Books!

It's been a banner month for books in my house. Tails by Matthew Van Fleet met its untimely demise at the hands of my toddler, who had been reading peacefully but suddenly had a Tasmanian Devil-like bout of frenetic destructiveness and shredded the book in about .72 seconds. (And, once that was accomplished, promptly picked up another book and continued reading peacefully.) But on the other end of the scale, I've been on a small streak of finding some really great reads.

First, I recently finished Marital Privilege, a Harlequin Intrigue by Ann Voss Peterson discussed in my initial blog post. Only Ann could take something as over-the-top as the Russian mafia and make it not only realistic, but genuinely scary.

So then I moved on to Poison Study, a new fantasy hardcover by Maria V. Snyder. Again, I can't blurb to save my life, so apologies to Maria, but it's basically about a woman who's about to be executed for murder, and she's given the choice of either dying a quick death from the hangman's noose, or becoming the current ruler's food taster and eventually suffering a slow, painful death by poison. When she chooses the latter, the ruler's right-hand man gives her a poison called Butterfly's Dust to keep her in line; each day, she must show up for work to receive a temporary antidote, or she'll die a REALLY painful, slow death. I couldn't resist the premise, so I picked up this hardcover by a brand new author, and I'm very glad I did. An innovative plot, engaging characters, and a story that never stops moving make this one of my favorite reads of the year.

And now I'm reading a romantic suspense by Rita-award-winning author Karen Rose called Have You Seen Her? I haven't even gotten past page 100 yet (my cutoff page where I either keep reading or throw it at a wall), but I can already tell it's going to be good. The plot centers around a serial killer who targets young women, but Rose's creepy, creepy villain and all-too-human protagonists take this tried-and-true suspense device and make it new again.

On the nightstand waiting for me to finish Have You Seen Her? are bestseller Diana Gabaldon's newest giant historical/time-travel/epic thing, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, as well as Alisa Valdes Rodriguez's latina lit, Playing with Boys. I'm hoping to finish at least HYSH? and A Breath of Snow and Ashes before the new baby comes, but I keep having bouts of narcolepsy that have been keeping me from reading as much or as quickly as usual. Oh, well, maybe the books will be even better when I'm on percocet....