French Bookstore

We spotted several bookstores in France - either they were very chic, or in a very old-school-bookstore style. Both types of bookstores looked great :)

Here is a photoblog post on one in Paris:

 

See the full gallery on posterous

Did you notice the red bookshelves? Also, all the white book covers?

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Many sorries!

I know, it has been the longest gap in posts since I began blogging a month ago.

I am so sorry!

I had a 10 day vacation planned, and like a good blogger, had written three posts in advance scheduled for the first week I was away. I also assumed that I would have some time while travelling between countries to put my macbook to good use and write a few more posts on the books I had carried with me.

PLAN FAIL :(

My macbook crashed (maybe for good) the third day into the vacation, and I haven't been able to upload my Teaser Tuesday for this week, and the rest of the reviews.

As an apology, I am going to script a photo-blog-post of the smartest looking bookstore I saw in Paris. Soon.

Sh*t My Dad Says

How amazing does Sh*t My Dad Says sound?

The book seems hilarious, just from reading the excerpt and browsing through the photos up on amazon:

"Here I am with my dad in his garden, which he adores and whose upkeep he takes very seriously. "It's my first love, besides your mother and horse racing. And you and your brothers, too, I suppose," he’s said."

Read an Excerpt Here





I can't wait to read this! Have to go to my local bookstore and find a copy to keep.
Have you read the book? Let me know what you think so I can put it on the top of my To Be Read pile.

Rachel Vincent - Shift

Grade: B/B+

Rachel Vincent's Shift is Book #5 in the Werecat series. I sped through the first 3 books, then took a breather before picking up the rest. Most of you might not have read the series, so I shall try to avoid spoilers.

Excerpt:

"My father sat in his wing chair at the end of the rug, and his refusal to rise was—on the surface—an uncharacteristic show of disrespect toward a fellow Alpha. But I knew him well enough to understand the truth: if he stood, he might lose his temper. "You're asking me to let my son's murder go unavenged." His voice was as low and dangerous as I'd ever heard it, and I swear I felt the rumble deep in my bones. It echoed the ache in my heart."

The series follows a Pride of werecats, and focuses on the Alpha's daughter Faythe. As the series continues its fast-paced march, it becomes evident that Faythe is being lined up to be the first Tabby Alpha. The werecat society is fairly standard urban fantasy, and the tabbies are protected while the male cats fight to be numbero uno. Faythe is different from the norm; assertive, strong, and a fairly bad decision maker, she bucks the trend and ends up being an enforcer for the Pride.

Overall, my impression of this rare werecat series is very positive,  but this book so far has been the weakest of the lot. Faythe remains torn between two men, and while this provides for a lot of romantic stunts, I could only wish for her to make up her mind already! The author really drags this two-men-arc for way too long, at the cost of some major character development. Pick someone already, woman. In the first book, I felt Faythe was a little immature, but forgave her on the basis of her age. Though having to deal with her emotional trauma now, in the midst of a Pride war, just doesn't do it for me.

On the positive side, the tension between the cats is palpable, the scenes are tautly written, and the 'villains' of the book are the newly-introduced Thunderbird species. Quite exciting..I'm sure the next book Alpha (Shifters Book 6) is going to be the highlight of the Shifters novels.

Other Reviews:

All-Consuming Books

RSS Mini-Challenge

A mini-challenge as part of Bloggiesta is to check that your site has a RSS feed.

1. Check to see if your blog or website has a feed
   
2. Set up a feed if it doesn't
   
3. Set up a subscribe by email option
   
4. Validate your feed
   
5. Put an RSS icon that linked to your feed and another for your email option.
   
6. Add the RSS feed to your header so your browser auto-detects the feed.

I have done all the above, but just was not get the RSS feed link in my header! But it looked to me like I was able to get the RSS stream from my browser link area anyway, so I don't think I need to change anything there.

Are you able to get the RSS link to the website?

Teaser Tuesday! Chicagoland Vampires

 

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: 

Grab your current read, Open to a random page, Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page, avoid Spoilers.

 

My Teaser is from "Friday Night Bites", Book 2 of the Chicagoland Vampire series. Here it is!

 

He sheathed the blade, then grabbed two bokken—wooden training swords that roughly echoed the shape and weight of the katanas—and came back again. He spun one bokken in his hand, as if adjusting to its weight. The second, he pointed at me. “Let’s go, Sunshine.”

Please post links to your teasers below, I cant wait to find out what you are reading!

Upcoming Releases - June + July

Here are some fantasy and urban fantasy releases to keep an eye out for:

June 29th

Carrie Vaughn's Kitty Goes to War (Kitty Norville, Book 8):

The blurb says "Kitty Norville, Alpha werewolf and host of The Midnight Hour, a radio call-in show, is contacted by a friend at the NIH's Center for the Study of Paranatural Biology. Three Army soldiers recently returned from the war in Afghanistan are being held at Ft. Carson in Colorado Springs.  They're killer werewolves—and post traumatic stress has left them unable to control their shape-shifting and unable to interact with people.  Kitty agrees to see them, hoping to help by bringing them into her pack.   "

July 1st and July 6th

Mercedes Lackey's The Sleeping Beauty and Shadow Grail #1: Legacies

Legacies is a YA novel with Rosemary Edgehill (and their collaboration has yielded good results in the past). The blurb says:

"Who—or what—is stalking the students at Oakhurst Academy?

In the wake of the accident that killed her family, Spirit White is spirited away to Oakhurst Academy, a combination school and orphanage in the middle of Montana. There she learns she is a legacy—not only to the school, which her parents also attended, but to magic."

The Sleeping Beauty (July 1st release) has this note from the publisher :

"Lackey's fifth fairy tale retelling (after 2008's The Snow Queen) also includes passing nods to "Hansel and Gretel," "The Frog Prince," and "Puss-in-Boots," along with cameo appearances by Brunnhilde and Wotan. Despite plenty of twists and laughs, the plot is surprisingly forgettable, and most of the fun comes from finding all the fairy tale in-jokes peppering the pages."

The books before were a decent read, no heavy thinking required, so I would probably get around to reading this too between grittier tomes.

July 20th

L.E. Modesitt Jr.'s Imager's Intrigue: The Third Book of the Imager Portfolio. L.E. Modesitt writes very correct and detailed fantasy novels, I would create a new genre for these books - "Engineering Fantasy". He describes the magic in this world so like an engineer would! Very detailed, clear possibilities and specific costs of usage.

 

Dark and Stormy Nights is a collection of stories including works by Jim Butcher (Aleran Codex), Carrie Vaughn (Kitty), Ilona Andrews (Kate Daniels) and Vicki Peterson. Also, it is edited by P.N. Elrod, and I find that any collection of stories he edits is sure to be fantastic.

Also on July 20th, is the second book in the YA Fallen series by Thomas Sniegoski, The Fallen 2: Aerie and Reckoning. Blurb:

"Destined for Heaven or Hell?

Aaron's senior year has been anything but typical. Half-angel and half-human, he has been charged to reunite the Fallen with Heaven. But the leader of the Dark Powers is determined to destroy Aaron—and all hope of angelic reconciliation."

What are you looking forward to?

Diana Holquist

Grade: A
Diana Holquist debuted with Make Me a Match, where she writes the story of the eldest of 3 sisters in a very dysfunctional family. The sisters are a quarter Gypsy by blood, and the most wild of them, Amy, has the power to hear the name of a person's True Love on physical contact. She has no qualms in playing up this ability, and survives on con games and luck. The eldest sister Cecilia is a repressed doctor, and the youngest has been missing for several years.


Make Me a Match is such a light-hearted comedy, not a typical romantic book. It has some intrigue, a lot of humor, and really interesting characters.
Sexiest Man Alive is the story of the youngest sister, who is painfully shy around men. Her inability to have a conversation with a good-looking guy is so funny to read! She also runs out of interviews (which is secretly something I would so have loved to do at some point!) and still manages to run a successful business.
Hungry for More follows Amy, with the mystical power, as she proceeds to lose her magic, and struggle between choosing True Love or recovering her talent. With a very sexy chef, and plenty of delicious cooking, this book is for the foodie reader.
Many thanks to the talented author Alice of http://www.aliceaudrey.com/ for her intriguing teaser on Teaser Tuesday, which lead to this entertaining find!
What else is there to be said? If you would like to read one of those rare books that are so refreshingly fun to read, and still a good romance novel (a rare find these days), you could pick up a Diana Holquist!

Megan Whaler Turner - The Thief (and series)

The Thief is the first book in a four part series about a trio of small Kingdoms.

This is really a trilogy, with the fourth book wrapping up some loose ends and giving us a different point of observation.

I started reading this series over the weekend based on a review by Unshelved, a great site for illustrated recommendations of not-so-famous books.

The review they posted is pretty good, so I am going to direct interested readers there

A snapshot of Gene's review is below -

"Why I picked it up: I’ve never been disappointed with a book in this series. That puts it up there with Llloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles and Ursula K. LeGuin’s Earthsea Books.

Why I finished it: Sophos’ long first person narrative had me a little worried, but by the time the story catches up with the prologue, I needed to see how he handled his new responsibilities. Turner’s novels sneak up on me like that -- the details build in a way that’s not completely obvious to me until I suddenly find that I’m 100% invested in the story and cannot put it down. Each of the other books in the series also has a satisfying twist that I didn’t see coming, and this was no exception. "

For my own review, my favorites of the books wereThe Queen of Attolia, and The King of Attolia. The first book served as a very nice prequel to the series and A Conspiracy of Kings was like a nice dessert cleanser for the palate. The hidden love story of the Queen and the King was just delicious!