Anna the Piper

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Die in Plain Sight is a bit of an odd duck in the run of Elizabeth Lowell novels, straddling as it does the line between her Donovan series and her Rarities Unlimited ones. Goodreads classifies it as a Rarities book, but the two series are set in the same universe–and since it provides major camera time to Susa Donovan, the matriarch of the Donovan clan, it’s hard not to call this a Donovan book.

Nonetheless the question is, how does this particular book stack up against either series? Our heroine is Lacey Quinn, granddaughter of a famous artist, who’s determined to find out whether the previously unknown works of his she has inherited are proof of murder. And our hero is Ian Lapstrake, employed by Rarities, and of whom we get brief glimpses in Moving Target and Running Scared. They’re both pretty standard, likeable lead characters. In Ian’s case, I didn’t necessarily find him as intense or as charismatic as some of the Donovans, but on the other hand, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing; it also meant that there was a refreshing lack of what Romancelandia calls alphole-ness on his part.

As for Lacey, I rather liked her better. She’s an artist and therefore a creative type, and even if painting isn’t my particular art, I definitely sympathized with her attempts to pursue it and especially with her interactions with Susa, whose work she revered. In fact, in many ways I enjoyed the scenes with Lacey and Susa almost more than the ones with Lacey and Ian, just because the two women had strong chemistry as fellow artists pursuing art together. Susa is a lovely character, and it’s great to see this woman get serious camera time, since it helps flesh out the history of the Donovan family and shows where her children get a lot of the awesomeness.

Antagonist-wise, we’ve also got a fairly Lowell-typical screwed up rich family, across whose secrets our heroine has inadvertantly stumbled and who will do anything to keep those secrets secret. There aren’t any real deviations from the standard plot track there, though on the other hand, Lowell doesn’t get too over the top with the antagonists as she’s sometimes done in other books.

So all in all I’ll give this one a good strong three stars, on the strength of Susa.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The fourth installment in Cherie Priest’s Clockwork Century series, Ganymede is now finally getting into actual sequel territory. Like Clementine and Dreadnought, it’s a standalone story–but this time, one of the spotlight characters in fact someone who previously showed up in Boneshaker, and we’ve got clear followup to the events in that book. So if you want to jump in on this series–and if you like steampunk, zombies, and/or the Civil War era, you should–this is not the place to start.

New Orleans madam Josephine Early is spearheading a secret Confederate attempt to hand over the submersible Ganymede to the Union, in a desperate attempt to turn the tide of the ongoing war. But no one’s left alive who knows how to safely operate the machine, and so Josephine’s forced to call for help to an old flame. She’s fiercely hoping that the airship pilot Andan Cly will be able to use his skills to pilot a machine that goes underwater instead of through the air, and she’s desperate enough that she isn’t exactly ready to tell him that the machine’s drowned all its previous crews.

And without a doubt, the relationship and backstory between Josephine and Andan is one of the high points of the book. I’ve found Priest to always be excellent at what romantic notes she introduces into a story, and this one’s no exception; the prior state of this relationship is played off with the exact right understated note against the bigger picture of the current intrigues. Toss in some glimpses at New Orleans’ zombie problem AND the issue of how the problem’s spreading across the country, references back to characters in all three of the previous books, and a supporting cast of colorful characters (one of whom has a secret revealed that amusingly blows Andan’s mind) and there’s a whole lot to like here.

Bonus points as well for the amusing use of actual Civil War history. It was particularly amusing to me to see a news link going around about the restoration of the Hunley–the actual vehicle named for the man who’s referenced in this novel as the creator of the Ganymede.

All in all, great fun. Five stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

I started spotting notices on various editions of books on Goodreads last night talking about how as of January 30th, they’re going to stop using book data from Amazon. Affected book editions are showing notices at the top of their pages that look like this:

Goodreads Data Alert

If you click on the Learn More button a new page pops up talking about Goodread’s reasons for doing this, and displaying a form where you can fill in data from other sources to make sure that the book doesn’t vanish out of their database.

AUTHORS: Go check your books on Goodreads and make sure you’re not about to lose your only entry in their database. ESPECIALLY if your only listed edition is a Kindle Edition.

GOODREADS USERS: Check your bookshelves and see if you’re about to lose any Kindle Editions out of your various shelves. You do NOT need librarian access to rescue a book–anybody can fill in the form, apparently. But you should rescue any obvious Kindle Editions in your lists. All you need is a legitimate source of data about the book, from somewhere other than Amazon.

Mirrored from angelakorrati.com.

Most of you out there probably are aware already, but just in case you aren’t, be advised that we have serious snow on the way here. Therefore, as is often the case when we have wacky fun weathertimes, connectivity to Murkworks.net and resources we house may be impacted. Our power may go out, or even if we stay up, connectivity via Comcast may be affected if there are any issues with ice on power or phone lines.

Assume therefore that if you can’t reach any commonly accessed Murkworks.net resources, this will be why. This will include the Murkworks MUSH, WordPress sites and other web pages, mailing lists, user logins, and mail.

Follow Cliff Mass’ blog for ongoing weather developments if you’re interested. His last two posts on the situation are here and here. The Times has an article up here.

If we do go down and you need to reach me, you can do so via my gmail addresses, annathepiper or angela.korrati.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

I realized much to my amusement that I was a scant 13 books shy of cracking the 1K mark on my To Read list, and so I did what any rabidly voracious reader ought to do in such situations: I called upon the Intarwebs for recs to push me up over the line! So now, as of this writing, I have a grand total of 1,002 books on the To Read list. And here are some amusing stats about them!

I actually own only 652 of these, and of those, 445 of them are ebooks, 119 are mass market paperbacks, 74 are trade paperbacks, 13 are hardcovers, and one is an ARC. Note also that there will be a slight margin for error here as a small number of authors are people I buy in multiple formats just because I love them and I CAN.

Of the rest of the 1,002, most of those are books I plan to check out from the library since most of them are authors who are new to me or who I haven’t read in some time. Since the vast majority of my reading these days IS electronic, before I commit to buying a new author, I prefer to test ‘em out with library checkouts. Happily, our two local library systems are ebook-friendly, so I’ve been well able to do that!

For the curious, I track this ridiculous number of books on Goodreads, and my Goodreads shelves are publicly readable. You can see ‘em all right over here, which will load you my entire list. My individual specific shelves are listed down the side of the page. And if you’re a Goodreads user, feel free to friend me there!

AND since this is of course a book roundup post, let’s get my 2012 acquisitions started, shall we?

First out of the gate are purchases from B&N, to wit:

• Leaves of Flame, by Benjamin Tate. Fantasy, Book 2 of his current Well of Sorrows series. I very much liked Book 1 and am looking forward to reading this.
• Unveiled, Unclaimed, Unlocked, and Unraveled, all by Courtney Milan. Historical romance, her Turner series to date, all starring various brothers of the Turner family. I checked out the first two of these from the library as aforementioned, liked them quite a bit, and have now put Milan onto my list of authors I will in fact buy directly.

And this puts me at 5 thus far for the year!

It has been suggested to me by the whomperjawed mizkit that I may need a new book buying moratorium. She’s probably right. I will in fact be laying off buying further ebooks at least until the end of the month–I want to get past my birthday–and that should give me time to dip back down under the 1K mark. It’d be amusing if I could actually read as many books as I buy this year.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

(Note: I’m posting this review out of order because my next 2012 Book Log post is book 2 of this same series–and I didn’t want to post the review of the second before I posted the review of the first!)

I come to Courtney Milan courtesy of the fine ladies of Smart Bitches Trashy Books, and while I’m not always aligned with their tastes, I have got to back ‘em up on Milan’s Turner series. Here’s the thing about my reading romance novels–there are certain tropes in them that drive me spare, and are among the main reasons I steer clear of most contemporaries. I favor historicals and romantic suspense, on the grounds that they’re less likely to display the tropes that drive me most spare, even as I’m very aware that those particular romance subgenres also have their own issues.

I’m not a history geek, so I couldn’t dissect for you whether Milan’s depiction of her chosen period is historically accurate. But I can tell you that she pulled off a story that, for me, beautifully balanced a historically accurate feel with character sensibilities more appealing to modern readers. In my reading experience to date, that’s hard. Better yet, she skillfully subverted two of the biggest tropes I hate in many romances: having such a huge deal made over the heroine being a virgin, and the Big Misunderstanding that far too often provides “conflict” between the leads, the sort of conflict that can be solved in five minutes if they just talk to each other like adults.

And happily, she does all this in a tasty little scenario of political and familial intrigue. Ash Turner, our hero, has proven that the Duke of Parford is a bigamist, therefore destroying the legitimacy of his heirs, and opening the way for himself to take over as the rightful heir to the dukedom. But the Duke and his sons are having NONE OF THIS, and they’ve set the ailing Duke’s daughter Margaret up to masquerade as his nurse–putting her into an excellent position to spy on the incoming new Duke and find anything, any flaw in his character or vulnerability in his history, that can ruin him in the eyes of Parliament so that they can take back their estate.

Naturally, our heroine finds Ash Turner dangerously appealing. And has to soon choose between him and her own family.

Margaret was awesome, and it is through her that Milan subverted those aforementioned tropes so beautifully. I’m not going to spell out how, so that I can avoid spoilers, but suffice to say that as aspects of her history were explored and Ash’s responses to them were shown, I liked both characters immensely.

Mad, mad props as well to the inevitable vulnerability that Margaret discovers in Ash, another thing I won’t spell out so as to avoid spoilers. But I will say that it’s an aspect of him that is a source of genuine past strife between him and his brothers, and which genuinely made my heart go out to the poor guy.

Last but not least, how the eventual resolution of Margaret having to choose between Ash and her father and brothers–and how Ash must choose between Margaret and his own desire for revenge against her father–worked out beautifully.

All in all, great fun. I had some minor questions of plausibility here and there, but nothing serious to get in the way of enjoying the story. Four stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

I’ve done a bit more tweaking of the site layout and content tonight, trying to make the main page a bit less busy, but also still visually interesting. So I’m experimenting with the post layout–let me know if you think the columns work.

I’ve also removed a few of the sidebar widgets. The Links/Blogroll widget has been turned into an actual Links page, since I had enough links that I thought they might as well have their own page. I’ve also created menu items for my Facebook and Twitter accounts under the “Contact” menu to give those higher visibility, and I’ve provided a link off to my annathepiper.org blog for those of you who might care to follow that. (I’m a lot more prolific on that blog than I am on this one, which remains writing-related!)

Meanwhile, I’ve updated the FAQ, Faerie Blood, and Defiance pages to reflect the status of my former Drollerie works. Since I’ve seen a few folks on Goodreads have continued to add me to their To Read lists (hi, Goodreads folks!), I just thought I’d issue a reminder: Faerie Blood and Defiance are to my knowledge no longer for sale with any ebook vendor. (If they are, and you can point me at a link, let me know! Drollerie needs to take any further instances of the book down if they’re out there.)

But if you haven’t read the book or the short story and you want to, I’ll be happy to hand-sell a copy to you. For Faerie Blood, I’m asking five dollars for an EPUB or PDF copy (and I’ll convert it to other formats on request). For “The Blood of the Land”, I’m asking 99 cents. The best way to pay me for either will be via Paypal to my gmail address, annathepiper. If you’d like to discuss alternate payment arrangements, drop me an email to the same gmail address, or visit my Contact page.

These prices will stand until my plans to self-publish Faerie Blood and Bone Walker go through, as per my previous Kickstarter post. Anyone who’d like to go ahead and buy Faerie Blood now will receive the Drollerie release copy, though I will also provide updated copies to known purchasers of the book once the self-pubbed version is ready.

Note also that I am pursuing self-pubbing “The Blood of the Land” with new cover art and layout; what you’ll get now if you want to go ahead and buy it is my manuscript copy. Again, though, if you buy the story now, I will keep track of you and provide you a free copy of the self-pubbed copy later!

As always, thanks for your support, folks. Y’all on Goodreads, hope you’ll like my book!

Mirrored from angelakorrati.com.

If you’re reading angelakorrati.com posts via mirrored means (hi there, LJ, Dreamwidth, Goodreads, and tumblr users!), you won’t see unless you click through–but I’ve done a little housekeeping. To wit:

• New theme! Woo!
• Standalone pages now have comments disabled and hidden.
• My Contact page has been updated to include my Google+ and Tumblr info.
• The page for Defiance has had it now-defunct buy links removed since the book is no longer available for sale.
• I have added the capability to crosspost from WordPress out to Tumblr, now that I have an account there.

And, although I haven’t actually started this yet, be on the lookout for a rework of my How to Read Ebooks set of posts. Since we’ve had some changes in the ebook and ereader realm over the last several months (notably, the releases of the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet, and the ability to check out library books on the Kindle), an update of that information is definitely called for. So watch this space for more data on that!

Mirrored from angelakorrati.com.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If you’re a fan of old-school romantic suspense, then you cannot go wrong at all with Daphne du Maurier. Especially if you pick up Rebecca, which I was very pleased to finally do. Many of the elements in this book are classically Gothic: the innocent young new bride, the brooding husband, the dead first wife, the remote mansion, the creepy housekeeper, and such. They are in fact Gothic enough that it took me a bit to realize that the novel was in fact set in a modern (as of the time it was written) time frame! In that respect, du Maurier reads a lot like Mary Stewart, and if you like Stewart you’ll probably like du Maurier very much.

Our story starts off with a young woman working as a companion in Monte Carlo to the odious Mrs. Van Hopper. She’s saved from exile to New York in Mrs. Van Hopper’s company by falling in love with an older man, Maxim de Winter, who is said to be haunted by the recent death of his first wife. To our heroine’s amazement, Maxim proposes to her, and she is whisked off to his mansion in Cornwall, Manderley, as the new Mrs. de Winter.

Once there, she discovers that Maxim, his housekeeper Mrs. Danvers, and the rest of the staff in the house are all still dominated by the memory of Rebecca, the first Mrs. de Winter–who, even after her death, is such a potent force that our shy young heroine is driven to despair. But as this is indeed a Gothic-style suspense novel, that is of course not all. For there are suspicious circumstances indeed about how Rebecca died!

It must be noted that our heroine is never actually given a name–which, it turns out, was a deliberate choice of the author. The edition I have includes a section at the end in which du Maurier explains to her readers that she never actually thought of a name for the character. It works wonderfully, though, as a symbol of how so thoroughly the second Mrs. de Winter is overwhelmed by the impact her predecessor had on Manderley even after her death.

There’s an original version of the book’s ending included with my edition, too, which is worth reading and comparing against the beginning of the finished story, since du Maurier moved a lot of that material into the initial chapter of the book. From a writer’s perspective it’s fun to see her explanations for why she did that, and from a reader’s perspective and a writer’s perspective alike, I can appreciate her choices. Without going into detail, I’ll say that for me as a reader, it seemed that du Maurier absolutely made the right choice, since her original ending was way too reminiscent of Jane Eyre.

I won’t say more for fear of spoilers, even though this novel’s old enough that many of you out there who are my age or older may have already read it, or may have seen the Hitchcock film that was based on this work. (And if you’re a Hitchcock fan, I can add too that I can absolutely see why Hitchcock made this into a movie; it’s very much right up his alley.) As with Mary Stewart, the pacing is slower than a modern reader may expect. But if you don’t mind taking your time, and in fact like to indulge in an author’s rich and slowly building prose, Rebecca will reward you. Five stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I heard about Silver Phoenix as yet another example of a trend that bothers the hell out of me: putting white faces on the covers of books that are not about white people. Thus, I wanted to give this book a bit of support. But, given that Cindy Pon was an unfamiliar author, I opted to check the book out of the library first and see whether this was a story I’d want to own.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t. I’m writing this review several months after I actually read the book, and at this point, I have to admit that I have very little recollection of what it was about–this being a measure of how little it stayed with me. So I had to refresh my memory by reading other people’s reviews of the story, which got me three overall problems I have with the book.

One, I never found any of the characters particularly well-drawn. I often have this problem reading YA, but Silver Phoenix is worse than other YA I’ve written, since the characters were ephemeral enough that I didn’t retain them at all within months of readin the book.

Two, I specifically didn’t care for the heroine’s love interest, and how he was so dismissive of her after one scene where she is almost raped. (Which some might call a spoiler, but which I’m noting here as a potential trigger warning for those who might find that scene an issue.)

And three, the heroine Ai Ling is sadly pretty much a non-entity. I’m calling her out separately from the rest of the cast because, as the ostensible protagonist of the novel, she should have stood out for me far better than she actually did. Yet the book doesn’t give her nearly as much agency as it does her love interest, Chen Yong–and much of what I do remember about the book involves Ai Ling pining after Chen Yong. Which I can do without. One star.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.