Follow Friday!!

It's Follow Friday!!

Today's Follow Friday question is:

Question: Keeping with the Spirit of Giving this season, what book do you think EVERYONE should read and if you could, you would buy it for all of your family and friends?

Interesting question.  For my children, the Harry Potter series.  I have the series in hard bound for them once they are old enough to read them.  Besides the magic of an amazing story, it teaches that everyone has something special about them & everyone can make a difference in the world. Also, The Princess Bride by William Goldman and Stardust by Neil Gaiman, wonderful modern fairy tales that tell incredible stories.

For older readers, I have to stick with the classics.  Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, The Plague by Albert Camus and Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.   Each is a wonderful study of human nature and society as a whole.

I realize that most people are writing about their favorite read from this year, but these books are timeless, to me, and have been my must reads for a long, long time.

 

 

Follow Friday!

It's Follow Friday!

I can't believe how long it's been since I posted!  I've really got to get back into blogging, so today's Follow Friday is my new start :)

Today's Follow Friday question is:

Question: What is your biggest pet peeve when it comes to books? Maybe you don't like love triangles or thin plots? Tell us about it! 

Like many of you, I have a few pet peeves when it comes to books.  First off, I have been trying to read more independent authors because I think it's important to support new authors and I love discovering someone new to read and to share.  However, I have literally stopped reading in the middle of a story because the errors in the book were so bad.  I understand that self-published authors don't have the advantages of professional editors and proof readers, but ask a friend to take a look at your work before you publish it.  No matter how good your story, a work filled with bad grammar, run on sentences and misspellings seriously detracts from your work.

My second major pet peeve when it comes to books is lazy authors.  I love to read series--finding a great author that writes engaging stories is a treasure.  However, what I don't like is when an author gets lazy and insults readers by recycling plot lines and, in some cases, actual lines from previous stories.  I have stopped reading two series' by a very famous and popular author for this reason.  I feel insulted--like I'm not intelligent enough to realize that this same plot happened to the same character three books ago.  If an author can't think of new stories for a series, end the series.  Simple.

My final pet peeve ties into the previous one of lazy authors, but this is about convenient endings.  Nothing is more disappointing than to reach the end of a trilogy or series only to suddenly have everything fall into place for a happy ending.  I know this example will bother some readers, but I was massively disappointed by Breaking Dawn.  I mean, come on, imprinting Jacob on the baby to resolve the love triangle--it felt like something from an old Soap Opera.  After having read the other books and been impressed by Meyer's storytelling, I was very let down her ending.  It felt like she was trying to please readers with a happy ending for everyone instead of writing what she truly felt would happen in the story.

Anyway, that's my list.  Hope you all have a great weekend!

Darynda Jones' Charley Davidson Series

I found a new series that I really like:  The Charley Davidson series by Darynda Jones.  So far, I've read First Grave on the Right (Book 1),  For I Have Sinned (short story, 1.5) and Second Grave on the Left (Book 2).  The main character is Charlotte (Charley) Davidson, private investigator and grim reaper.  Charley is the only grim reaper on the planet & she is like a soul magnet.  Most souls depart for the afterlife immediately, some do not.  These souls tend to have some unfinished business, like naming the person who killed them, and Charley is there to help sort things out & assist with crossing over.  She is aided in this by her father, a retired police detective, Uncle Bob, an active police detective, and her best friend Cookie.  Aside from helping departed souls, she also takes on 'regular' cases & gets mixed up with all sorts of bad guys.  Then, there is Reyes.  A mystery man from her past who is taking on monumental significance in her present.  Reyes is her reason for being and biggest source of frustration, all at the same time.

The stories are fun & the characters are extremely likable.  Charley shows a lot of opportunity for character growth over a series & the story possibilities are numerous.  Darynda Jones has created a great basis for her series and I look forward to reading upcoming installments.  Her next offering, Third Grave Ahead, is scheduled to be released in January, 2012.

Independent Authors

Lately, I have been reading a lot of independent authors.  I think that the programs being offered by amazon & barnes & noble are an excellent way for new authors to gain exposure for their work without having to navigate the publishing house system.  I also believe that there are a lot of talented writers out there who are now able to share their work with the world and make a little money as well.  I have read some very good stories by independent authors (most at a very reasonable rate as well :) 

However, I have also been extremely disappointed by some of the works I have read.  I don't know about you, but I get very distracted by things like spelling mistakes & horrible grammar. Spell check doesn't solve everything--have someone else read your work before publishing it please!  Bad spelling can really be distracting to a reader, especially when that reader is forced to figure out what you really meant to write instead of just enjoying the story.  For example, I recently read an independently published novel where the author mentions a character wearing "heals".  Now, I know that she meant to write "heels', but the whole incident really distracted me and, believe me, this was not the only spelling debacle in the book.  Another reason to have someone else check your work before publishing is the tendency to use the same phrase over and over again--this is really annoying.  It makes your characters seem one dimensional and fake--unless the people you interact with really repeat themselves on a regular basis, try to write the way that people speak.  Also, punctuation goes a long way to making your writing clear.  I'm not an expert, but I know that too many commas or too few can seriously impact the way a sentence is read.  There is a big difference between "Let's Eat Grandma!!" and "Let's Eat, Grandma!"  And, one final thing, Twilight was a great story & a huge success, but every independently published novel doesn't need to be about supernatural teens caught in a bizarre love triangle.

Maybe I'm being overly critical, but I've stopped reading the last few books before I was finished because I was so distracted and disappointed.  I won't be reading anymore books by these authors because I can't enjoy a book, no matter how interesting the premise might be, when my reading is constantly being derailed.  Just my opinion.

Follow Friday!!

It's Follow Friday!!

Today's Follow Friday question is:

Q. Do you have a favorite series that you read over and over again? Tell us a bit about it and why you keep on revisiting it?

 

Surprisingly, I don't.  While Harry Potter was being published, I re-read the previous books while waiting for the next book in the series to be released, but that was more to refresh my memory.  I do have a few series that I've kept to be read later, but I haven't re-visited them yet.  I have Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles on my shelf along with her Mayfair witches series.  I also have the Southern Vampire series (Sookie Stackhouse) by Charlaine Harris, The Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer and Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series.  I enjoyed them all enough to keep them but really plan to save them for my children to read than for me to read again.

Follow Friday!

It's Follow Friday!!

This week's Follow Friday question is:

Q. It's that pesky magic book fairy again! She has another wish: What imaginary book world would you like to make a reality? 

Ohhhhh, difficult question :)

However, I really think I'd like to be able to visit the world of Thursday Next.  Jasper Fforde has created not one, but two interesting worlds.  Thursday lives in an alternate Swindon, where the Toast Marketing Board is all powerful and cheese smuggling is a major problem.  However, she is one of the rare people that can also visit BookWorld--where books are living things and characters vacation in the backstories of other books.  I'd love to be able to visit with Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice or hang out with Shadow from American Gods.    The possibilities would be endless!!

Spell Bound by Kelley Armstrong

Spell Bound (Otherworld, Book 12), the latest in the Otherworld series, picks up where Waking the Witch (Women of the Otherworld, Book 11)left off.  Savannah is without her spell casting abilities and feels lost without them.  She doesn't really know who she is or where she belongs without her powers.  And, she's about to find out that she's a key player in a potential supernatural war.

I love the Otherworld series.  Until Waking the Witch (Women of the Otherworld, Book 11) Elena was my favorite character--they story of Elena and Clay is still my favorite in the series.  However, after reading about grown-up Savannah, she has taken the role of favorite character.  Armstrong always wrote Savannah as an interesting child, just finding out who she is and where she belongs.  She was always somewhat confident in herself and her abilities.  However, the adult Savannah is a complex and well-written character.  She is confident and arrogant, while still being vulnerable and insecure.  She knows what she wants but isn't always ready to go after it.  Her story, as told in both Waking the Witch (Women of the Otherworld, Book 11) and Spell Bound (Otherworld, Book 12) shows her maturing and finding herself and her place in the world.  She is a very likable character.

In Spell Bound (Otherworld, Book 12) things are heating up.  Savannah is kidnapped, again.  This time by an underground movement wanting supernaturals to 'come out' into the open.  Their leader, a cult like figure with an interesting back story, believes that Savannah fulfills one sign of a prophecy that will propel supernaturals in to the open and as superior to humans.  There are other signs of the prophecy as well, many of whom are Savannah's friends and family, and a few of whom seem to be references to Armstrong's YA series about Otherworld.  I'm very interested to see if the two series will intersect in the future.  This book brings most of the supernatural community into the story and seems to be setting up something big in future books.  All the players are here:  Jeremy, Elana, Clay, Jaime, Hope, Karl, Cassandra, Aaron,  Paige, Lucas and, of course, Adam.  Both the Nast and the Cortez Cabal are involved as well.  However, while this does set-up what sounds like a great future story-line, Savannah's story is excellent on it's own.  Her character really starts to mature in this novel.  Without her powers, she really begins to appreciate what others have to offer her in their own experiences and what her own strengths are outside of spell casting.  It's a great story and I look forward to reading the next installment in the Otherworld series.