Marked in Flesh --by Anne Bishop

Fiction / Urban Fantasy

416 pages

5 Stars

This is the fourth in the series about "The Others" by Anne Bishop. The main, and only problem, I have with her books is I read them sooo much faster than she writes them! Ship the kids to Granny, send the husband to work, call your boss and take a sick day (mental health counts!), make a pot of coffee (or whatever you drink) and sit back and go for the ride. Better yet, check into a hotel with room service. Fewer disruptions. And they'll let you read while luxuriating in the hot tub.

If you've not read the first three books, stop right now, go get and read them. Although you can read this one as a stand alone, it will make so much more sense if you read the others first. Besides, then you can stay a whole week in that hotel with room service—and your husband's credit card ;-)

Yes, these books are that good!

Problems come to a head when an international ring of pig-headed humans decide it's time to get rid of The Others and claim Earth as theirs, and theirs alone. They have lived with The Others for generations, and have become complacent in what they are, and what they can do. They have signed treaties they don't like, and now think the time has come to arise, and put Humans First, Last, and Always.

All of our favorite characters are here, especially Simon Wolfgard and Meg Corbyn. We meet new friends, lose a few friends, and fight a war of survival.

Meg, a human blood prophet, comes up with ways for her fellow blood prophets to hopefully get away from cutting themselves to see prophecy and possibly lead more "normal" lives.

Simon, the leader of the pack, must do his best to save at least some of humanity from the wrath of the ancient Others. The older ones are by far the most powerful, and truly desire to rid the entire planet of humans. All humans. But not all humans deserve annihilation.

Some authors have a hard time carrying a story from book to book, but not Ms. Bishop; each book reads better, faster, and ever more engrossing than the preceding one. I don't know how many books are scheduled in this series, but I will be sorely sorry when it's over. I really enjoy my time with Meg and Simon and all the characters in the Courtyard.

Humor Me (Life Without a Field Guide Book 2) --by Lill Hawkins

Essay / Humor

119 pages / 2155 KB

5 Stars

After reading Funny You Should Ask, also by Lill Hawkins, I enjoyed it so much, I bought her next book, Humor Me. It's more of the same – short essays about the weirdness that surrounds her, from her dearly beloved, aka Geekdaddy, to Son and Daughter, aka Son and Daughter, and their adventures living in the backwoods of Maine.

I did manage to parse out the essays into a 2-sit read, but it wasn't easy. Her essays are short, and chocked full of humor. She makes Maine sound almost like a place I want to visit. Visit, not settle in.

Read the short excerpt at Amazon about Maine's seasons (I always thought they were Cold and Colder, but she actually talks about Summer and Autumn, snowfall and grilling.

Well worth the time and the cost. Buy it, read it, review it!

Lana Harvey, Reapers Inc. (5 Book Series) --by Angela Roquet

Graveyard Shift

259 pages / 1887 KB

Pocket Full of Posies

253 pages / 821 KB

For the Birds

243 pages / 1392 KB

Psychopomp

323 pages / 1252 KB

Death Wish

317 pages / 1322

5 Stars

By the time I finished reading the first book, Graveyard Shift, I had already purchased and downloaded the remaining 4. Normally, I read a book, and review it, but when they are fun, I tend to read them all one after another, which makes it hard to review each one separately, because they all run together. So I'm reviewing it as one large book ;-)

Our heroine, Lana Harvey, is a Reaper. She was created, and lives, in the Afterlife, and only comes to our world to harvest souls to take back to Eternity.

This is not the Eternity you learned of in Sunday School. If you can't suspend that belief and enjoy another point of view, don't pick up these books. You won't enjoy them. If, however, you can suspend what you learned in Sunday School, and are willing to read a book where the gods of old have their own bits of Afterlife for those who worshipped them, and where those gods get together for social occasions, where the Archangel Gabriel and Beezelbub drink beer and play poker together, well, grab these books and hang on for a terrific ride.

Lana Harvey is a Reaper (oh, I said that, didn't I?). She's not the best of the bunch, and rather likes it where she's at, and has no great ambitions to go up the chain of command. In fact, she doesn't want to. But then Life steps in. Or at least Life as it is in the Afterlife. She finds that when she was created she was given a wee bit extra of something special, and that wee bit extra causes her no end of grief.

Then she falls in love with an overbearing Angel who worships Allah. She finally gets out from under him, only to fall head over heels for Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies, who goes by the name of Bub.

Bub breaks her heart.

Her boss wants to kill her.

War happens.

And Lana is right in the middle of it. Her world is coming apart, literally.

The ending of this book is quite satisfactory, and it is an ending. Oh, another thing I enjoyed was each chapter begins with an epigraph, a quote.

Buy the books. Read the books. Enjoy the books. Review the books!

Funny You Should Ask (Life Without a Field Guide Book 1) --by Lill Hawkins

Nonfiction / Essays

128 pages / 2868 KB

Footnotes/Endnotes: None

Illustrations: None

Suitable for eReaders: Yes

5 Stars

I was asked to read this, and write an honest review. The book was free.

WARNING: This is a one-sit book. It brought to mind The Adventures of Stout Mama by Sibyl James, and Revenge of the Paste Eaters and Fat Girls and Lawn Chairs by Cheryl Peck.

A collection of short and humorous essays by a woman who holds a love-hate relationship with Maine (she loves the people, the weather can be iffy depending on the date), who home-schooled her children as a secularist (they are now in college, so she obviously did a good job), who lives with a husband as afraid of spiders as I am (she thinks they are nice and moves them to safe places away from him), and writes about some of the laugh-out-loud people and or experiences she and her family have had.

The title comes from the fact she home-schooled her children and often took Son and Daughter out during the day, and was forever being pelted with questions about why weren't they in school?

For a good time, don't call—buy this book! If you're thinking of home-schooling your kids, use this book as a primer on how to do it to get the best possible results. There are two more books out by Lill Hawkins in this series, which are now downloaded to my Kindle, so excuse me for cutting this short. I need a few more laughs today!

Crown of Renewal (Legend of Paksenarrion Book 5) --by Elizabeth Moon

Fiction / Fantasy

529 pages / 5040 KB

5 Stars

WARNING! If you haven't read the previous books, do not start here!

I found this book a satisfying conclusion to the series – and, yes, I noticed a few open ends by the ending. (Those open ends are not major plot points.) Perhaps another book? Another series? Dare I hope?

Truly, I was sad to leave the world of Paks. Moon does such a marvelous job of creating worlds, and their populations, I felt as if most of the good guys and gals were long lost friends I had just met again, and now they are gone again. But those open ends give me hope they have only left a while, and soon we'll be reunited.

I have consistently given Moon 5 stars for this series. One reason is I read them all in one fell swoop, and couldn't remember certain details from one to the next. Yes, some books were better than others, and parts of some books were better or worser (that's a word, trust me) than other parts. But over all, I could not put the series down until finished at some un-Girdish hour of the morning.

And I really, truly, hope Moon is going to give us another romp through the world of Paksenarrion. But if she doesn't, I am grateful for the romp I just completed. Thank you, Elizabeth Moon, for many hours of enjoyment and escape from the mundane features of my life.