Book roundup time again

Recently purchased in print from B&N, one in-store and the other by mail order:

• Unbroken, by Rachel Caine. Urban fantasy, Book 4 of her Outcast Season series.
• In the Dead of Winter, by Abbey Pen Baker. Mystery. This is a Holmes-universe novel that’s proposing that the daughter of Irene Adler is herself a famous detective, and has a loyal partner who helps her solve crimes and chronicles their adventures. So essentially, “gender-flipped version of Holmes and Watson without actually being Holmes and Watson”. Saw a review from Laurie R. King (who knows something about Holmesian novels, I daresay) speaking well of this, so I wanted to check it out. Ordering was my only option, though, since local libraries were for once not terribly helpful in tracking it down.

Meanwhile, picked up electronically from B&N, all re-buys of books previously owned in print:

• All three books of the Sign of Seven trilogy, by Nora Roberts. Paranormal romance. Y’all may recall I was a little wibbly on how much I liked this, but I do like me some Nora in general and I wanted to keep these around even if I didn’t want to retain print copies.
• The first three books of the Mercy Thompson series, by Patricia Briggs. Urban fantasy. Shifting Briggs over to electronic buying since she’s got a lot of work at this point, which translates to a lot of shelf space, and I think I want her electronically instead.

This brings me to 25 for the year.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

2011 Book Log #46: The Thirteenth House, by Sharon Shinn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I read Sharon Shinn’s first book in her Twelve Houses series, I found it a bit shaky in its initial chapters, at least till it got its feet under it. I was very pleased to discover that I had no such problem with Book 2, The Thirteenth House.

This book continues the adventures of the overall cast of characters established in Mystic and Rider as they pursue the greater plot arc of anti-magic sentiment sweeping their kingdom and threatening to plunge them all into outright war. However, the focus shifts now from Senneth and Tayse over to the shapeshifter Kirra, whose participation in the rescue of their king’s kidnapped regent, Lord Romar, leads to a stormy affair with said regent. The catch: Romar is married, and Kirra is impersonating her own half-sister. Between that and Kirra’s need to keep her true identify and her talents secret, the affair is perilous to them both. Kirra’s soon swamped in intrigue–and comes under the threat of the ringleaders of the growing potential rebellion.

Overall I liked this book quite a bit, despite the fact that as a character, Kirra is definitely more flawed than Senneth. She’s impulsive to a fault, and at first this is frustrating. Yet she did well riding the line between “I want to smack her for her choices” and “I am nonetheless sympathizing with her”, and she shows some admirable development when faced with the consequences of her actions. (Even as she’s ultimately forced into a difficult and ethically shady choice indeed, about which I shall not elaborate, because spoilers.)

I did also like Romar, and was relieved to see that Shinn did not go the too-easy route of making his wife unlikeable. Some readers may find the fact that Kirra’s carrying on with a married man ethically shady all by itself; if you’re one of those readers, this book won’t be for you. But for what it’s worth, I did appreciate that Shinn didn’t make it easy on either character.

On the bigger level of the overall story arc, I liked the advancements in this one quite a bit. After I finished this one off as a library checkout, I went ahead and committed to buying the series, and I’ll look forward to finishing them off. For this one, four stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.