Archive for » October, 2009 «

30
Oct 2009

Book Review: Lost Souls by Lisa Jackson

JM

About the Book

Twenty-seven-year-old Kristi Bentz is lucky to be alive, Not many people her age have nearly died twice at the hands of a serial killer, and lived to tell about it. Her dad, New Orleans detective, Rick Bentz, wants Kristi to stay in New Orleans and out of danger. But if anything, Kristi’s experiences have made her even more fascinated by the mind of the serial killer.

She hasn’t given up her dream of being a true-crime writer – of exploring the darkest recesses of evil – and now she just may get her chance.

The Long Story

I’ll be honest with you – I’m not usually a murder mystery kind of woman. Nor am I a New York Time Bestseller reader. I should probably pay attention to that, but I simply don’t. So when Lost Souls by NYT Bestselling author Lisa Jackson arrived on my doorstep, I wasn’t quite sure what I was in for.

With a touch of the paranormal from the very beginning, Jackson presents you with a book that is outside the cookie cutter murder mystery. Thankfully, Jackson doesn’t stop there. She carries through the paranormal undertones all the way to her likeable – even though she’s a bit prickly – main character Kristi Bentz.

Kristi is just one of a cast of many strong characters Jackson has brought out to play in this dark and slightly twisted book. While it certainly good have gone deeper into the disgusting rituals involved in the murders, I, for one, was thankful Jackson kept the same mixture of strong characters, intriguing mystery, and just a dash of romance and the paranormal.

While Lost Souls can certainly stand on its own, Jackson treads a thin line with tapping on events of past books. I found myself occasionally feeling like I was missing out, having not read the previous books. However, hopefully this will work to Jackson’s advantage in boosting the sales of her previous books as well.

The ending leaves an obvious opening for another book involving the Bentz family, and I can happily say I like this book enough to want to read the next one.

The Short Story

I recommend Lost Souls even if mysteries or a touch of the paranormal isn’t your usual thing. It certainly isn’t mine, but I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would and would definitely like some more.

***
Rating: 4 stars

[What do the Ratings Mean?]

***
Lost Souls
By Lisa Jackson
http://www.lisajackson.com/
ISBN: 978-0758211835
Length: 432 pages

Category: Book Reviews  4 Comments
29
Oct 2009

Booking Through Thursday – Blurbs

JM

Suggested by Jennysbooks:

Something I’ve been thinking about lately: “What words/phrases in a blurb make a book irresistible? What words/phrases will make you put the book back down immediately?”

Interesting question…

For me, what makes a book irresistable is a combination of author, cover, blurb, etc. The blurb alone will get me to look at the cover (or vice versa), which will get me to look at the first page, and so on.

I think it’s easier to answer this question with what words will make me put down a book.

1. Undefeatable
2. Amazing adventure!
3. Bodice-ripping (even my erotica needs to have plot, not just sex)
4. Anything describing the main character as dumb, ditzy, etc.

The last one can certainly work in books, but they just aren’t the characters I prefer to read about.

Category: Booking Through Thursday  2 Comments
28
Oct 2009

A Book by Any Other Name – Summer

JM

Welcome to this week’s (and the first ever) By Any Other Name book game!

Well, we didn’t quite get to the goal number of titles last week, so the challenge number remains.

If you’re new to the challenge, this is a game from my dear friend Calliope that gets us to play with book titles.

The game works like this:

1. Each week I will choose and a book title that features that word.
2. Then it’s your turn to come up with book titles containing the same word, without duplication (yes, that includes my titles). The author would be nice, too, in case I want to check it out.
3. If you make it to the challenge number of titles (make sure you read the challenge section each week because it can change), then I will draw one name from all the participants and that person wins!

It’s really not complicated. I pick a word and you list titles with that word. Easy peasy.

The current challenge:

Titles to Reach: Nineteen
Titles Per Person: Two

What can you win? The winner receives any one of the books on this page along with a bookmark (or two!).

I’ve decided this is a much better way of doing things rather than offering the SAME book over and over. Plus, I will be adding to the giveaway shelf as much as I can, so keep checking in to see what’s on offer.

So if you’d like a chance to win, join in!

If you don’t reach the goal, we’ll try again next week. If you reach the goal, I’ll have a brand new challenge for you next Wednesday where you’ll get another chance to win a book – regardless if you have won a book previously!

The word this week is:

Summer

I Say: Summer On Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber

You Say…

Category: Wednesday Book Game  3 Comments
27
Oct 2009

Teaser Tuesday

JM

teasertuesdays31Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

1. Grab your current read.
2. Open to a random page.
3. Share two (or three or four, if you’re me) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.
4. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
5. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Run at Destruction by Lynda Drews:

“At Café Espresso, surrounded by hand painted Turkish murals and the chatter from the crowded bar, the air was filled with the scent of spices and flavored coffee beans. Jim waited until we’d ordered drinks and gyros, and then took a deep breath. “Lynda, I need to tell you something.” “

Category: Teaser Tuesday  2 Comments
26
Oct 2009

To Be Read Shelf

JM

book stackHello and welcome to What I’m Reading.

Not much has really changed this week. I feel like such a slow reader lately, but the week was a rough one, so I’m taking it easy on myself. I’m still planning a review week for the week after next, so stay tuned…

Newly Arrived:

Reading:
Writing as a Sacred Path – Jill Jepson
Why the Chinese Don’t Count Calories – Lorraine Clissold
Tales for Delicious Girls – Barbora Knobova

Going to Read (in no particular order):
Run at Destruction – Lynda Drews
Stewards of the Flame – Sylvia Engdahl
Arrows of Time – Kim Falconer
Saffron Dreams – Shaila Abdullah
The Vision – C.L. Talmage
Fallout – C.L. Talmage
The Scorpions Strike – C.L. Talmage
Kissing Games of the World – Sandi Kahn Shelton
Supernatural – Graham Hancock
Neutron Star – Short story collection – Larry Niven
Firebirds – Fantasy/Sci-fi Anthology – Edited by Sharyn November
The Foreshadowing – Marcus Sedgwick
The Redemption of Althalus – David and Leigh Eddings
The Serpent Bride – Sara Douglass
The Twisted Citadel – Sara Douglass
Season of Sacrifice – Tristi Pinkston
Copper Star – Suzanne Woods Fisher
Copper Fire – Suzanne Woods Fisher
The Lost Diary of Don Juan – Douglas Carlton Abrams
The Daughters of Moab – Kim Westwood
Scattered Leaves – Richard Roach
Song of Sorcery – Elizabeth Scarborough
Lose the Diet: Transform Your Body by Connecting with Your Soul – Kathy Balland
Dying for Mercy – Mary Jane Clark
First Night – Tom Weston
Extreme Dreams Depend on Teams – Pat Williams
Coming Together – Joyce Norman and Joy Collins
Laced with Magic – Barbara Bretton
Necking – Chris Salvatore
The Silver Cage – Mathilde Madden
The Book of Scandal – Julia London
The Pact – Jodi Picoult
The Wand in the Word: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy
The Jewish Lady, The Black Man and The Road Trip – Carol Sue Gershman

Upcoming Reviews:
Lost Souls – Lisa Jackson
Left to Die – Lisa Jackson

What’s on your shelf?

Category: To Be Read List  Comments off
25
Oct 2009

Café Review – Tiamo 1

JM

While travelling around Victoria and popping into various cafés, there are certain places that forever stick in your mind for one reason or another. The café I am reviewing today is one of those places.

tiamo 1 and 2

Tiamo is an interesting café with a prime spot on Lygon street in Carlton, but it is not interesting so much for its location than its neighbor – Tiamo 2.

While Tiamo serves more as the traditional café, Tiamo 2 is located just beside it, providing everything you could want from a traditional Italian cuisine establishment. Of course, the co-businesses use the to their full advantage. The elegant looking pasta and pizza dishes are often served outside in front of the café goers, and the delicious coffees are on full display for the restaurant goers.

However, Tiamo 2 will be a review for another day.

While we should have picked a less windy day for sitting outside to enjoy our coffees, the experience was still a highly enjoyable one that I would love to do again. Opting for more traditional wooden seating, Tiamo feels a bit more homely and welcoming that the typical café.

Inside, Tiamo is a small, cozy coffee bar with equally cozy tables and an atmosphere of comfortable intimacy. While the tables outside have more of a newspaper reader rating because of environment, inside is, without a doubt, novella status.

The staff are wonderful, friendly and attentive without being overzealous about it (a pet peeve I have about waitstaff). Whether you are sitting inside or out, there is a lot of good energy all around with customers chatting away, staff keeping busy and overall, a lot of people having a good time.

tiamo 1 cafe coffee

The coffee is what you would expect from a true Italian place on Lygon street – hot, strong and with rich flavour even in a simple standard shot. Even my usual flat white packed a rich coffee flavour that surprised me, as many places interpret ‘flat white’ as ‘warm milk’.

Tiamo is a place I am looking forward to going back to, not just to relax with a wonderful coffee but also to visit the neighboring Tiamo 2, the scents from which almost tempted me to sit down and eat when I wasn’t hungry.

***
Coffee Rating: Strong 4 Cups
Coffee Price: $2.50 – 3.20
Café Reader Rating: Novella

Tiamo
303 Lygon Street
Carlton, VIC 3053

http://www.tiamo.com.au/

Category: Café Reviews  Comments off
25
Oct 2009

Sunday Salon – Pleasure Reading to Work Reading

JM

Sunday SalonIf there was anything I didn’t want my reading to turn into, it was work.

Alas, it has happened anyway.

Without realizing what I was doing, I totally over committed myself to reviews for this month, locking me into what books I would read and when I had to read them by. Now, I’m liking all the books I have to read, but there are so many reasons I usually am careful to avoid doing this to myself…

I’m a bit of a moody reader. Sometimes I don’t want to have to think very hard, so I pick up a romance or ‘fluffy’ chick lit (no offense to romance or chick lit authors – I’m one of you!). There are times when I’m in the mood to learn new things, so I pick up non-fiction. Other times, it’s the pick of the draw off my ‘to be read’ shelf.

Yeah, I still can’t believe I had to buy a SHELF for all the books I have yet to read.

So, as you can imagine, having a set schedule may be ‘good for me’ in regards to reading things based on brain decision rather than heart decision, but it doesn’t make me any happier about it.

There is also the fact that I am just not a fast reader. Period. I love reading, but I never developed that whole speed reading thing. A fact which is fine with me, to be honest. If anything, I read slower because I like to savour books rather than consume them.

Blarg.

All else I can say on the matter is: lesson learned.

Category: Sunday Salon  Comments off
23
Oct 2009

Book Review: My Splendid Concubine by Lloyd Lofthouse

JM

About the Book

Soon after arriving in China in 1854, the “godfather of China’s modernism” Robert Hart falls in love with Ayaou, but his feelings for her sister go against the teachings of his Christian upbringing and almost break him emotionally. To survive he must learn how to live and think like the Chinese.

He also finds himself thrust into the second bloodiest conflict in history, the Taiping Rebellion, where he ends up making enemies of men such as the American soldier of fortune known as the Devil Soldier. During his first year in China, Robert experiences a range of emotion from bliss to despair. Like Damascus steel, he learns to be both hard and flexible, which forges his character into the great man he is yet to become.

The Long Story

When I first read a summary of this book, I was quite eager to read it. I know next to nothing about China’s history and I love books that focus on the intimate details of people’s lives. Lloyd Lofthouse has written a very good book about learning to accept different cultures and ways of behaviours, finding your true self within the wars between your feelings and your upbringing, and learning to love that which is not you.

I found Ayaou and Robert’s love to be quite fast, but Lofthouse did such a good job of portraying Robert as a romantic – a little too appreciative of women, but still a romantic – that it wasn’t hard to believe he would fall so deeply in love with a woman he barely knew.

However, speaking of love, there is also quite a bit of sex involved. Lofthouse isn’t shy when it comes to getting into Robert’s head, and Robert is a tortured man when it comes to his physical desires versus his conscience. If you’re not fond of sex in books, then you probably won’t like this book.

Given the way women were treated in 1850s China, Lofthouse would have chopped off his nose to spite his face if he had left all sex out. It was part of the lifestyle of the times and Lofthouse treats it as such. Not once is it awkward or does it slow the book. He handles it quite well.

The Short Story

I recommend this book to anyone who would like a view of China in the 1850s and beyond or if you’re like me and enjoy biographies – even fictionalized ones. If you want hard facts about Robert Hart’s life, this might not be the place to start, but it is an interesting (fiction) book about a man struggling to find who he truly is in a land he doesn’t know.

***
Rating: 3 1/2 stars

[What do the Ratings Mean?]

***
My Splendid Concubine
By Lloyd Lofthouse
http://www.mysplendidconcubine.com/
ISBN: 978-0981955308
Length: 260 pages

Category: Book Reviews  Comments off
22
Oct 2009

Booking Through Thursday – Spring Cleaning

JM

Well, I didn’t get time to answer last week’s question, but I like it better than this week’s question… So I’m going to answer last week’s question anyway. :)

We’re moving in a couple weeks (the first time since I was 9 years old), and I’ve been going through my library of 3000+ books, choosing the books that I could bear to part with and NOT have to pack to move. Which made me wonder…

When’s the last time you weeded out your library? Do you regularly keep it pared down to your reading essentials? Or does it blossom into something out of control the minute you turn your back, like a garden after a Spring rain?

Or do you simply not get rid of books? At all? (This would have described me for most of my life, by the way.)

And–when you DO weed out books from your collection (assuming that you do) …what do you do with them? Throw them away (gasp)? Donate them to a charity or used bookstore? SELL them to a used bookstore? Trade them on Paperback Book Swap or some other exchange program?

I don’t really ‘get rid’ of books so much as pass them on. Whether they are books that I didn’t enjoy but I think other people will enjoy, books I loved so much I have to pass them on, or somewhere in between, all the books I don’t keep are passed on directly to the people I feel would benefit from them most or added to my giveaway shelf.

Free books aren’t exactly easy to come by, so I like to do what I can.

Because of this system, I’m pretty much always in flux of ‘weeding’ my library. Sometimes I’ll have saved a book and will later decide to put it on the giveaway shelf. Sometimes I’ll decide to keep a book and later realize that someone else would benefit from it more than me keeping it.

I do take part in BookCrossing when I can (all books on my giveaway shelf can be registered on BookCrossing should any winners decide), but I don’t actively participate.

Category: Booking Through Thursday  Comments off
21
Oct 2009

A Book by Any Other Name – Green

JM

Welcome to this week’s (and the first ever) By Any Other Name book game!

We got to the goal number of titles last week!

It is my wonderful pleasure to announce the winner: Lynz!

Congratulations! I will be sending you an email soon. And, because we met the goal last week, I’m knocking the challenge a bit higher this week.

If you’re new to the challenge, this is a game from my dear friend Calliope that gets us to play with book titles.

The game works like this:

1. Each week I will choose and a book title that features that word.
2. Then it’s your turn to come up with book titles containing the same word, without duplication (yes, that includes my titles). The author would be nice, too, in case I want to check it out.
3. If you make it to the challenge number of titles (make sure you read the challenge section each week because it can change), then I will draw one name from all the participants and that person wins!

It’s really not complicated. I pick a word and you list titles with that word. Easy peasy.

The current challenge:

Titles to Reach: Nineteen
Titles Per Person: Two

What can you win? The winner receives any one of the books on this page along with a bookmark (or two!).

I’ve decided this is a much better way of doing things rather than offering the SAME book over and over. Plus, I will be adding to the giveaway shelf as much as I can, so keep checking in to see what’s on offer.

So if you’d like a chance to win, join in!

If you don’t reach the goal, we’ll try again next week. If you reach the goal, I’ll have a brand new challenge for you next Wednesday where you’ll get another chance to win a book – regardless if you have won a book previously!

The word this week is:

Green

I Say: The Green Rider by Kristen Britain

You Say…

Category: Wednesday Book Game  7 Comments
« Previous Entries