hasn’t spent more than a day without talking to Neal in 15 years, Georgie resorts to dialing her mother-in-law’s landline from her own mother’s house phone, and Neal comes on the line.

It takes only a few conversations for Georgie to realize that she’s not talking to her husband Neal, but to her college boyfriend Neal, a younger, perhaps more affectionate version of himself with dreams for the future that she knows he won’t realize once he marries her. As Georgie becomes useless at work, she talks longer and longer with Neal of her past, trying to figure out if she should encourage him to break up with her before he ruins her life, and simultaneously desperate to heal her relationship with her husband.

I could absolutely see why Georgie is so torn about whether love means encouraging Neal to choose a Georgie-less direction for his life. Neal is amazing: he’s patient, accepting, encouraging, self-sacrificing, creative, funny, honorable. When Georgie realizes that he’s also been miserable for years, she thinks that she has gotten far more from their relationship than she’s given to Neal in return. I love that Georgie, even while listening to her mother claim that the marriage is over, has no regrets for herself in the marriage. I love that she loves Neal the way he deserves based on the scenes we see of him. I love that there was another romantic direction she could have gone as a college student or recent alum, and she doesn’t really pause to believe that that would have been a good idea. But mostly I love Neal.

I’ve already listed adjectives that describe Neal in the most flattering of terms, so it may seem redundant to dwell on how great he is here. But Neal was more swoon-worthy than any hero of a romance novel, and I’m not sure how you’ll believe me if I don’t keep saying it. Young Neal is the guy I wish I had met in college. He goes to a party he knows he won’t like just so he can talk to Georgie. He banters. He’s solid and appreciates Georgie’s dreams. He talks to Georgie on the phone for hours. Furthermore Neal is the husband I dream of having. He’s a stay-at-home dad who lets his preschooler pretend to be a cat to the point that there is a bowl of milk on the floor for her. He cooks kale for dinner. He paints murals on all their west-facing walls. I’m totally in love with him.

And I’m basically in love with Rainbow Rowell too, because it takes skill to make characters seem perfect and yet human (in Neal fairness, Neal does give Georgie the silent treatment, and he sulks at parties), and even more skill to make me willing to relinquish my dream husband to the character he actually married. Plus she manages to make her books almost impossible to put down. Yet another thing to love.

Book Fun: Sinner, by Maggie Stiefvater

Title: Sinner
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Publication Date: July 1, 2014
Read: June 2014
Where It Came From: BEA
Genre: YA / YA Paranormal
Rating: 4 White Pants

The Quick and Dirty:

Cole and Isabel from the Wolves of Mercy Falls (Shiver) trilogy are back, and having adventures in fame, werewolfery and emotions in L.A. Top-notch, as I've come to expect from Maggie Stiefvater, and a good place to start Stiefvater reading if you're not a paranormal/fantasy fan. There is humor, but it's always tempered by real emotions and insecurities.

The Wordier Version:

The werewolf situation in Mercy Falls having been resolved, Cole St. Clair is in Los Angeles to resume his rock star career with a new studio album and a reality web series. At least that’s his public story. He’s actually in L.A. to restart things with Isabel Culpeper, who may be the only person capable of making him feel right in his human skin. Isabel, however, isn’t ready to deal with the addiction, fame and wolf issues Cole presents; she feels disconnected from her medical career plans and her current job in fashion, and she has no patience for people. Cole’s arrival in Isabel’s life threatens to destabilize the only things allowing her to get through each day, but Isabel’s withdrawal from Cole threatens his sobriety.

In all honesty this doesn’t need a review from me. I could note that you might be momentarily confused if you haven't read the trilogy. I could say BUT WHAT HAPPENS TO ISABEL'S COUSIN? Or, GIVE ME MORE SCENES WITH LEON! But I accept that the story of Sinner is not in the supporting characters so much as it's in the relationship between Isabel and Cole, and if you were reading the book to find out what happens to Isabel's cousin, who makes Martha Stewart arrays of food every day in a quest to become more perfect and less anxious, you'd be missing the main part of the book. Just as any criticism of the book seems silly, any praise I can give it is superfluous.

In the last year I have become convinced that Maggie Stiefvater, much like the Disney-Pixar people, can make whatever project she’s working on top-notch. Her writing has gotten better since the Wolves of Mercy Falls Trilogy, her supporting characters are more fleshed out, and the technicalities behind the fantasy elements of her worlds have been glossed over (unlike in the Wolves of Mercy Falls series when explaining how werewolfing worked involved some dodgy use of biology terms). The result of all this improvement is that Stiefvater’s last four books have been adventure-romances featuring mature and confident teen characters, with a fast horse or car thrown in for good measure, and a death-related subplot. How anyone could dislike these books is beyond my comprehension.

And with that in mind, I'm just going to pepper the rest of my thoughts about Sinner with some pictures. To get into the true Sinner mentality, read the rest of this while listening to Stiefvater's curated playlist for her WhitePantsNovel project.

The Picture Book Version:

This is basically how I picture Cole:

But because music isn’t my thing and I only know like ten rock groups, my brain kept confusing confident Cole with sensitive heroin addict rocker (and idol of my elementary school years) Kurt Cobain.

At least Cole has Isabel, who is too cool for drugs.

Even drugs that only turn you into a wolf for a few minutes.

But whereas the werewolf thing in the original trilogy made my thoughts revert in confusion to my biology studies:

This book didn't dwell on any of that. This is the first Stiefvater novel that doesn't need to be on a speculative fiction shelf. Cole’s transformation to wolf is consistently shown as the equivalent to his former drug use. He loses control of his body and his mind for a period after shooting up, and then returns to his friends’ worries about his use. If there were not a trilogy that rests on the werewolves actually being wolves, it would be easy to assume that Cole and Isabel are just processing his drug behavior as animal-like. Like the scene that got me to stop watching Trainspotting.

Stiefvater writes in a forward letter that Sinner is "the truest novel I've written. I hope that those who don't need the truth in it will see only the werewolf, and I hope that those who do need the truth will see only the human." In addition to the heavy themes of substance abuse and grief, the truth of the novel comes through in Cole's public persona. There are moments when Cole sounds exactly like Maggie Stiefvater's twitter account. (AWESOME)

This quote, and the next two, are from an advanced reader's copy of Sinner, and I will update when I get a copy if I see that the quotes have changed.

So Cole sometimes = Stiefvater, and I remember loving Cole in his science-nerd/jaded-rock-star form in Mercy Falls, but I forgot how much I liked Isabel. Isabel is so disconnected from her world that she has begun to wonder if she is a sociopath, when in fact her problems probably stem from feeling too much for others. In that state it might be easy for her to accept Cole with all his problems just because they make her feel something in the midst of the nothing. Isabel, though, knows what she wants from Cole and she isn’t afraid to risk losing him if she cannot have that.

And if that wasn't enough to convince you how much fun the book is...

There are fast cars!

>

Book Review: Life by Committee, by Corey Ann Haydu

Title: Life by Committee
Author: Corey Ann Haydu
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Publication Date: May 13, 2014
Read: June 2014
Where It Came From: BEA
Genre: YA-contemporary
Rating: 2.5 Assignments

The Quick and Dirty:

A formerly good girl is obsessed with a hockey player who's been flirting with her online while dating another girl at their high school. When she joins a web community of truth and dares, she gets some action with the hockey player but almost ruins her life and the lives of those around her. The cover is beautiful, the actions of the characters are not.

The Wordy and Spoilery Version:

Tabitha used to be a Rory Gilmore. The now teenage child of teen parents, she lives in a small town in New England, enjoys reading strangers’ marginalia in works of classic literature (with a particular fondness for Frances Hodgson Burnett), and drinks lots of coffee. But Tabitha is not handling puberty well, from anyone’s perspective other than her own. Her book-loving friends felt awkward around her growing breasts and interest in boys, and have left her socially adrift; her parents are expecting a new baby, and have made her feel like a starter-child; and her only interest in the boyfriend department is already going out with a depressed Artiste in their high school. When Tab finds a note at the end of a marked-up Secret Garden, she joins an internet community dedicated to sharing secrets and doing relevant assignments meant to change their lives into something remarkable. The first assignment, to kiss her love-interest, fills her with excitement, but the assignments start to have repercussions Tab isn’t sure are ethical.

Personally I struggled to understand Tabitha, and found myself allied with her former best friends, who wished she’d wash off the mascara and return to literary discussions. So, there, I’m as petty as they are, I guess. But it was really hard to develop sympathy for Tabitha! She’s obsessed with another girl’s boyfriend, she’s moping around her house and coffee shop, and she plays along in a truth-and-dare game that anyone could tell is a bad idea. The only positive thing about Tab is that she’s likely a good portrait of a teenager. I want to shake her, and every adult in the book is on the same page as me.

The actual problem of the book for me is in the resolution. To avoid having her secrets spread as a consequence of refusing a challenge on the website, Tabitha interrupts her school’s morning assembly to tell everyone the secrets she shared on the site. In a scene out of Mean Girls, everyone else takes the opportunity to share his or her own secrets, and the principal lets this go on for an entire school day. I could say that this is a little too close to Mean Girls to feel fresh; I could also say that it’s unrealistic to think that an entire day of instruction would be given up to microphone confessions. But that’s not really what left me wishing for something else.

The ending is dramatic but doesn’t seem to actually resolve much. By the end of the book I was getting the impression that Tabitha’s transformation came from her anxiety about the new baby and the ways that it would change her family. Yet aside from her parents advising her to air her secrets to the school, the family aspect of the plot is gone by the climactic scene. Apparently her father has been able to quit his marijuana habit within a week? And having a family meeting about the online drama means that Tabitha feels parented to the point that she’s okay with a new sibling? And is her mother’s dress more appropriate to wear to school than the clothes that everyone thinks are slutty?

I don’t need my endings to wrap up everything with a ribbon and bow. I like perfectly wrapped up endings, but I also appreciate artfully vague endings (The Spectacular Now stands out in my recent reading for this quality). My problem here is that the dramatic moment of triumph and its aftermath didn’t solve the big issues I saw Tabitha having. Maybe it’s my perspective at a different stage of life than Tabitha, but Rory Gilmore made some crazy stupid life decisions too, and their ultimate resolution (a powerful moment between mother and daughter) seemed to match the conflicts.

Genre-ally Speaking: The Secret Diamond Sisters, by Michelle Madow

Title: The Secret Diamond Sisters
Author: Michelle Madow
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Publication Date: February 25, 2014
Read: June 2014
Where It Came From: BEA
Genre: Teen Romance
Rating: 1.5 Diamonds

The Quick and Dirty:

Rich teens in Vegas have adventures in love and family over the course of a week. The characters may be the most selfish people ever to have have moved from a run down apartment to a penthouse suite. The book may be the most repetitive book I've read in a while. And to think, this is only the beginning of a series!

The Wordy Version:

There are quality reads, good reads, guilty pleasure reads, and then there’s whatever category this one falls into. To be perfectly fair I’m sure it could fall into many people’s guilty pleasure pile. Just not mine. This is a book that, like wearing a ruffled pinafore, belongs to girls younger than myself.

So why did I read it? Yeah, yeah, good question. (1) I picked up a complimentary copy at BEA. (2) It’s from the HarlequinTeen imprint, and I’ve been hearing that HarlequinTeen has more plot than traditional Harlequin. (3) I thought the story could be frothy fun.

Three teenage sisters have been living with their single mother in a small apartment until their mother’s alcoholism forces their father to reveal himself to his children. As it turns out, Daddy Diamond is a Vegas casino owning billionaire with no parenting experience to suggest that instantly handing them all limitless credit cards and access to parties on the Vegas Strip could be a bad idea. Within literally a night, all three girls have crushes on guys who range from off-limits to predatory. Over the course of one week they burst into tears, lock themselves into their condo from embarrassment, and see each other transforming into new (more selfish) people.

I never read Gossip Girl or Pretty Little Liars, but I am guessing the series The Secret Diamond Sisters is starting will be very similar. I also imagine that seeing attractive 20-somethings playing these teenagers will be a lot more fun than reading their repetitive and often vacuous thoughts in this 382-page book.

Trust me about the repetition. Here’s an example I found almost as soon as I opened my book to prove it to you. Within all of three pages, we get, “Peyton couldn’t believe it. What an arrogant jerk to say that” (256), “Peyton was amazed at how full of himself he was” (257), and, “His face twisted with arrogance” (258). I think the guy may be arrogant, don’t you?

Not that the other characters are substantially better than him. The first point of view character is Savannah, the youngest Diamond sister, who in her old life wants to fit in with her volleyball team and wishes she could be a pop star. Savannah pouts, stomps her feet, blinks away tears, and—in better moods—plays with her hair/clothes/accessories. My favorite Savannah moment is when she spends a paragraph worrying about how her family is a target for kidnapping, before we read, “But Savannah had other problems—like figuring out what to wear tonight.” LOL

Oldest Diamond sister, Peyton, is a punk rebel because when she was in ninth grade her boyfriend cheated on her by dirty dancing with some girl and an ice cube. Still angry at the ex-boyfriend she tries to have short-term sexual relationships with boys now. And resentful that her super-wealthy father abandoned the girls to live with an impoverished alcoholic, she refuses to dress like anything but a hooker. Best Peyton moment: she vows to keep track of Savannah and the predatory douchebag Savannah likes, and then two paragraphs later, she’s off to pursue her own guy. (Bonus fun: she LEAVES her sister at the club with the predatory douchebag within pages. That is taking sisterly responsibility seriously.)

Middle Diamond sister, Courtney, is meant to be very sympathetic. She’s the quiet good girl who, in their pre-Vegas life, was having trouble finishing her homework because she was so busy working a minimal wage job to pay the family’s bills. She does seem less self-absorbed than her sisters, but it’s not totally clear whether that is because the bar is pretty low or because she actually has stuff going for her. She spends much of the book wistfully thinking about her soon-to-be step-brother, Brett.

Brett may also be a sweet person, as his ideas of dates to have with Courtney are genuinely cute. Brett makes a big deal about how he doesn’t like to hang out with the wealthy kids at their private school, and how he’s still friends with his public school buddies from the time before his mother got engaged to Daddy Diamond. And yet Brett is driving a brand new Lamborghini, flashing his black AmEx around, and planning jaunts to Europe. I can’t help thinking that Brett is protesting a bit too much about how little use he has for the high society of Vegas.

The final point-of-view character, Madison, is the smart, beautiful, popular nemesis to the Diamond girls. We’re supposed to hate her because she can manipulate guys using her feminine wiles, but I don’t see how she’s actually worse than Diamonds 1 and 3. She appears to be smarter than all the Diamond sisters put together, and she’s managed to claw her way to the top of the social ladder in the private school despite having parents who earn only a small fraction of what the casino owners do. In fact, the only thing I really fault Madison on is explaining how few calories she can afford to eat in every one of her chapters, or how much exercise she must do to burn off the drinks she indulges in at night. Perhaps one of the later books involves a twist of a Diamond sister revealing to Madison’s parents just how starved their daughter is, thus removing Madison for a few months to go to rehab. Drama!

Specifically teen soap opera drama. I was expecting a more formulaic romance novel from any imprint within Harlequin, and I commend the book for going past that. But this series isn’t wish-fulfillment for me. Call me over for a drinking game if the CW starts airing it, and in the meantime help me find my way back to classic Pride and Prejudice fanfiction when I’m looking for fluff to bring to the pool.

Big Box o’ BEA

We now interrupt your regularly scheduled PHXCC coverage with this look at the box of awesomeness Susan sent my way after Book Expo America. It arrived in the middle of all the Phoenix Comicon fun, and between the two I find myself overwhelmed by books! A pleasant state, I do aver. So many great things to read—I’m going to have to fill a jar with the titles written on slips of paper and allow chance to guide my hand in choosing what next to read! But first—

Here is the leaning tower of books that emerged from the extraordinarily well-packed box S sent me. I’ve got them all arranged by release date, so there’s at least some semblance of organization in my read-and-review-all-the-ARCs plan.

This is the lovely collection of cookbook samplers S gathered at BEA. They all look great, but I’m especially excited about Will It Waffle? (a question I often ask myself) and Seriously Delish. Time to get cooking!

This is some of the random assorted swag that accompanied the books. I love the stuff related to Wonder, and the Hello Kitty poster is now hanging on my wall! How did it escape my notice that Hello Kitty Reading Day is a thing? There’s also a cool rhinestone tattoo thingy that S couldn’t remember what book it was a promotion for, but it occurs to me now that it would make sense if it had come with the ARC for The Jewel (which I think she did pick up).

Here are some of the ones I was SUPER anticipating that made their way into my hot little hands! Scalzi, Holly Black times two, Westerfeld, and CLARIEL!!!!!

I think this will be my first foray into the pile, though—it sounds really cute and whimsical, and it has a blurb from Norton freaking Juster on the cover! (I love The Phantom Tollbooth, so I’m willing to go with anything he recommends.) Here’s what it says on the back:

What if a riddle could save your life?

A tangle of ingenious riddles, a malevolent necklace called a torc, an array of menacing birds, and a writing desk that won’t reveal its contents: these are just some of the obstacles that stand between Gabriel and his father, who has vanished from their Brooklyn brownstone without a trace.

When Gabriel rescues an orphaned baby raven named Paladin, he discovers a valuable family secret that may ultimately lead him to his father. Along with Paladin and three valiant friends, Gabriel sets off to bring him home.

Here is an epic fantasy filled with unforgettable characters, seemingly unanswerable riddles, and astonishing bursts of magic at every turn.

What do you think?

And HERE we have the galley-est galley that every galley-ed! Or at least that’s what I’ve been calling it—Susan will vouch for that. (Really, I’m strangely fascinated by it.) I read the first book in this series earlier this year and I liked it, though it wasn’t as much as I’d hoped it to be. Still, when Sus called me from the Javits Center to ask if I wanted her to snatch this one up, I said YES because a) it’s about all-new characters, and b) another pretty cover. Also, it’s the roughest ARC/galley I’ve ever laid eyes or hands on, and I guess it’s not really either of those things because it says “bound manuscript” on the cover. You know what adds to the fun? THE FACT THAT I CAN’T USE IT FOR REVIEW PURPOSES. How amazing is that?! I feel like I’m getting a super special sneak preview. :D

And that, bookworms and moths, concludes this installment of “Fun Stuff in the Mail.” Heard of any of these upcoming books? Which ones look good to you? Let us know!

BEA 2014 Anticipation!

It’s summertime, and that means fun! (And also constant sunscreen and AC, in my case. Fun, right? Come visit the glorious American Southwest!) Much like last year, early summer means some exciting doings in RTET-land—Susan will be attending Book Expo America in NYC again, while I will be covering the book and author track at Phoenix Comicon. Susan is planning her galley-grabs and author visits for BEA, and it looks like there will be the standard convention problem of so much to do, so little time! We’ve been following the info coming out of various publish-y sources to keep up-to-date on what will be available there. Looks like there will be a lot of highly anticipated books up for grabs! Here are some of the ones I’ve been eagerly awaiting or recently had brought to my attention and think sound cool:

“Fifteen years from now, a new virus sweeps the globe. 95% of those afflicted experience nothing worse than fever and headaches. Four percent suffer acute meningitis, creating the largest medical crisis in history. And one percent find themselves “locked in”—fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus.

One per cent doesn't seem like a lot. But in the United States, that's 1.7 million people ‘locked in’...including the President's wife and daughter.

Spurred by grief and the sheer magnitude of the suffering, America undertakes a massive scientific initiative. Nothing can restore the ability to control their own bodies to the locked in. But then two new technologies emerge. One is a virtual-reality environment, ‘The Agora,’ in which the locked-in can interact with other humans, both locked-in and not. The other is the discovery that a few rare individuals have brains that are receptive to being controlled by others, meaning that from time to time, those who are locked in can ‘ride’ these people and use their bodies as if they were their own.

This skill is quickly regulated, licensed, bonded, and controlled. Nothing can go wrong. Certainly nobody would be tempted to misuse it, for murder, for political power, or worse….”

I enjoy John Scalzi very much, so I’m looking forward to his newest. It sounds a little claustrophobic, but also like an interesting change up from his other stuff I’ve read (the Old Man’s War series and Redshirts). I’m looking forward to giving it a go!

“ ‘Miss Rook, I am not an occultist,’ Jackaby said. ‘I have a gift that allows me to see truth where others see the illusion--and there are many illusions. All the world’s a stage, as they say, and I seem to have the only seat in the house with a view behind the curtain.’

Newly arrived in New Fiddleham, New England, 1892, and in need of a job, Abigail Rook meets R. F. Jackaby, an investigator of the unexplained with a keen eye for the extraordinary--including the ability to see supernatural beings. Abigail has a gift for noticing ordinary but important details, which makes her perfect for the position of Jackaby’s assistant. On her first day, Abigail finds herself in the midst of a thrilling case: A serial killer is on the loose. The police are convinced it’s an ordinary villain, but Jackaby is certain it’s a nonhuman creature, whose existence the police--with the exception of a handsome young detective named Charlie Cane--deny.

Doctor Who meets Sherlock in William Ritter’s debut novel, which features a detective of the paranormal as seen through the eyes of his adventurous and intelligent assistant in a tale brimming with cheeky humor and a dose of the macabre.”

While “Doctor Who meets Sherlock” sounds like an awesome hook that is probably doomed to set the expectations bar much too high, I am most definitely interested. Historical supernatural is my jam! (Or one of my jams, at least.)

“Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for.

Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once.

At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking.

Until one day, he does…

As the world turns upside down, Hazel tries to remember her years pretending to be a knight. But swept up in new love, shifting loyalties, and the fresh sting of betrayal, will it be enough?”

The blurb for this one is both intriguing and cryptic, and you know what? It doesn’t matter. The blurb could just say Bobloblaw’slawblog and I would be down. Holly Black is always, ALWAYS an instabuy.

“THE ACCIDENTAL HIGHWAYMAN is the first swashbuckling adventure for young adults by talented author and illustrator, Ben Tripp. This thrilling tale of dark magic and true love is the perfect story for fans of William Goldman’s THE PRINCESS BRIDE.

In eighteenth-century England, young Christopher ‘Kit’ Bristol is the unwitting servant of notorious highwayman Whistling Jack. One dark night, Kit finds his master bleeding from a mortal wound, dons the man’s riding cloak to seek help, and changes the course of his life forever. Mistaken for Whistling Jack and on the run from redcoats, Kit is catapulted into a world of magic and wonders he thought the stuff of fairy tales.

Bound by magical law, Kit takes up his master’s quest to rescue a rebellious fairy princess from an arranged marriage to King George III of England. But his task is not an easy one, for Kit must contend with the feisty Princess Morgana, goblin attacks, and a magical map that portends his destiny: as a hanged man upon the gallows….

Fans of classic fairy-tale fantasies such as STARDUST by Neil Gaiman and will find much to love in this irresistible YA debut by Ben Tripp, the son of one of America’s most beloved illustrators, Wallace Tripp (AMELIA BEDELIA). Following in his father’s footsteps, Ben has woven illustrations throughout the story.”

Okay, again with the setting-expectations-way-too-high thing with that reference to The Princess Bride, but color me charmed by the cover and the title. I’ve been burned by Tor Teen books in the past that sounded awesome and ended up tepid, but this one sounds too fun to pass up.

“Finn Easton sees the world through miles instead of minutes. It’s how he makes sense of the world, and how he tries to convince himself that he’s a real boy and not just a character in his father’s bestselling cult-classic book. Finn has two things going for him: his best friend, the possibly-insane-but-definitely-excellent Cade Hernandez, and Julia Bishop, the first girl he’s ever loved.

Then Julia moves away, and Finn is heartbroken. Feeling restless and trapped in the book, Finn embarks on a road trip with Cade to visit their college of choice in Oklahoma. When an unexpected accident happens and the boys become unlikely heroes, they take an eye-opening detour away from everything they thought they had planned—and learn how to write their own destiny.”

I’ve never read any of Andrew Smith’s books before, but I’ve heard great things about both Winger and Grasshopper Jungle. I haven’t read much contemporary YA lately, but this sounds like it could be a good introduction to the author.

“Clariel is the daughter of the one of the most notable families in the Old Kingdom, with blood relations to the Abhorsen and, most importantly, to the King. When her family moves to the city of Belisaere, there are rumors that her mother is next in line for the throne. However, Clariel wants no part of it—a natural hunter, all she ever thinks about is escaping the city’s confining walls and journeying back to the quiet, green world of the Great Forest.

But many forces conspire against Clariel’s dream. A dangerous Free Magic creature is loose in the city, her parents want to marry her off to a killer, and there is a plot brewing against the old and withdrawn King Orrikan. When Clariel is drawn into the efforts to find and capture the creature, she discovers hidden sorcery within herself, yet it is magic that carries great dangers. Can she rise above the temptation of power, escape the unwanted marriage, and save the King?”

I’ve talked about this one before, and my excitement remains undiminished. If I had to choose only one book coming out of BEA to read, this might edge out Holly Black to take the prize. I am THAT psyched about it!

“From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Scott Westerfeld comes a smart, thought-provoking novel-within-a-novel that you won’t be able to put down.

Darcy Patel has put college on hold to publish her teen novel, Afterworlds. With a contract in hand, she arrives in New York City with no apartment, no friends, and all the wrong clothes. But lucky for Darcy, she’s taken under the wings of other seasoned and fledgling writers who help her navigate the city and the world of writing and publishing. Over the course of a year, Darcy finishes her book, faces critique, and falls in love. Woven into Darcy’s personal story is her novel, Afterworlds, a suspenseful thriller about a teen who slips into the ‘Afterworld’ to survive a terrorist attack. The Afterworld is a place between the living and the dead, and where many unsolved—and terrifying—stories need to be reconciled. Like Darcy, Lizzie too falls in love…until a new threat resurfaces, and her special gifts may not be enough to protect those she cares about most.”

Scott Westerfeld is another favorite author of mine, and this novel sounds really different and intriguing. Is it just me, or does anyone else get a whiff of foreboding from the blurb…? Eh, it’s late. I’m probably imagining it.

“Match wits with Lemony Snicket to solve thirteen mini-mysteries.

Paintings have been falling off of walls, a loud and loyal dog has gone missing, a specter has been seen walking the pier at midnight -- strange things are happening all over the town of Stain'd-By-The-Sea. Called upon to investigate thirteen suspicious incidents, young Lemony Snicket collects clues, questions witnesses, and cracks every case. Join the investigation and tackle the mysteries alongside Snicket, then turn to the back of the book to see the solution revealed.

A delicious read that welcomes readers into Lemony Snicket's world of deep mystery, mysterious depth, deductive reasoning, and reasonable deductions.”

This one technically already came out in April, but it’s being featured at BEA, too. It sounds like just the sort of thing my younger self would’ve loved, and I imagine my current self would have fun with it, too.

“Aaron Becker, creator of JOURNEY, a Caldecott Honor book, presents the next chapter in his stunning wordless fantasy.

A king emerges from a hidden door in a city park, startling two children sheltering from the rain. No sooner does he push a map and some strange objects into their hands than he is captured by hostile forces that whisk him back through the enchanted door. Just like that, the children are caught up in a quest to rescue the king and his kingdom from darkness, while illuminating the farthest reaches of their imagination. Colored markers in hand, they make their own way through the portal, under the sea, through a tropical paradise, over a perilous bridge, and high in the air with the help of a winged friend. Journey lovers will be thrilled to follow its characters on a new adventure threaded with familiar elements, while new fans will be swept into a visually captivating story that is even richer and more exhilarating than the first.”

Journey was a wonderful wordless picture book, and I think this next one will be just as lovely. I love Becker’s beautiful style of art, and how perfectly he can tell a story with fun, emotion, and humor with just pictures.

Hooray for BEA! Hopefully Susan will be able to snap up one or two of these while dashing around the Javits Center this coming week, and then we can read and chat about them. Any of these sound good to you? What are your most anticipated books at BEA?

The Wolf Princess Comedy Hour with Alyssa and Susan

Title: The Wolf Princess
Author: Cathryn Constable
Publisher: Chicken House
Publication Date: September 24th, 2013 (in USA)
Read: November 2013
Where It Came From: ARC from publisher at Book Expo America and eARC from publisher via NetGalley*
Genre: Middle-grade-low-fantasy
Rating: 2 Volkonsky Diamonds

Though the one on the left is the cover for the US hardcover release, we much prefer the version on the right.

The Wolf Princess crossed our paths twice. The first time, Susan picked up a copy at the BEA because it was a children’s princess fantasy, and the second time, Alyssa saw it available on NetGalley and thought it looked like fun. What fun! we thought. We can read it, and then do a joint post together.

So far, so good. In fact, we did both read it, so all was well up to that point. After a wide-ranging and not entirely focused discussion of the book (listening to songs from the movie Anastasia in different languages may have been involved), Alyssa (perhaps cruelly) delegated the initial discussion synthesis and post writing to Susan.

It was here that, much like in colonial Nigeria, things started to fall apart. As in, literally half the sentences that Susan tried to write. See for yourself:

Susan Attempt 1

Susan's first attempt started strong, but was abandoned not once, but both in the middle and at the end, for reasons unknown to the discoverers of this musty digital manuscript. Exhibit A, for your examination:

Remember the magic of Anastasia? The Disney-style princess movie made after the animators left Disney? Set in a Russia of abandoned and dusty palaces, it tells the story of poor orphan Anya, who discovers that she is the lost princess Anastasia, and heir to some remaining imperial wealth. The ultimate proof that she’s a member of the family destroyed by the Russian Revolution is that she has a vague memory of a special song. The main difference between The Wolf Princess and Anastasia is that there’s a cute romance in the movie that wouldn’t fit in a story about the younger orphan, Sophie. And there are wolves in the book. The other stuff is the same, as though orphans in

There are a lot of things to recommend the book to younger readers (I’d say ten would be the ideal age for this story), and even more particularly to children fascinated by the winter wonderland of imperial Russian palaces. But to be perfectly fair, there are not that many things to recommend it to the college-and-past audience (even though it makes me feel like a crotchety spoilsport to say this).

Flowing narrative (aside from the abrupt drop-off in the middle, of course) introduces this modern-day Russian fairytale, and not unkindly begins to address our opinion of it. As the lengthiest and most coherent of the attempts, we are left to wonder what more we would have learned had this attempt been successfully completed.

Susan Attempt 2

The second attempt tried to move past the Anastasia associations, dispensed with the bull crap, and got right down to the business at hand. Was the review to be harsh? Favorable? Hard to say with so little extant. Only this fragment remains to us:

In reading The Wolf Princess it is best to forget plot details from Anastasia and just remember how beautiful the palace is during the ball scenes, because it’s a little difficult to keep

Those of us with even the mildest proclivity for completeness will find this open-ended thought frustrating as we are left to wonder, difficult to keep what?? Alas, that knowledge is not to be.

Susan Attempt 3

No one knows what Susan was drinking, eating, or otherwise consuming the night she typed this, but it appears that the enormity of the task at hand plagued her with maudlin thoughts as she strove to forge a personal connection with both a season and country to which she doesn't feel particularly inclined. She also seems to have been trying to force a segue to one of her favorite topics, the movie 1776 and her beloved John Adams. What is going on here?? If your scholarly analysis of these 3.5 sentences proves fruitful, please share your findings with us.

Considering how miserable a lot of aspects of life were in almost every past era, it’s remarkable how easy it is to look at crumbling symbols of bygone times with grief. I’m guilty of doing this a lot. I wandered through English estates in a magical fog of wishing disproportionately wealthy landowners the resources to maintain their mansions before I visited the Liverpool Slavery Museum and learned that most of that wealth came from the Atlantic slave trade (and hence it’s not lamentable that the revenue source is gone). So I completely get why

There’s really nothing else to be said about this one.

Susan Attempt 4

Despair seems to have overcome Susan during her fourth attempt, as she could only manage to sit down and narrate that action before presumably trundling off to some other, more pleasant, corner of the internet. Perhaps there is some sort of code hidden in these attempts? An anagram of a plea for help, or rescue, perhaps? Apparently the albatross lobbed at her by her callous co-blogger had simply grown too heavy to bear alone.

I sat down

But seriously folks, lest our pert and petty patter (thanks, Ann M. Martin, for that lovely turn of phrase!) lead you to believe our reaction to The Wolf Princess was entirely negative, we didn’t actually hate it. (As you may have guessed, a meeting of the Mutual Self-Admiration Society had convened right as we sat down to write this post, and Susan’s laughter as she was reading in real time while Alyssa toyed out her commentary egged A on to further heights and depths.) Here's the Goodreads blurb for the book (that's right, we're feeling lazy tonight) to bring us all up to speed on what's going on in it:

Alone in the world, Sophie dreams of being someone special, but could never have imagined this. On a school trip to Russia, Sophie and her two friends find themselves on the wrong train. They are rescued by the beautiful Princess Anna Volkonskaya, who takes them to her winter palace and mesmerizes them with stories of lost diamonds and a tragic past. But as night falls and wolves prowl, Sophie discovers more than dreams in the crumbling palace of secrets.

The most we can offer as criticism, independent of any coincidental similarity to Anastasia, is that we never got a sense of the secondary characters as being more than cliches. The main character, Sophie, is a sweet and lonely girl hoping to find a place where she feels at home, and whether she is generous or selfish, she has a constant motive. We cannot say as much about the other characters. Sophie’s boarding school roommates are Marianne (the Smart One) and Delphine (the Fashionable One), and you can probably guess how their interactions generally go. (Marianne: I wish I could be STUDYING now. Delphine: I love clothes!) The princess and her benefactor, the general, are equally limited in their character dimensions. Because they have wealth (or the appearance of wealth), they are disparaging of the third or twenty-third generation servants living in the palace (after all, servants are a separate species. And a gross one at that!). Almost a hundred years after the Russian Revolution, servants still guard houses where their families worked because servants are insanely loyal. (Genuinely insane. Snaps for you if you can figure out how they have enough money to live if the owners of the palace have been absent for fifty years.). Maybe when we were 11 we would've been able to skim over these troublesome things, but as twentysomethings we found it difficult to suspend our disbelief.

Despite our issues with characterization, Alyssa found one of the highlights of her reading experience to be the beautiful, evocative imagery of Russian winter and deteriorated imperial opulence. The pictures painted by the words are quite transporting and nearly make you feel the cold and the weight of history that Sophie and her friends in the story are experiencing. On another positive note, Susan noted that the magic in the book stems from the very tangible experience of finding oneself on a train to an unknown destination. It’s particularly charming to think that maybe one time, that train’s destination will be more wonderful than the intended one, and that a magic landscape is only a few hours away from the real world.

While we thought there was potential for this to be a really fun read based on the plot blurb, in the end we were both disappointed with it. Maybe we would've enjoyed it more when we were at the younger end of the target age group, but the things we found to be well done in the book did not counterbalance the elements that we found to be problematic. Not throw-it-at-the-wall bad, but not something we will be purchasing for the keeper shelf, either.

And on that note, dear readers, please excuse us while we go watch Anastasia.

*As ever, much as we are grateful for the copy, our review is uninfluenced by its source(s).

Book Review: The Last Camellia, by Sarah Jio

Title: The Last Camellia
Author: Sarah Jio
Publisher: Plume
Publication Year: 2013
Read: July 2013
Where It Came From: BEA Galley
Rating: 4 Flowers


A historical/contemporary split novel about two women in different decades at an English estate. In 1940 Flora agrees to search for a rare camellia for a ring of flower thieves, while acting as nanny for manor’s motherless children. In 2000 Addison, a landscape designer summering with her husband at the estate, is curious about a missing flower record. As Addison uncovers evidence of what occurred at the house in the past, both story lines head to dangerous encounters with killers.

I love split narratives that use the present day research story to build suspense for the historical narrative, and Sarah Jio uses the technique to full effect. As far as dangerous situations go, spying for a flower thief is relatively tame, a judgment that is only upheld by the narrative's initially focusing on the burgeoning romance between Flora and the wealthy young man she meets on the passage to England. When Flora arrives to work at the manor house she finds a family seemingly identical to the von Trapps of The Sound of Music, and a below stairs staff friendlier than the one in Downton Abbey.

But the benign appearances of characters may be deceiving. From Addison’s research the reader knows that there was a serial killer on the loose when Flora was living in the manor, and there is something suspicious about Flora's employer as well as the now-elderly housekeeper (though admittedly this could be dependent on previous experience with Rebecca). We also learn that Flora went missing after a short employment. With those clues, every chapter that returns to the past has delicious tension. Who is killing women on the manor? Does Flora find the flower before the flower thieves run out of patience? Why is the flower missing in 2000? This is a story about unraveling mysteries, whether in the past or in the present, and everything moves along quickly until the only question remaining is whether the story would have been different without the prologue.

In all, a well-balanced book, achieving an amazingly comfortable mood considering its notes of creepiness (a rather novel combination!). I've already snuck my copy into my mother's to-read pile because I had so much fun reading it.

Not-a-Genre-ally Speaking: Left Drowning, by Jessica Park

Title: Left Drowning
Author: Jessica Park
Publisher: Amazon Skyscape
Release Date: July 16, 2013
Read: July 2013
Genre: "New Adult"
Where It Came From: ARC from the BEA
Rating: 2 out of 5 Bedrooms

The Quick and Dirty:

College senior Blythe McGuire meets Chris Shepherd and his fun-loving siblings as she begins to heal from the trauma of surviving the house fire that killed her parents. Blythe discovers that she loves running, sex and the Shepherd siblings (not necessarily in that order), but that love is complicated between emotionally damaged people. It's melodramatic erotica with a side plot of marathon running. The author tries to make more of a character-growing plot, but I am too distracted for this to resonate. I learn that this genre makes me feel somewhat uncomfortable and confused about human interaction.

The Wordy Version:

After this paragraph, this is a super-spoiling post. Sorry about that. I entirely agree with the New York Times critic A.O. Scott about genre stories and knowing the ending in advance. If a contemporary erotic late young adult novel is your type of book, you’ll like it no matter how much you hear from me ahead of reading it. As for me, the more frustrated I get while reading a book, the more I feel like telling you what crazy things happen in the story. Today I'm also in a life lesson mood.

Senior year of college is beginning, and Blythe realizes that she has been in a depressive and alcohol-fueled fog for the last four years, ever since her parents died in a house fire. Waking up one day, she decides to spend 24 hours without any booze, and within that time she independently meets Sabin, a junior who steals her coffee and decides in that second that they will be besties, and Chris, a senior who is built and can skip rocks. To make matters better, Sabin and Chris happen to be brothers, and their twin younger siblings go to the college too, and LOVE Blythe right away.

Romance book life lesson: when you think you are out of shape, wretched-looking and unused to social interaction, people will FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU. Also, when you make friends, make sure they come from the same family. Diversifying your friend group is needlessly complicated.

In Blythe’s relief about being sober, meeting friendly people, and having a sweet crying session that doesn’t weird anyone out, she starts to go running to deal with her flabby yet bony legs. (Life lesson: do not be content with being thin because EWWW celluloid.) Blythe has had no focus for however many years, but now she is ready to do a 45-minute run her first time out. As anyone who has ever exercised before may predict, she gets tired and does the normal thing of rushing to her brand new friend, Chris, to complain about her physical unfitness and her family problems. Chris can’t solve the aunt issue (although he is a great listener and affirmer of Blythe’s feelings), but he can make Blythe a new playlist. Blythe thanks him by pulling him close for a sweaty kiss. Chris eventually pries her off and Blythe is MORTIFIED.

Life lesson: Complain to new acquaintances about things. It’s a huge turn on.

Blythe avoids Chris for a little, even while she uses his playlist to get her through her full work-out. Things between the two get even more complicated when he shows up at her room one day to help her masturbate (Blythe’s second favorite thing to do after running). Meanwhile she continues to grow closer to Chris’s whole family. She even invites his little sister to move into her dorm room.

Life lesson: When you find the right guy, his whole family will adopt you as one of their own within weeks.

As Blythe and the Shepherd siblings celebrate Thanksgiving together, Blythe begins to see that the Shepherd family is kind of dysfunctional after Sabin drunkenly tries to ride a cafeteria tray off a third floor roof. In Sabin’s belligerency he makes fun of his sister’s religious beliefs and his brother’s unwillingness to hook up with Blythe within a month of meeting her, and then Sabin thrusts his tongue down Blythe’s throat. Blythe forgives him because he’s so drunk he’s just not himself. The boy Shepherd twin and his boyfriend dampen Chris’s mattress while they’re waiting to see if Sabin falls off the roof.

Life lesson: Belligerent drunks shouldn’t be held to high standards. And don’t trust people not to mess up your mattress in a life-or-death situation when you’d expect them to be too worried to be hooking up.

By Christmas, Blythe is doing great and starting to reconcile with her little brother (who has never followed the above life lesson, and has been pretty upset with Blythe for drunk dialing him at all hours). She and Chris manage to spend forty pages a week in bed together with no expectation of commitment. Blythe and Chris both realize they’re in love with each other, but that is too serious for Chris, who not only bails but gets engaged to the next girl he sees.

Life lesson: Guys don’t buy the cow if they can get the milk for free? Don’t date severely emotionally damaged guys.

There is more than another third of the book after this point, and I will stop plot summarizing so as to avoid any more major spoilers.

You may have guessed already that I was not swept away by this read. I had no wish to hang out with the Shepherd siblings (who sound horrible, taunting her for loving their brother, assaulting her drunk, and involving her in awkward sibling fights), and I stopped caring about Chris and Blythe in bed after her first orgasm (which doesn't even physically involve him). Credit to the author for making Blythe find herself before she settles down in a romance, and credit to her for mentioning a condom every few pages and sending characters with issues to therapy. Even with those credits, though, this left me dissatisfied and filling out a pretty harsh romance rubric:

Genre-ally Speaking: Indelible, by Dawn Metcalf

Title: Indelible
Author: Dawn Metcalf
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Release Date: July 30th, 2013
Read: June 2013
Genre: YA-fae-urban fantasy
Where It Came From: ARC from the BEA*
Rating: 3 Out of 5 Signaturae

The Quick and Dirty:

16-year-old Joy has been dealing with the fallout of her parents’ divorce and her brother going to college, and thinks things are finally starting to normalize a bit—but how wrong she is! While out dancing one night, she spies a cute boy across the room—and then he comes over and slices her eye with a knife. She soon finds herself entangled in the world of the fae, accidentally bound to Ink, the boy who cut her eye. As the two get to know each other, they find themselves at the center of a fae political maelstrom with the fate of humanity hanging in the balance. The fresh take on the fae mythos is interesting, and there are some really vibrant characters, but parts of the new mythology can be a bit muddled. An enjoyable read, but it didn’t quite capture me in a way that would bump it up to 4 stars.

The Wordy Version:

Overall, this was a pleasant read—well, as “pleasant” as a read can be with eye-slicings, brandings, and other sorts of mayhem going on! Maybe “enjoyable” would be a better word. Does that still make me sound ghoulish? This was definitely on the darker side of urban fantasy, but it still didn’t feel DARK-dark to me, despite the above-mentioned shenanigans. Does that make any sense? The beginning of the book was really genuinely creepy, after Joy gets her cornea nicked by a mysterious boy and is all WTF?? as the fae world closes in on her. The sort of mounting sense of dread was really cool, and had me jumping at sounds when I was reading it at night.

After it’s explained to Joy what’s going on, the creep-factor goes down and the story continues. I thought the author’s new additions to the fae mythos were really cool and even made sense—the fae coming up with a way to circumvent the power humans have over them (power gained from knowledge of the fae’s true names) with a symbol or grouping of symbols called a signatura to stand in for their name, and then the raw creation of a pair of new beings whose purpose is to dole out these signaturae, so the fae aren’t running around claiming humans willy-nilly via signatura for themselves.