{"id":795,"date":"2014-08-06T00:24:22","date_gmt":"2014-08-06T00:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/?p=795"},"modified":"2014-08-03T00:47:16","modified_gmt":"2014-08-03T00:47:16","slug":"what-ive-read-lately","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/what-ive-read-lately\/","title":{"rendered":"What I\u2019ve Read Lately"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t post often enough about what I\u2019m reading or have read lately.\u00a0 In general my taste runs to mystery and fantasy with romantic elements, but interesting characters will always draw me in.\u00a0 And most of my books are things that were published a while back that I just got around to picking up or that I\u2019ve finally grabbed out of the massive TBR piles of physical books on the shelf by my reading chair or the long list on my Kindle.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I\u2019ve had a good run in the last couple of months, so I wanted to share a few of the better-than-average books I\u2019ve read.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The first is the latest from one of only three or four authors I routinely buy in hardcover: Jim Butcher. His most recent release, Skin Game<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, is a very worthy release to the Harry Dresden series.\u00a0 If you haven\u2019t read the Harry Dresden books already, I highly recommend them.\u00a0 But don\u2019t start with this one. You\u2019ll enjoy this much more if you go back and start with the first book, Storm Front<\/strong><\/em>, and read the series in order. <\/span><\/p>\n

Skin Game<\/strong><\/em> is sort of side trip in the Dresden universe. It doesn\u2019t forward the overall plot arc of the series very much, but like every book in the series it shows Harry growing, not just as a wizard but as a man, and coming to terms with the limits of what he can do, the compromises he has to make, and the losses that are an inevitable part of fighting the demons. The book is more of a caper story within the Dresden universe and what a caper it is! When Queen Mab makes a deal with an arch-demon for Harry\u2019s services, he knows it\u2019s not going to be anywhere near as simple as it sounds, and every bit as awful, if not even more. There\u2019s dealing and double-dealing and then there are whole new levels of betrayal and unexpected alliances. Mix that with Harry\u2019s sardonic humor and hilarious one-liners and you\u2019ve got a recipe for a book you won\u2019t want to put done, even when you\u2019ve reached the end.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Spellcast<\/a>\u00a0I picked up the book Spellcast<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Barbara Ashford in a used bookstore based entirely on the cover and then bought it because the blurb hooked me with its promised combination of magic and musical theater. My mother adored musical theater, and the recordings of classics like Showboat<\/em>, South Pacific<\/em>, My Fair Lady<\/em>, Annie, Get Your Gun<\/em>, and others, were the soundtrack of my childhood. The book didn\u2019t disappoint. The brief blurb on Amazon doesn\u2019t really do the story justice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Maggie Graham lost her job and her apartment fell to pieces, she decided to flee New York City for a while and hide in Vermont, at the Crossroads Theatre. She hadn’t planned to audition, yet soon found herself part of the summer stock cast. But her previous acting experiences couldn’t prepare her for the theater’s unusual staff-and its handsome, almost otherworldly director.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The magic, mystery, characters and romance are mixed in a lovely stew with surprising depth. The story was very different from anything I\u2019d read recently (in a good way).\u00a0 It reminded me of some Sarah Addison Allen\u2019s books.\u00a0 But the ending was a bit of a let-down until I realized it wasn\u2019t the ending at all.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Naturally I immediately order the sequel, Spellcrossed<\/strong><\/em><\/a>. The second book wasn\u2019t quite as good as the first, partly due to the fact that many of the more intriguing mysteries had already been resolved, and partly because the focus was less on Maggie\u2019s relationship with all the other characters, than on her relationship with one (not the love interest) and working through her personal demons.\u00a0 Nonetheless it was still one of the better books I\u2019ve read this year.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Then there is\u00a0The Dark Enquiry<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Deanna Raybourn.\u00a0 I\u2019ve found Raybourn\u2019s books hit or miss.\u00a0 The Dark Enquiry<\/em> <\/strong>was a hit but just barely.\u00a0 I loved the first few books in the Lady Julia Grey series. Some of the magic went out of the writing and storytelling once the issues between Julia and Nicholas Brisbane, now her husband, were resolved. In this one it felt like the author went out of her way to create tension between them mostly by having Julia do stupid things.\u00a0 (Not that she hadn\u2019t in previous stories, but it seemed like she was growing up a bit.)\u00a0 I enjoyed the second half more than the first. <\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also read the short Lady Julia Christmas story by Deanna Raybourn, Twelth Night<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0 This one is definitely more about relationships \u2013 Julia\u2019s relationships with her family members, and with her husband.\u00a0 The mystery plot is shallow and quickly resolved, but the resolution marks a clear turning point in the lives of Julia and her husband.\u00a0 It should be interesting to see where Raybourn goes with this. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Faerie<\/a>Faerie Blood<\/em><\/strong> by Angela Korat\u2019ti was a very enjoyable romp through an urban fantasy universe set in Washington state. The plotting and characterization aren\u2019t deep or twisty, but it\u2019s interesting throughout with enough twists, turns, danger, monsters and unexpected allies to keep me intrigued and reading.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t post often enough about what I\u2019m reading or have read lately.\u00a0 In general my taste runs to mystery and fantasy with romantic elements, but interesting characters will always draw me in.\u00a0 And most of my books are things …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":799,"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795\/revisions\/799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}