RIPPED FROM THE PAGES

I've recently read the first two books, Glow and Spark, in a new trilogy by Amy Kathleen Ryan.  Two spaceships are traveling to a distant planet, which will be called New Earth, to colonize it.  All the adults on one ship, the Empyrean, are either killed or captured by people from the other ship, the New Horizon, and the girls are kidnapped because the people on the New Horizon are determined to be the first to populate New Earth.  I really enjoyed both books, and am eagerly awaiting publication of the third, but I had a problem with one character's name, and it kept jolting me out of the book.

The leader of the New Horizon's name is Pastor Anne Mather.  This probably doesn't mean anything to most people, but in real life, Anne Mather is the author of a number of Harlequin and Mills & Boon Romances, and one of the original authors of Harlequin's first spin-off imprint, Harlequin Presents.  I think I know why Ryan chose this name for her character:  Pastor Anne Mather presents herself as a motherly figure, and "Mather" is close to "mother."  Reminding myself of that didn't help me get past the issue, unfortunately.  Every time I encountered the character's full name, I would have to regroup and get back into the story.

I had a similar experience on a recent re-read of Susan Elizabeth Phillips's book It Had to Be You, which was published just before O. J. Simpson killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.  Football is a major part of the story, and the fictional characters make reference to real-life players and coaches.  It was almost surreal to read this book, which portrayed O. J. as a good guy, and to realize that while it was still on the shelves, O.J.'s reputation was forever smeared with the blood of his victims.

Still, it's weird how the tiniest things can rip me right out of the pages of an otherwise good read.

BREATHING ROOM, BY SUSAN ELIZABETH PHILLIPS

I've been avoiding this one for a couple of weeks, even though it's the only SEP I could find to reread since I finished Dream a Little Dream earlier this month. As I recall, I enjoyed it the first time I read it, but the She-God in the story was a bit unsettling. Since I was in the mood for an SEP kind of story, I bit the bullet and re-read it. This time I enjoyed it without qualifications. The God plot didn't bother me a bit, and I was carried away for a couple of hours to the sunny fields and vineyards of Tuscany. How could I go wrong?

I feel like I haven't been reading much lately, but I've been listening to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire when I'm in the car. I'm on tape 4 of 12. Jim Dale really does a marvelous job reading the Potter books, and he deserves every award he's received for his work.

I've been skimming lots of magazines lately, and my recipe book has taken up chunks of my time. I love reading recipes and seeing how the same ingredients can be combined in so many different ways with so many different results, give or take a spice or two. It's funny how I know just from reading a recipe whether I'd even want to try making it.

I watched Julie & Julia the other night and found the idea of working my way through a cookbook more than a little daunting, until I realized that I sort of plan to do something similar with my own recipe book. What I find perplexing is how Julie got such a following on her blog--as far as I know, I have two readers and several who come here just to post junk and ads. How do you get hundreds of people interested in your online musings?

My cookbook project will likely begin in May. Now that my husband has a job and we can see an end to the days of being broke and living paycheck to paycheck, I can focus on planning my menus for the week, using my crockpot, doing a bit of baking, and just expanding my list of go-to recipes. I'll probably post the recipes I try, so you foodies out there, plan to chime in with advice and share your cooking adventures.

And in the words of Isabel Favor, Embrace the Chaos...and BREATHE!

GLOMMING AND BAD TITLES

The best thing about discovering a new author is glomming all their other books and immersing yourself in their writing, or re-discovering an old favorite, revisiting favorite titles, and catching up with their other titles.

When Jayne Ann Krentz was writing what I call her Alphabet Trilogies under her pseudonym Amanda Quick, I read them as fast as I could get my hands on them. I don't remember much about them now, and frankly, I found it very hard to remember specifics about each book because those titles (Mystique, Mischief, Mistress, Dangerous, Desire, Deception, Ravished, Reckless, etc.) didn't help me remember what they were about. I've thought about going back and re-reading them, and that's not out of the question, but there are so many books I have yet to read for a first time by authors I have yet to discover that I'm not necessarily willing to devote a lot of time to that many books I've already read.

Anyway, I hadn't read JAK for a while, except in her Jayne Castle persona, because I love her Harmony series. My aunt, Posey, and I talk books a lot, and she was telling me how hard it is to find JAK books secondhand, and I realized I had a few of her Arcane Society books. I hadn't realized that they tied in with the Harmony books. So I'm on my fourth JAK title in the past month, and I love that I'm just flying through it. I've begun to realize that sometimes my slow reading pace is a symptom of reading books I think I *should* read rather than reading what I know I'll love and enjoy.

When I first discovered Susan Elizabeth Phillips, it was the same thing--I read everything I could find by her. I recently re-read Dream a Little Dream, which is one of my favorites of hers, even though I'm not exactly sure what that title had to do with anything. And that leads me to a particular pet peeve: bad titles.

I used to read Harlequin romances all the time, and I didn't care who saw me reading them. I don't read them to speak of now, and the reason is quite simple: the titles are stupid and embarrassing. The Billionaire's Baby Bargain. The Sheikh's Secret Seduction. The Italian's Pregnant Mistress. These may or may not be actual titles, but you see where I'm going with this. For years I defended Harlequin as good story-telling with a wealth of opportunity for fledgling writers. Now I can't get past the titillating, newsstand headline titles of the books to read the stories inside. Harlequin's taken the genre backward about fifty years, and it's a terrible mistake. On the other hand, I guess if I were to read one of those books, I wouldn't have trouble remembering what the plot was.

I recently read Never Love a Lawman by Jo Goodman. I really enjoy her books, which are usually western historical romances, but the title of this one left me scratching my head, because it's one of those titles I'm talking about--it had nothing to do with the story, except that the hero was the town sheriff. The story was about a young woman who moves to a small western town to escape a villain. She keeps to herself for the most part, except for the fact that she's a dressmaker who designs clothing for the ladies of the town as well as for the ladies of the night. The town is open-minded about this because the ladies of the night were brought in to provide company for the bachelor miners, and many of them have married and become respectable. Anyway, the heroine and hero marry to meet the terms of the will of the young woman's benefactor, who had once been a friend of her father's. So, does anything here relate to "Never Love a Lawman?" I didn't think so, either.

Authors don't get much say in naming their books, but I'm pretty sure I'd have trouble accepting a title that didn't have anything to do with my story.

RANDOM READING THOUGHTS

I've been looking through my reading log this month, and what I saw startled me a bit. I read about 150 books a year, give or take a dozen. (No, that's not the startling part!) What surprised me was that I tend to read the same authors over and over. I thought I was a more eclectic reader than that, so it was unsettling to see how often I gravitate back to the same writers.

Of course there are the obvious culprits, those authors who are blessedly prolific, like Nora Roberts/J. D. Robb--well, actually, I guess there's no one else quite like the Queen--she is an entity unto herself! Still, authors like Christina Dodd, Kelley Armstrong, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, and others keep me coming back for more.

This week, I finished Liar by Justine Larbalestier. Now, I wouldn't exactly call her one of my favorite authors, but I find her books inherently intriguing, especially this one, about a girl who is a pathological liar with a very unusual problem. The thing is, this book grabbed me and kept me all the way through, but I'm still scratching my head over the ending, which I think is exactly what JL was going for when she wrote it. So I guess she is one of my favorite authors, because her books always leave me thinking.

My current read is Ivy by Julie Hearn. It's a book for teens, but it seems like an amalgam of A Little Princess, anything by Dickens, and possibly Slammerkin or The Dress Lodger. I'm always up for a heartrending orphan story, but I have no idea where this one is going to take me. I'm enjoying the ride, er, read.

Putting books up for sale at amazon.com has been fairly lucrative of late. Since my husband retired from the army last June (2009), he has not found another job. His retirement pay doesn't stretch quite far enough for him to remain unemployed for much longer, but of course this economy is about as bad as it can be for job hunters. So I do my regular job, my side job, and find other ways to make money, like selling my books. Considering how many thousands of books I have, and the snail-like pace at which I read, it makes some sense to try to sell them, because I probably won't live long enough to read them, anyway.

I'm going to stop here and go eat dinner, but I wanted to post something and keep my blog active on a regular basis this year.

Happy trails!

OFF TO A GOOD START

January so far has been a really good reading month, with lots of interesting books. I've finished 10 books this month, and have several others in varying states of reading progress. I like to finish a book every other day, so I'm a couple of days ahead of schedule. I don't have really strong impressions of some of the books, but I'll share my thoughts, such as they are.

True Love and Other Disasters, by Rachel Gibson--This was about a former exotic dancer/Playboy bunny who marries a wealthy old guy. When he dies, he leaves her his hockey team. The old guy's son is a nasty piece of work who wants to buy the team from his erstwhile stepmother, but he gets in her face once too often and she decides she'll keep the team for herself. Unfortunately, she and the team captain take an immediate dislike to each other, but their animosity soon turns to attraction.

I really enjoyed this book--it reminded me of Susan Elizabeth Phillips's Chicago Stars books. However, I was kind of bugged by some of the details in the book, especially about Faith's clothing and nail polish. As a former exotic dancer trying to go conservative, I found the constant references to short red nails a bit off-putting, because someone who switches to a basic neutral palette in her clothing would probably wear less obvious colors of nail polish. Also, sometimes the footwear sounded kind of tacky and stripperish, and I could never tell if the author meant to show that Faith hadn't quite absorbed a less flamboyant presentation or if she wanted to show that sometimes the wild girl has to escape the confines of her beige life. Other than those minor quibbles, it was a fun, satisfying read.

What I Did for Love, by Susan Elizabeth Phillips--It's always a treat to read SEP, and I enjoyed this story of a child TV star who finds herself married, Vegas-style, to her former co-star, a somewhat dissipated has-been who seems intent on arranging for a reunion show to earn some money. Of course his motives turn out to be a bit more altruistic, and there's really a decent guy under that bad-boy exterior. SEP keeps the action moving and the plot twists turning with her usual flair.

Certain Poor Shepherds, by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas--This slight Christmas tale seems like a book I SHOULD like because it's kind of serious and literary, but I just didn't love it. This is the story of a dog and a goat and the flock of sheep they tend, who follow the star to Bethlehem and have some adventures along the way, including encounters with angels and the three Wise Men. Probably someone more serious-minded than I would enjoy it more.

Getting Lucky, by Elaine Barbieri--I was actually somewhat disappointed with this story, because it was all a little too pat and relied on stock characters to tell the story. The heroine was orphaned while on a wagon train to California and had to walk the rest of the journey after her parents died. The book blurb tells us the heroine's virtue is at stake, but you never really get a sense that she's in any real danger, despite the best efforts of the villain and the jealous other woman (who is a saloon hall hooker). Everything was telegraphed well before anything actually happened, and there was just a bit too much mustache-twirling and gnashing of teeth to make a truly engaging read.

Dragon Slippers, by Jessica Day George--This was a very unique fairy tale about a girl who is offered as a sacrifice to a most unwilling dragon. She coaxes him into giving her a pair of shoes, which are coveted by an evil princess who is engaged to the heir to the throne of the girl's kingdom. The story was original, and it was a very enjoyable read, with some excellent themes.

Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery, by Eric Ives--This book was very scholarly in nature, as the author's intent was to delve through legend and letters to get to the real reason why Jane Grey, the person most innocent in the plot to put her on the throne of England in lieu of her devoutly Catholic cousin, Mary, was put to death. It was pretty dry reading in places, but thoroughly researched and eminently convincing in its conclusions.

Early Dawn, by Catherine Anderson--The heroine of this story is kidnapped from a train during a robbery by a band of outlaw brothers who molest and abuse her while preserving her virginity as they intend to sell her to a Mexican bordello. After several days of captivity, the heroine is rescued by a man who's been pursuing the brothers for years in serach of vengeance for his wife's rape and murder by these same villains. Most of the book consists of the hero and heroine trailing and/or evading the outlaws while they wait for the heroine's brothers to catch up with them and take her home. The heroine's strength of character was very appealing, and the hero's heartache was touching. Anderson has added another winner to her long list of successful books.

The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold--I don't know what took me so long to get to this one, but it was definitely my kind of book. I wanted to read it before I see the movie, which opened this weekend. Susie Salmon is a captivating narrator/heroine, and the ripple effect her murder has on the rest of her family is heartbreaking and encouraging at the same time. Anyone who's lost a loved one to a murderer will find this book heartfelt and accurate in its depiction of the isolation grief causes the survivors of crime victims. I hope the movie does the book justice.

Kissing the Countess, by Susan King--It took me months to get into this book, but once it finally caught me, it held me until I finished it. Catriona is a minister's daughter who collects old songs from her Scottish Highland home to preserve them before they're lost to the clearances (when Scottish lords moved families out of their homes and cleared the land to raise sheep for maximum profit and minimum outlay). While returning from a trip to gather yet another song, she comes across an injured man. As the weather gets treacherous, they seek shelter in an abandoned hut, where they're found by Catriona's father, the local doctor, and the mysterious man's friend. Forced into marriage, Catriona learns that her husband is the new laird, whose father was responsible for moving so may people out of their homes. The subplot involving the doctor was a little nebulous and stretched belief at times, but overall, the book was interesting.

Princess Ben, by Catherine Gilbert Murdock--This was another good fairy tale, about a somewhat spoiled princess whose uncle, the king, is murdered along with her mother, while her father is missing and presumed dead. Ben ends up being groomed for the throne by her very strict aunt, the king's widow. This story incorporated elements from lots of familiar fairy tales, but combined them in a unique and compelling way. I definitely want to read more by this author, and recommend this book to all fairy tale fans.

Well, that's it so far for this month. I've read lots of new storybooks with my kindergarten classes, and have listed those titles on my shelf at www.shelfari.com. I hope to have lots more books to report on by the end of the month. Happy reading!