Reading challenge wrapup 2013 - Mount TBR

One of my stated goals for 2013 was to make a serious dent in my To Be Read list. I set myself the goal that at LEAST two of the books I read every month should be from said list, and preferably purchased before 2012 even.

So this reading challenge, where the goal was to read only books written or purchased before 2013, and owned by me (no borrowed books) seemed like the perfect solution. Originally I signed up to complete the Mont Blanc, a modest 24 books over the course of the year. As the months went on, and I kept reading, I kept being able to upgrade my reading goal, until I completed the last of my books on the 28th of December, having read a total of 60 books from my TBR list - so I completed Mount Kilimanjaro. Sadly, I probably added twice that number to my TBR list again just from the various "Best of the year" lists in December, but that's a challenge for next year. My books were as follows:

1. Firelight by Kristen Callihan
2. The Crown of Embers by Rae Carson
3. Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
4. The Snow Queen by Mercedes Lackey
5. The Dust of 100 Dogs by A.S. King
6. The Assassins prequels by Sarah J. Maas
7. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
8. Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
9. The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
10. Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling
11. The Mislaid Magician by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer
12. Turn Me On, Damn It by Olaug Nilssen
13. The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls by Claire Legrand
14. One Eye Red by Jonas Hassen Khemiri
15. Seduce Me at Sunrise by Lisa Kleypas
16. Tempt Me at Twilight by Lisa Kleypas
17. Married by Morning by Lisa Kleypas
18. Love in the Afternoon by Lisa Kleypas
19. The Figwort Family by Lars Saabye Christensen
20. The Shadow in the North by Philip Pullman
21. Briar Rose by Jane Yolen
22. Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia C. Wrede
23. Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn
24. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
25. The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
26. Fly by Night by Frances Hardinge
27. Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
28. First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones
29. Little House on the Praire by Laura Ingalls Wilder
30. Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
31. The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba
32. The Umbrella Academy: Dallas by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba
33. On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder
34. By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder
35. The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder
36. Little Town on the Praire by Laura Ingalls Wilder
37. These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
38. The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
39. Beauty and the Spy by Julie Anne Long
40. Summer Knight by Jim Butcher
41. Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
42. Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu
43. The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
44. Flowers From the Storm by Laura Kinsale
45. If I Stay by Gayle Forman
46. Where She Went by Gayle Forman
47. Death Masks by Jim Butcher
48. Raw Blue by Kirsty Eagar
49. Scoundrel's Kiss by Carrie Lofty
50. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
51. Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone
52. Blood Rites by Jim Butcher
53. You Don't Have to Say You Love Me by Sarra Manning
54. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
55. Dead Beat by Jim Butcher
56. Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher
57. Bigger Than a Bread Box by Laurel Snyder
58. Zel by Donna Jo Napoli
59. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
60. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

#CBR5 Book 152. "Vampire Science" by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman

Page count: 288 pages
Rating: 2.5 stars

In 1976 a young med student named Carolyn meets the eight Doctor and his teenage companion Sam, while they're trying to stop Eva, a vampire, from killing a young woman. Having never realised that there was such a thing as vampires, time travel or exciting individuals like the Time Lord and his companion, Carolyn's word is forever altered, but despite an unspoken invitation to join the Doctor on his continued adventures, Carolyn chooses to take the injured woman to the ER and worry about her upcoming exam instead.

Twenty years later, there are clearly vampires in San Francisco again. Carolyn is a doctor herself now and has made great strides to fulfil her dream of finding a cure for cancer. She has a good life, and a dependable lighting technician boyfriend, but when the Doctor and Sam appear again, barely changed from when she met them two decades ago, she starts to wonder if she made the right choice.

There's been a number of mysterious deaths, and the Doctor and Sam are there to stop them. It turns out that not all the vampires necessarily want to hunt humans, some are trying to find alternatives to drinking human blood. Then again, one faction of the San Francisco vampires are more than happy for things to remain the same, and they don't feel that the Doctor, Carolyn, Sam or even UNIT are enough of a threat to keep them from declaring war on humanity.

It seems very likely that the writers of this book originally intended Carolyn to be Grace Holloway, from the 1996 TV movie. The film was set in San Francisco, and her character was a doctor. Due to rights issues, they needed to change things, and the beginning of the book has a lot of really rather clunky info dumping, as well as the rather hurried prologue, probably inserted to desperately give Carolyn some back story with the Doctor and more of a characterisation than would have been needed if they could've just used Grace. Sadly, James, her lighting technician boyfriend barely gets any characterisation at all until the book is nearly over. Having just been reminded with Night of the Doctor that the Eight Doctor, played by Paul McGann, was by far the sexiest of his many incarnations, I'm not the least bit surprised that Carolyn would be tempted to drop everything and run off with him in the TARDIS.

There are a lot of clever nods to all sorts of previous vampire stories, including Anne Rice, Dracula, and there's even a mention of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, although most likely the movie version, as the book seems to have come out before the TV series started airing. There are some amazing revelations as to what forms the "vampire science" of the title have taken, including some really very funny attempts at turning various animals vampiric. A quick enough read, it is still by far the weakest of the Doctor Who novels I've read, and unless you're very into vampires, there are better ones to check out first.

#CBR5 Book 150. "Zel" by Donna Jo Napoli

Page count: 227 pages
Rating: 3 stars

Zel lives in a remote cottage in the mountains with Mother. The only time she sees other people is twice a year, when they go to Market in the nearest town, quite some distance away. While Zel finds the people, bustle and excitement of town life exhilarating, Mother insists that they have everything that they need in their little home, and warns her daughter away from strangers. Yet Zel dreams of a different life, of some day having a husband and children and a home of her own. Just before her thirteenth birthday, she meets a beautiful young man with a spirited horse, and she can't seem to get him out of her mind.

Konrad, the young count, is also unable to forget the young girl he met in the marketplace, and who seemed to almost magically calm his horse. Even when his parents try to arrange suitable marriages for him with lovely young maidens, he refuses, riding around the countryside trying to find out where the mysterious Zel can be found.

Mother grows anxious and worried when Zel mentions the pretty young man, and claims that there are bad people out there who want to harm them. She takes Zel to an abandoned tower, a fair distance from even their remote cottage, and before Zel realises entirely what is going on, she is trapped high above ground, with no way of escaping, with Mother on the ground, saying she will keep the bad people away. Zel's hair starts growing at a furious rate, until she can pull Mother in and out of the tower with it. Lonely and distressed, the young girl dreams about the young man, and tries to while away the months and years of her imprisonment. She's fairly sure she's gone entirely mad, when one day there is a call for her to let down her hair, and count Konrad climbs in instead of Mother.

This is a short read, and an interesting retelling of the story of Rapunzel. Some of the chapters are narrated in third person, and show Zel and Konrad's point of views. The ones from Mother's POV are in first person, making her account the most personal of the three, and making the reader empathise more with her, even as she's the nominal villain of the story. The witch who forced a young couple to give away their child in return for the Rapunzel salad they had stolen from her garden, who locks the girl in a tall tower to keep her away from all others - Mother is more than this here. A frustrated and intelligent woman given a tempting choice, incredible power over all growing things in return for a soul she might not even believe she has, who finds herself barren and alone, willing to do anything to gain a child, and who loves that child so much that she's determined to do anything to keep her, even if it means making the girl possibly hate her. Mother can't bear to lose her beloved daughter, but when it becomes clear that she may have caused her more harm than good, she makes the ultimate sacrifice to ensure her daughter's eventual happiness.

#CBR5 Book 149. "Bigger Than a Bread Box" by Laurel Snyder

Page count: 240 pages
Rating: 3 stars

12-year-old Rebecca's parents have been arguing for a while, and one day Rebecca's mother takes the kids and her stuff and moves from Baltimore back to her mother in Atlanta, needing some space to figure things out. Rebecca is not at all happy about her parent's separation, having to live in a new place, starting a new school and spends quite a lot of time sulking. Rummaging around in her grandmother's attic, she finds an old breadbox, which appears to grant wishes, as long as whatever is wished for actually exists in the world and can fit into the space within the breadbox (so no unicorns or infinite wishes).

Thanks to the things Rebecca manages to acquire through the breadbox (new clothes, an Ipod, money, gift cards, lots and lots of candy, among other things), she manages to make herself quite popular at school and finds her new home with her grandma a bit easier to accept. While she still resents her mother for taking them away, and misses her father terribly, she's starting to settle in and adjust. Then she discovers the truth about where the items in the breadbox come from, and things get a lot more uncomfortable and difficult. Rebecca discovers that you can't get something for nothing, there is always a price to be paid.

Having reached December with quite a few books left on my "A to Z" reading challenge, this is the book I picked for X (as Q, Z and X don't need to be the first letter of the book, cause that would be very difficult indeed). It deals with the rather serious issues of separation and sudden upheaval well, and while Rebecca spends a lot of the book being a total brat to her mother (I, as a grownup, had a lot less patience with her clearly rather useless dad), being completely uprooted and having to settle in at a new school when just entering your teens is never going to be fun. Apart from the magical breadbox, there isn't a lot of fantasy to this book, and the lessons Rebecca gets about actions having consequences are things that a lot of middle grade books, in my experience, gloss over.

#CBR5 Book 147. "Knaves' Wager" by Loretta Chase

Page count: 240 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Thanks to Mrs. Julien for her awesome romance review template!

Knaves’ Wager is a romance of the you are everything I never knew I always wanted AND opposites attract variety: Boy meets girl. He is the reprobate former best friend of her now-dead husband. She hates him because she believes he drove her husband to his early death, and is left owing him crippling gambling debts. He agrees to a foolish wager to seduce her against all odds. Boy and girl move forward together secure in their love and commitment.

A historical romance set in the Regency era just around the end of the Napoleonic wars and written by Loretta Chase, Knaves’ Wager is my fourteenth book by this author. I generally find her work at least enjoyable, and at its best, spectacular and infinitely re-readable. Chase is, most famously, the author of Lord of Scoundrels, the book All About Romance’s readers have voted as the number one in their top 100 for more than a decade. Personally, I prefer The Last Hellion, but what do I know? I found Knaves’ Wager, one of her early romances diverting, enjoyable and romantic. This book is a clean (lacking in any sex scenes, graphic or otherwise) romance, and I’ve seen it compared to the writing of Georgette Heyer. However, none of the Heyer books I’ve read contain the palpable sexual tension present in this novel, or kisses half so scorching as some of the ones in this book, so be aware that it’s not entirely chaste. I have several of Chase’s early romances still on my TBR List and will continue to seek them out because this one really was very enjoyable indeed and I would absolutely recommend it to others.

The main plot of Knaves’ Wager focuses on the reformation of a rake. Lord Julian Wyndhurst, Marquess of Brandon is that rake. He is stinking rich, handsome as sin and has a reputation for gambling and vice. He’s also been on the Continent for seven years since his involvement in a particularly scandalous duel, working closely to bring down Napoleon, and is exasperated to be brought home only to sort out his young cousin, Lord Robert Downs’s scandalous betrothal. Lilith Davenant is a widow and a victim of circumstance. She is formidable, all that is proper, decorous and virtuous, and a caring and affectionate aunt, willing to sacrifice even the last remains of her fortune to secure happier futures for her nieces and nephews than she herself found in her unfortunate marriage. Due to her husband’s gambling debts to Lord Brandon, she is forced to accept the proposal of an old friend to secure her future. Brandon agrees to seduce Lilith in order to get Robert’s mercenary mistress to release Robert from the betrothal. Julian and Lilith start out as antagonists, at least in Lilith’s eyes, yet they cannot deny the attraction they feel towards each other. Over time, they come to discover that despite any challenges they face, they make an excellent team.

The subplot in Knaves’ Wager revolves around Robert, Brandon’s young, somewhat dim cousin and Lilith’s clever niece Miss Cecily Glenwood, who is in London for her first season. The seemingly guileless country miss sets about not only getting her chosen husband, but making sure her aunt doesn’t end up in a stuffy marriage of convenience either. It was an excellent addition which nicely complemented the main plot. 

While an early effort of Chase’s, written in the early 1990s, this novel still has great characterisations, an excellent eye for detail and wonderfully witty banter. Brandon really has his work cut out for him, wooing and charming the icy Lilith, and it’s glorious to see the calculating libertine gradually fall head over heels for the irreproachable widow. As some of Chase’s most recent novels have been rather mediocre and a bit of a disappointment, it was delightful to discover that I have more of her good work to look forward to. For anyone wanting a gateway into romance reading, you would be strongly recommended to check out Loretta Chase, but avoid her Dressmaker series, pretty much everything else she’s written is better.

© 2013 Mrs. Julien Presents

#CBR5 Book 145. "Proven Guilty" by Jim Butcher

Page count: 479 pages
Audio book length: 16 hrs, 16 mins
Rating: 4 stars

Harry Dresden is now one of the wardens of the White Council of wizards, and he's about as thrilled about it as many of the wizards on the council are about him being recruited. Harry's asked to look into rumours of black magic in the Chicago area, and his mentor, Ebenezer McCoy, also requests that he enquire with his faerie contacts about why the Fey Courts are refusing to involve themselves in the conflict with the Red Court of vampires, even after the vampires broke into faerie territories in the Nevernever.

Harry still owes Mab, the Winter Queen, two favours, and his dealings with the Fey never really turn out in his favour. Lily, the new Summer Lady (youngest of the three Summer Queens) owes him a favour, but neither she nor Fix, the Summer Knight, can directly answer Harry's questions, or aid him, due to a compulsion laid on them by Titania, the Summer Queen, who's not exactly one of Dresden's biggest fans. Getting the answers McCoy wants isn't going to be easy.

The possible black magic use he's been asked to investigate seems connected with mysterious attacks at a horror movie convention. Molly Carpenter, the teenage daughter of Harry's friend Michael, comes to him for help. Her boyfriend is the chief suspect after a man was viciously attacked in a bathroom, but claims he's innocent. Shortly after Harry arrives at the convention to investigate, a number of people are attacked by a seven foot tall assailant who looks just like the killer in the slasher flick recently screened. An assailant who dissolves into ectoplasm when hit with a power burst from Harry's staff. It becomes clear that the ghostly entities can take physical and deadly form, and they feed on fear. Harry needs  how Molly Carpenter and her friends are connected with the case, who is summoning the monsters, and how he can stop them before more people die.

I'm a sucker for the wicked faeries, and Butcher's faeries are always ambiguous and difficult to trust, no matter what side they're purportedly on. Hence I like the books involving Fay machinations more than the ones about White Council business. Here the two sort of intertwine, but neither are the central issues in the book. It was very nice to meet the Carpenter family again, and as there's always a substantial period between each of the Dresden Files books, Molly has grown up quite a bit since the last time Harry and the readers met her. Just because she's older doesn't necessarily mean that she's all that wise, though, and she clearly has a lot of developing left to do.

Michael is away on a mission for much of the book, but his wife Charity, always so very critical of Harry, plays an important part instead. It becomes clear why she's so very suspicious of Dresden, and worried about his involvement with her family, and she really gets a chance to shine. The book also sees Thomas finally move out of Harry's apartment, having apparently found a job and lodgings elsewhere, although he's being very mysterious about the whole thing. I really like Thomas as a character, and hope that he'll not become relegated back to being a minor supporting character, just because Harry gets his apartment to himself again.

#CBR5 Book 144. "Dead Beat" by Jim Butcher

Page count: 435 pages
Audio book length: 15 hrs, 14 mins
Rating: 4 stars

It's nearly Halloween (Harry's birthday) and Harry Dresden is less than thrilled to discover that his friend Police Lieutenant Karrin Murphy is going off to Hawaii with another man. He's even less thrilled when Mavra, an extremely powerful vampire of the Black Court, who he hoped they'd managed to kill in Blood Rites, turns out not to be dead and is blackmailing him with Murphy's involvement in the case unless he helps her. If Harry doesn't find something called the Word of Kemmler in three days, Mavra will make sure Murphy's career is ruined, and that she may very well face criminal charges because of aid she gave Harry on a mission against the Black Court vampires. Harry obviously can't let that happen, and so he has no choice but to agree to the vampire's demands.

Turns out the Word of Kemmler is a book, the last writings of a very powerful and very dangerous, now dead, necromancer and whoever possesses the book will gain access to terrible powers. Harry's not the only one looking for the Word. Three of Kemmler's former apprentices are in Chicago, wanting the to be the first to find the book and become the most powerful necromancer of them all. While Mavra claimed Harry wasn't allowed to tell anyone about his mission, over the course of the story, he is aided in his quest by his half-brother/current roommate Thomas, and polka obsessed forensic scientist Waldo Butters.

Hordes of zombies, wanton destruction of property, the possibility of Harry possibly getting a date with a cute bookstore clerk, a polka suit, Harry's awesome dog Mouse, evil necromancers, other wizards - some judgemental and disapproving of Harry, others charming and cool - are just some of the elements that make up this book. I'm now well and truly hooked on the series, and so glad I got an Audible account so I can keep listening to Marsters' excellent narration of them. It's nice to see Harry having friends and supporters, as he was a pretty uninteresting character as a loner in the first books. It's also been hinted for a while that Harry likes Murphy a bit more than just as friends, so him finally acknowledging that he was jealous about her going on holiday with someone else is a promising start. I also like that he doesn't spend too long brooding about it, though, but allows himself to flirt a bit with someone else. I can't really say what my favourite bit was in this book, because it would be a massive spoiler - but let's just say that I heartily approve of Harry's way of circumventing the White Council's laws about necromancy, it was a super awesome way to save the day.

#CBR5 Book 135. "North and South" by Elizabeth Gaskell

Page count: 544 pages
Audio book length: 18hrs 18 mins
Rating: 5 stars

Young Margaret Hale's life is turned on its head when her father, a parson from the South of England, renounces his position because he experiences a crisis of faith. He moves his anxious wife and dutiful daughter to the factory town of Milton Northern, where he's going to work as a tutor. The town, a bustling result of the Industrial Revolution, is full of cotton mills, soot and smoke, a stark contrast to the pastoral idyll of the Southern English countryside. With the loss of Mr. Hale's living, the family is in severely reduced financial circumstances, (not helped by the fact that they keep sending money to Margaret's brother who is wanted for mutiny in England, and as a result living in exile in Spain) and can't really afford more than a modest lifestyle. Margaret bravely adapts fairly quickly, but her mother never feels happy or comfortable in Milton and her health gradually deteriorates.

In Milton, the main social interaction the Hales have is with Mr. John Thornton, a mill owner who leases from Mr. Hale's best friend, Mr. Bell (Margaret's godfather). Thornton's father drove his family into debt and further caused scandal when he committed suicide. Thornton had to quit school, and take a position as a shop clerk to support his sister and widowed mother. Putting aside most of what he earned, he slowly and quietly worked to repay all his father's debts and became a respected and formidable man in Milton. His mother is a proud and arrogant woman who loves her son fiercely, constantly worried some fortune-hunting young miss will get her claws into him.

Mr. Hale tutors Mr. Thornton, and they develop a close friendship. Margaret initially has difficulties relating to him, however. Thornton thinks Margaret is very beautiful, but aloof, distant and too caught up in her sheltered and genteel way of thinking, while she thinks Thornton is cold, arrogant, coarse and too hard on his workers. Before Margaret moved with her parents to Milton, she lived with her wealthy aunt in London for ten years, until her cousin Edith married an army captain and moved to Corfu. In the north, she has very few friends. Mrs. Thornton is dismissive of the Hales, and Miss Hale is spoiled, self-centred, vain and not in any way interested in the prim and serious Miss Hale. The only friends Margaret makes are of a lower class than her, Mr. Higgins and his consumptive daughter Bessie, and they become more of a charity project for her than confidantes and support to her.

I was surprised at how useless both of Margaret's parents are. Her father upends his family's entire life because of a point of principle, but once they arrive in Milton and it turns out that their new life is going to be difficult and not at all what he'd planned, he withdraws into his studies and teaching, leaving poor Margaret to deal with the complicated practicalities of managing the household with their meagre finances, the inability to secure extra help in the house, her mother's depression and deteriorating health and the worry about Frederick. She sees the deep love between her parents, and because of that, she won't accept a marriage proposal from a man she doesn't love. Shortly after leaving her aunt's house in London, she rejects the proposal of Mr. Lennox, her cousin Edith's brother-in-law, as she cannot see him as anything but a friend. So when Mr. Thornton is persuaded by his mother and sister that Margaret must be infatuated with him, he proposes, and is vehemently rejected. By the time Margaret is ready to reconsider his advances, a number of coincidences and complications has made Thornton believe that she loves another and is lost to him.

I discovered the BBC adaptation of North and South, with the darkly handsome Richard Armitage (currently most famous as the broodingest exiled dwarf king evah in The Hobbit) and the lovely Daniela Denby-Ashe a few years ago, but it's taken me until now to actually read the novel. I got the audio book narrated by the excellent Juliet Stevenson, who varies between crisp arch tones for the southern characters and wonderful northern accents. I was surprised at how nuanced the book is, for a Victorian novel, both Margaret and Thornton's feelings are very clearly depicted. I really hadn't expected so much insight into the emotions of both main characters. Gaskell's novel is typical of the time, showing a lot of social responsibility, with the social developments after the Industrial Revolution, the clashes between the factory owners and the workers, the hardship of a strike and so forth, but it doesn't feel like it's sermonising and lecturing the reader. I will absolutely be reading more Gaskell in future.

#CBR5 Book 134. "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" by Sarra Manning

Page count: 560 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Neve is in her mid-twenties and awkward around new people, especially men. She works as an archivist and seeks refuge in classical literature. Over the course of the last three years, she's kept up an old-fashioned pen and paper correspondence with William, one of her professors from Oxford, whose currently lecturing in California. During the same three years, she's also lost more than half her body weight (from a UK size 32/US size 30/European size 62 to a smallish UK size 16/US size 14/EU size 44) through a strenuous and rigid exercise and diet regime. William is due back in little over three months, at which point Neve is determined to be a size 12. She's sure that once William sees her again, he will love her as much as she has always loved him, and everything in her life will finally be perfect.

Her little sister Celia is not convinced that Neve is doing the right thing, pining for William and rejecting all other men. She encourages Neve to get some dating experience, saying that she doesn't want to be completely innocent when William finally returns. The only man she warns Neve away from entirely, is Mx, one of the assistant editors at the fashion and lifestyle magazine where Celia works, claiming that he's a bit of a man whore and will only break Neve's heart. As Max has a young blonde draped over each arm and throws an ice cube at her accidentally the first time they meet, Neve is pretty sure she'll be able to resist his "charm", yet ends up taking him home at the end of the night, desperate to get some of that precious experience with someone who seems to have lots of it. Their first night together is absolutely dreadful, and it's clearly better if she and Max never speak again.

Neve is put off the idea of casual sex after that first attempt with Max, but wants a "pancake relationship" to get some practical experience before William returns. Her theory is that the first pancake always turns out messed up and gets discarded, it's the practise run for the real pancakes. She goes on a series of absolutely awful first dates, and suddenly Max doesn't seem so bad after all. He finds the idea of a non-sexual relationship with a woman, where Neve can get experience with kissing, dating, and even sleeping with a man strangely intriguing. He knows he has the reputation of a cad, a shallow social butterfly and an inconsequential ladies' man, and to him, a temporarily permanent non-sexual relationship represents something new, an exciting challenge, so he agrees to be her "pancake" boyfriend.

Neve and Max have three months to practise before Neve hopefully reaches her goal weight and is ready for her HEA with the scholarly and intellectual William. Despite Celia and Neve's personal trainer's misgivings, the relationship, after a few initial hiccoughs goes pretty well. Max brings Neve out of her reclusive existence and shows her that social events can be fun if you're with the right people, and Neve gives Max a much needed grounding and stability. Yet the day when William returns is rapidly approaching. Is he actually the man she's destined to be happy with, or is Neve overlooking someone a lot closer to home?

A good contemporary romance novel is basically a romantic comedy in book form. There is a certain predictability and inevitable outcome in a story like this, but it's the journey, not the destination that is what makes it so enjoyable. I'm not going to say that the ending doesn't matter, because we all know that would be a lie. But the build up in a romance, the gradually developing relationship, that is what is really important for the HEA to feel truly earned and satisfying. From the setup of this book, with the bookish, innocent young woman pining for another man, and the introduction of the charming and worldly playboy, with their agreement to help each other test-drive a relationship so to speak - it's not really going to end with Neve going off into the sunset with William. The fun of the story is how two such opposite personalities as Neve and Max can realise how perfectly they compliment each other, and support and nurture the other, finally realising that they can't live without the other.

Neve has huge self esteem issues. She was always a big girl, and her weight ballooned as she was bullied all through school. She achieves something truly remarkable by losing so much weight, reshaping herself entirely and taking control of her life (some might say that her control tendencies go a bit far with regards to her diet), but she still has tremendous trouble accepting the praise and acknowledgement she gets for this from other. Even though she's come so far, only her end result matters. Until she is a size 12, she cannot relax, cannot settle down and she certainly won't be able to find true happiness. Everything up until that point is practise, meant to be left behind and discarded. She's quite blind to her own achievements, and rather judgemental. She believes all of Celia's gossip about Max and his irresponsibility and fickleness. There's a fair amount of slut shaming towards Max, even though he's never anything but completely honest about who he is and the way he lives.

It quickly becomes clear, that for all of Neve's body image issues, Max is the more emotionally vulnerable of the two. His lack of experience with long term girlfriends may be because he doesn't think anyone would actually want to commit to a permanent relationship with him. Both his parents are dead, his mother left him with a number of emotional issues, and the closest thing he has to a family are those of the footballer's fiancee whose chick lit novels he ghost-writes. For all her complaints about her parents and siblings, Neve has a close network of supportive family members and close family friends who have always been there for her. Max is drawn to that, as much as to Neve herself. While she initially is quite dismissive of him and his lifestyle, he doesn't judge her. Instead he tries to bring her out of her shyness and awkwardness, daring her to try new things. He admires her intelligence, drive and cleverness, and despairs at her blind belief that she's still fat and unattractive. While he hopes she'll change her mind about the no sex-rule, he never tries to pressure her and gives her the time and space to come to terms with her own desires.

I found Neve very easy to relate to, yet also wanted to shake her vigorously several times. Max is clearly a great guy, your modern day rake. He's got a good career, he's gorgeous, he's adopted a neurotic shelter dog and most of all, he's fun! William is half a world away, his letters to her show that he's unlikely to feel as strongly about her as she does for him (it's not like she ever confessed to her crush on him), and while I knew that she and Max would end up together in the end, I was not looking forward to the obligatory third act conflict before they sort everything out and settle down for good. While it's quite a long book, I didn't mind. I enjoyed spending time with the characters and liked the supporting cast of Neve's family and co-workers, and the gradual friendship developing between her and Max, which evolves into something romantic as their "pancake relationship" progresses. I discovered this book when looking for books for my A to Z reading challenge, and had such a good time reading it. Neve's weight loss battle has also helped me force myself to the gym a bit more often in the weeks since I finished it, as well, so added bonus there.

#CBR5 Book 132. "Blood Rites" by Jim Butcher

Page count: 439 pages
Audio book length: 13 hrs and 11 mins
Rating: 4 stars

Harry Dresden, Chicago's only consulting wizard, is asked by his White Court vampire friend, and sometime ally, Thomas Raith to help a movie producer who seems to be the target of a death curse. As Thomas has aided Harry in the past, and even saved his life, Harry can't really refuse, but he demands payment both from the client and Thomas, in the form of information about why the vampire has been helping him, sometimes even at the risk of Thomas' own life. But how will Harry react to the truths that Thomas is so reluctant to share?

It turns out that the movie Harry is supposed to act as supernatural security on, and pretend to be an production assistant on, is a porn flick, which everyone of his acquaintances seems to find hilarious. The job quickly turns a lot more dangerous than Harry had expected, with the vicious death curse striking twice a day, affecting anyone close to Genosa, the director. It quickly becomes apparent that Thomas and the rest of the Raith family are more closely connected to the imperilled movie production that Thomas let on, and because Harry's life never seems to be complete unless multiple parties are trying to kill him, the powerful and vengeful Black Court vampire Mavra is determined to end him, one way or another.

One of the central themes in Blood Rites is family - the stress, grief and conflict having one can cause, and the void that not being part of one causes. Karrin Murphy happily agrees to come vampire hunting with Harry, especially if they can schedule it to the Saturday when the Murphy clan are having their annual barbecue in Chicago. She knows her younger sister is bringing her new fiancee, and feels that her mother is constantly disappointed in her, so would rather avoid going than having to face her family. During his work on the movie set, Harry is introduced to two of Thomas' sisters, with the younger, Inari, seemingly completely unaware that her entire family are White Court vampires. All the various family conflicts makes Harry all too aware that he is entirely alone in the world, with no living kin at all.

I'm really glad I stuck with the series now, and thanks again to the amazing Narfna/Ashley for suggesting I try the audio books. James Marsters is a really good narrator, and after the revelations and developments in this book, I'm probably hooked for good. Harry has really grown on me as a character, I was really glad to get more Thomas (yet another urban fantasy character with a messed up family life) and after seeing a little of what's going on in Murphy's immediate family, I'm not sure Harry should be so upset that he doesn't have a lot of close relatives. I'm trying to pace myself a bit with these (I have a limited number of Audible credits, after all), but I suspect I will average a book a month until I'm caught up, and Butcher will be added to the list of authors I hope will write and publish books faster.

#CBR5 Book 131. "Thee Parts Dead" by Max Gladstone

Page count: 336 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Tara is a newly hired first year associate with the firm of Kelethres, Albrecht and Ao, and on her very first assignment, she needs to help resurrect a god. Kos, the fire god of Alt Coulumb, has mysteriously died (he may have been murdered) and if he cannot be brought back within the month, the power he supplied to the city will shut down, and there will be chaos.

Abelard is the cleric who was on duty when Kos died, and he is naturally having a bit of a crisis of faith, which he handles by chain-smoking incessantly. He is asked to aid Elayne Kevarian (Tara's boss) and Tara with the case, which also seems to involve a murdered judge, supposedly exiled gargoyles, and the re-appearance of Tara's old mentor, who's also responsible for her being expelled from the Hidden Schools before graduating. There are mysterious things afoot in Alt Coulumb - but who has the most to benefit from the death of Kos? How far are they willing to go to stop him being resurrected and restored to power?

This is not an easy book to classify. It's alternate reality urban fantasy, meets mystery meets steampunk. There are magical systems, and different religious beliefs. There's the necromantic Craft, and the strange legal battles that take place before a case can be settled. The necromancers seem to be part lawyers, part magic wielders. We discover the rules and customs of the world gradually, and the information is sometimes portioned out sparingly, not giving the reader the full story until a long way into the book.

The characters are distinctive, and complex, and not always admirable or likable, but they're never not interesting. I loved the world building and the rules for the use of magic. That gods are powered by the belief of their worshippers is nothing new, but that a god can be the source of power for an entire city is a cool and unusual idea. I liked Tara's ambition, I loved Elayne's cool ruthlessness, and I liked Abelard's genuine faith and devotion. Max Gladstone is a very entertaining writer, and having recently discovered that this is not a stand alone book, and that the next book in the series is out now, I will absolutely be reading more of his work.

#CBR5 Book 126. "Anna and the French Kiss" by Stephanie Perkins

Page count: 386 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Anna Oliphant doesn't want to go to school in Paris. She's not sure why her father (who basically seems to be a thinly veiled parody of Nicholas Sparks) has enrolled her in a boarding school there. She had perfectly nice life in Atlanta with her mum and little brother, a great best friend, a very promising crush on one of the guys she works with at the local multiplex. Now she's a continent away from everyone she loves, surrounded by clever and cool teenagers who all know the school really well. She doesn't even speak French! Then she meets Étienne St. Clair, who is helpful, generous, charming, smart and gorgeous. Of course, he has a girlfriend. And even if he didn't, her new friend Meredith also obviously has a crush on him. So Anna is unlikely to experience any French kissing from him, right?

Now, at the start of the book, I was torn between wanting to slap some sense into Anna, and give her a hug. Her excessive whining that her pompous, somewhat emotionally unavailable, but very rich father has see fit to send her to a posh boarding school in Paris, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, is pretty much what you'd find in the dictionary as an example of first world problem. Yet at the same time, she's never been away from home before and she's an insecure teenage girl, and now she's half a world away from everyone and everything she knows, in a foreign country full of culture and sophistication. It speaks to her dad's cluelessness that he'd send his daughter to a boarding school in a country where she doesn't even speak the language. As someone who voluntarily moved to Scotland to go to University when I was eighteen, and had some pretty big culture shocks, I can understand and symphatise, because Anna's situation is so much scarier.

Luckily, Meredith, the girl in the room next to Anna comforts her when she hears her crying through the wall, and Anna soon makes a group of very good friends, one of whom is St. Clair (no one really calls him Étienne). Realising that he's completely out of her reach, Anna denies her crush as much as she can, but they have undeniable chemistry, and the more time they spend together, the more obvious it is that he's not entirely uninterested in her either. Yet he seems completely devoted to Ellie, his girlfriend who graduated the year before. And Anna has Toph back in Atlanta, who she may have a chance of a real relationship with.

This is a great YA book, with a friendship turning slowly more and more romantic, full of awkward moments, embarrassment and near misses. For all that they are great characters, both Anna and St. Clair had me shouting at the book, because they keep doing the exactly wrong thing and sabotaging their happy ending. The description of a close friendship that turns into something more romantic is so very well done. I was very good friends with my now husband before I woke up one day, realising that I was in love with him, and it was nerve-wracking to think I might ruin our friendship if I told him I fancied him and he didn't like me back. Also, he'd been dating another good friend of mine for a week. As it turned out, she wanted to date someone else, and he did like me back and this is our thirteenth year together. But this book hit a lot of right notes for me.

It helps that the supporting cast of characters are so much fun too. Anna's friendship with her bestie in Atlanta, Bridgette, is complicated when she returns home for Christmas break, but she makes some great friends at the School of America in Paris. As is only appropriate in a high school setting, even though it's in beautiful Paris, there are also antagonists with bitchy mean girls and douchy guys to fully round out the setting. I've been seeing this book raved about on a number of review sites for years, and my beloved Rainbow Rowell rated it five stars. I'm glad I finally had a chance to read it.

Mount TBR Reading Challenge: Mountaineering Checkpoint #3

September is over and done with, and I've been taking part in the Mount TBR Reading Challenge for 9 months now. At the start of the year, I set myself the goal of reading at least 24 books from my To Be Read list - known as Mount Blanc. As my reading this year has gone beyond all my expectations, and I've really dug into my shelved books, I've managed a lot more so far than I expected, and I've been able to upgrade my goal not once, but twice.

1. How far up the mountain have you made it (how many books have you read so far?) At the end of September, I have actually so far read 49 books on my TBR list, meaning that I've not only completed my original goal of Mount Blanc (24 books), but my second goal of Mt. Vancouver (36 books), and amazingly enough, I've even cleared Mt. Ararat (48 books). If I keep going like this, I should be able to at least complete Mt. Kilimanjaro at the end of the year (60 books).

2. Who has been my favourite character so far, and why?
Victoria Wright from The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls was a wonderful character. While she's really quite horrible at the start of the book, you can't help but grow to like her as she goes on a very dangerous quest to save her best friend. Harry Rutledge from Tempt Me at Twilight is probably my favourite romance hero in a historical romance, whilst Beatrix Hathaway from Love in the Afternoon is most likely my favourite romance heroine. Taylor Markham and Jonah Griggs in Jellicoe Road are my favourite romantic couple, and probably my favourite YA characters so far this year.

3. What has been the most difficult book to complete so far, and why?
Without a doubt Anna Karenina, because it was so long and dense, and just different from what I was actually expecting. So much of the book has absolutely nothing to do with the doomed romance of Anna and Vronsky, and there are hundreds of pages devoted to reforms in farming, and stuffy political debates, and I only really finished it out of sheer determination to get it off my TBR list for good.

4. Which book read so far has been on your TBR the longest?
Anna Karenina is also the book that had been on my list the longest, as I first tried to read the book when I was about fifteen. I didn't buy the book myself until much later, having determined that I was going to read at least some of the great Russian classics. If I was less stubborn, I probably would have just decided to give it up, but now I can at least say that I've read it, and I never have to read it again.

#CBR5 Book 122. "Scoundrel's Kiss" by Carrie Lofty

Page count: 342 pages
Rating: 3 stars

Gavriel de Marqueda is trying to put his old life as enforcer, thug and hired killer for his ungrateful family. He's sought refuge with a monastic order, swearing vows of chastity, obedience and non-violence. He only needs to succeed in one last task to be accepted as a full member of the order. However, the test he is set might prove to make him break every one of his new vows.

Ada of Keyworth is far away from her English home. She's risking her position as translator to an influential Spanish noblewoman because of her all-consuming craving for opium. When Ada is about to be sold into slavery because of her debts, her young friend begs Gavriel and the other monastic brothers to save her. Gavriel's final task will be to wean Ada off her addiction. Ada resents him immensely, and is determined to escape his care. She also determines to ruin any chance he has of becoming a monk.

Set in 13th Century Spain during the Reconquista (the re-conquering of Spain from the Muslims), Scoundrel's Kiss has a vastly different setting from most romances out there on the market. Instead of Regency ballrooms during the Season, this book takes place mostly in the countryside and small towns of  Medieaval Spain. The heroine has a genuine and debilitating addiction which she's willing to do almost anything to feed, not caring whether it affects her work, her reputation or what it does to her friends. Any time she goes without for any period of time, she has horrible nightmares and suffers dreadful withdrawal. It's a weakness and a character flaw, but Lofty makes you see that there was little she could do to avoid the addiction, having started to take the opium for pain after being held captive and tortured. It also makes her determination never to be held against her will more understandable.

Unfortunately, while the above things were good and different, I didn't really emotionally engage with the book all that much. While Ada's character was somewhat unusual, and fairly well drawn, most of the supporting characters, to a certain extent Gavriel as well, remained more like ciphers. The villains, especially, were rather cartoonish, and both their motivations and their plotting towards the end of the book caused more confusion than tension. I also thought the romance developed in a rather haphazard way. Obviously, in the beginning Gavriel fights very hard to resist Ada, who in return is determined to tempt him into sin, first out of spite and later out of genuine attraction. His decision to abandon his sworn vows comes very suddenly, and seems a bit arbitrary, frankly. So despite the interesting premise and attempts at doing something different in the genre, this book really didn't work for me, and will probably be quickly forgotten.

#CBR5 Book 120. "Raw Blue" by Kirsty Eagar

Page count: 274 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Carly works the evening shift as a cook at a small cafe, so she can spend her days surfing. She's estranged from her family, and dropped out of university, and keeps herself mostly to herself. The thing she can't tell her family is that surfing is the only thing that makes sense to her anymore, and that helps her not to dwell on the incident after her high school graduation two years ago, when she got drunk, separated from her friends, and woke up in a strange apartment having been raped by three strangers. Carly doesn't want to be a victim, and telling people about rape, always makes them pity and see you in a different light - so she doesn't talk about it, and she allows no one to get close.

While Carly may want to stay isolated, there are people around her who want to get closer. Hannah, a Dutch woman estranged from her husband,lives upstairs from her (but has to keep using her shower because her plumbing is bad) and tries to take Carly salsa dancing and makes her breakfast. Danny, a persistent kid she meets while surfing has synesthesia and won't leave her alone, even when the colour he sees her as is occasionally unpleasant. He keeps wanting to hang out and discuss surfing movies, and persuades Carly to get him a part time job at the cafe. Lastly, there is Ryan, who stands out from some of the crowd of macho surfer dudes. He doesn't hide the fact that he's just out of jail, and that he'd like a chance to get to know Carly better. He wants to turn his life around into something better, and if Carly will let him, he wants her to be a part of that life. The question is if Carly is ready to let him in?

My friend Erica read this some time ago and rated it very highly indeed. She gave me a copy, but it's been lingering on my TBR shelf until blue was one of the monthly keywords for this month. Must admit, I didn't love it as much as she, or quite a few book reviewers out there on the internet did, possibly because I had such a hard time engaging properly with the book. I felt really bad for Carly, and really hoped that she'd get over her assault, but I didn't really like her all that much, and her very narrow goals in life (work in cafe, surf) were not something that resonated with me. While I felt bad about it, I occasionally found myself thinking that maybe Hannah, Danny and Ryan should just let her sulk in peace, she was clearly not going to reciprocate the kindnesses and patience they kept showing her. I also have absolutely no idea if the surfing terms used in the books are accurate, but am going to assume so, as it's such a central part of the narrative.

I've seen the book classified as young adult and new adult. As Carly is nineteen and Ryan is twenty-six, and there is some description of sex (while nothing particularly graphic or explicit), I think it would fit better in the new adult category. I'm not particularly bothered by such labels, myself, but figured it might be worth noting that the romance in this book is not of the "fade to black" variety, even though it's aimed at younger readers.

#CBR5 Book 119. "Death Masks" by Jim Butcher

Page count: 374 pages
Audio book length: 11 hrs 21 mins
Rating: 3.5 stars

This is the fifth book in The Dresden Files, the books about professional wizard Harry Dresden. This review may therefore contain some spoilers for books that came earlier in the series and also for this one, and you may want to skip it until you've read the books up to this point.

Harry has a number of difficulties facing him - his ex-girlfriend Susan (who Harry's been moping over since she left him a few books ago) is back in town, getting ready to pack up her stuff to move to South America, and Harry is worried she may have found a new guy. A powerful Red Court vampire is also in town, challenging Harry to a duel, to settle once and for all the bad blood (pun intended) and warfare between the wizards and the Red Court once and for all. If Harry refuses to duel, the vampire will hunt down and kill anyone Harry cares for or has worked with, so he's not really got much choice in the matter. Thirdly, a priest wants to hire Harry to look for the stolen Shroud of Turin, and it seems like there are demonic entities who'd like nothing better than to find the artifact first, so they can unleash a devastating plague on humanity.

I keep trying to get into the Harry Dresden books, because so many people out there on the internet rave about them, and I feel that I should read something with a male protagonist, just to balance things out a bit. My fellow Goodreader and Cannonballer Ashley/Narfna has made it a lot further through the series than I have, and mentioned in one of her reviews that she listens to and really enjoys the audio books, which happen to be read by James Marsters, an actor I know and love from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and his recurring guest spot on Torchwood. Since I have a whole ton of extra Audible credits, I figured I'd see if I liked the books better in audio, and downloaded this one. Marsters really does an excellent job with the narration, and maybe it's just that Susan is actually back, so Harry isn't constantly moping about her, and she's less annoying than I remember her from the earlier book she was in (don't ask me which one, I honestly don't remember), but I liked Death Masks more than previous Dresden File books.

Marsden manages to make Dresden seem more charming than annoying, and as I said, while I was initially worried about Susan's reappearance, she kicks quite a lot of ass in this book, and promptly goes off to do her own thing at the end of the book, so she gets a pass for now. I have certain misgivings about a particular scene between her and Harry in this book, which is one of the reasons this book gets 3.5 stars instead of a full 4, but if that's because I'm used to reading relationships written by female urban fantasy writers, or whether this is a a bit of a misogynist, I'm honestly not sure. Don't want to go into spoilery details, but you'll know the scene when you get to it, it involves enchanted rope.

I'm also not sure if Harry's constant underestimating women, who pretty much immediately turn on him and double cross him, is supposed to be endearing or annoying. Suffice to say, it happens more than once in this book. There's also a lot of cool stuff, like a pretty creepy demon cult who I'm sure we've not seen the last of, some really bad vampires, Harry's friend Michael Carpenter and his fellow Knights of the Cross, Susan kicking ass, the return of Thomas Raith (one of the White Court vampires who feed off psychic energy, and who's always fun) and the introduction of the Archive, an adorable little girl who's had the sum of all human knowledge passed down to her through her maternal line (Harry nicknames her "Ivy").

I'm warming to Harry as a character, and as I don't have enough Audible credits to get the rest of the books in the series as audio books, I may alternate between reading and listening to the rest of them. I'm slowly getting hooked, and since I'm now no longer actively hating the series, I suspect I'll get through the rest slowly but surely.

#CBR5 Book 118. "Where She Went" by Gayle Forman

Page count: 274 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This is the sequel to If I Stay, and both this book and this review unavoidably contain spoilers about the ending. So if you want to avoid spoilers, or haven't read the first book in the series yet, skip this review.

Three years ago Adam Wilde's girlfriend Mia was in a car accident and lost her entire family. She nearly died as well. While she was in a coma, Adam pleaded with her to wake up, and said he'd even live with her leaving him, if she would just stay alive. Mia woke up from the coma, left Oregon for New York and is now a lauded prodigy having graduated Julliard early.

After dropping out of college and caring about nothing for quite some time after their breakup, Adam then poured all his emotions about the loss of Mia (and her family) into song lyrics, and his band went from being Indie darlings played at college radio stations to a platinum selling sensation touring stadiums world wide. Now dating a talented actress/producer, Adam lives in LA and is constant tabloid fodder. He barely speaks to the other members of the band, copes with the stress of fame with pills and alcohol and has a reputation as a real bad boy. When he's spending one night alone in New York, before heading off to London for another tour, Adam meets Mia again for the first time since they broke up. She's about to go on tour as well, starting in Japan. She invites him to come along as she says goodbye to all her favourite New York haunts.

So to get the big SPOILER for the end of If I Stay out of the way. Mia lives, but despite Adam's obvious love for her, she doesn't stay with him. She goes off to New York, without even giving him proper closure - she just stops talking to him, and doesn't return home for Christmas. If I Stay was entirely from Mia's POV, Where She Went is entirely from Adam's. Most of the chapters start with excerpts from the lyrics Adam wrote after he dug himself out of the worst depression after the breakup (as I - to the husband's great sorrow - am not all that into music as anything but background noise, I can't speak for the quality or lack thereof of said song lyrics). With "Collateral Damage", Adam's lamely named band "Shooting Star" became mega rock stars, and it's quite clear that Adam hasn't really enjoyed the rise to fame and stardom.

He's clearly unhappy in his relationship with his movie star girlfriend, who despite all that he tries to tell himself has 'rebound girl' written all over her perfect face. Because the press decided that "Shooting Star" really only were a backup band for Adam, who as song writer, lead singer and lead guitarist might be seen as doing all the heavy lifting, his band barely speak to him anymore. They usually stay at separate hotels during their tours. Adam has trouble sleeping, and goes through life on a cocktail of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication. He's never gotten over Mia, and seeing her again makes him a big ol' mess.

While Adam occasionally comes across as a giant emo whiner, who should thank his lucky stars for the awesome friends he has and the insane success he's been lucky enough to experience, the story never fails to make the reader sympathetic to him as well. While they weren't his actual biological family, Mia's parents and brother dying in that car accident affected him greatly as well. Staying by her side as she recovered, trying to be supportive, and then having her just dump him without any explanation - it's no wonder the boy is gutted. It's also not surprising that like so many other young people suddenly thrust into super stardom, Adam doesn't always handle it as well as he should.

Mia and Adam exploring New York together at night reminded me of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, and for all that the book deals with heart break, it's also very romantic. It's clear that Adam and Mia, despite their various unfortunate decisions, are meant to be together. This is another YA book that in the hands of a lesser writer could have been trite and cliched, but instead was engaging and sweet.

#CBR5 Book 117. "If I Stay" by Gayle Forman

Page count: 262 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Mia has everything a girl could want. Loving, supportive parents, a little brother who's more funny and clever than annoying, a likely admission to Julliard, and a romantic and talented boyfriend. Then her family are in a car accident, and her parents are killed instantly. Mia watches herself and her brother being transported to the hospital, and spends the next twenty four hours out of her own body, watching her relatives, friends of the family, her boyfriend Adam and her best friend Kim as they huddle in the hospital waiting room for news about her.

With her body being kept alive by machines while she's in a coma, Mia suddenly only has one thing left - she has to decide whether she's going to choose to live, and go on without her immediate family, or whether she should let go. Is there enough left for her to make staying worth it?

If I Stay is not a long book, and has fairly short chapters, alternating between Mia's present, where she observes her grieving friends and relatives waiting to see whether she wakes up from her coma or not, and her past, giving us a full picture of the life she had before, and what she lost when her family died in the car crash. Her father, the former rock band member turned high school teacher. Her mum, a former Punk chick. Her younger brother, that she helped deliver when he was born. We see how the daughter of rock enthusiasts started playing the cello and eventually excelled at it. How she and her best friend Kim started out as enemies and became inseparable. How Adam, who plays guitar in a promising Indie rock band, took her to a Yo Yo Ma concert for their first date, and how their relationship blossomed despite their seeming to come from different worlds.

Not feeling like she entirely fits is one of the things that makes Mia question whether she should stay alive. A classical musician surrounded by parents and family friends who preferred rock, with a boyfriend whose band is on the verge of launching their career. From her recollections about her life, it's clear she frequently felt a bit like a fish out of water. Insecurities are natural for teenage girls to have, even when most of their loved ones have completely different frames of reference to them.

A lot of themes are explored in the book, chiefly obviously loss and grief. I found it an engaging and moving read, and am not at all surprised to discover that it is being adapted into a movie, with Chloe Grace Moretz starring as Mia. Hopefully the film captures the sadness and emotion of the book, and doesn't just turn into a maudlin melodrama.

#CBR5 Book 115. "Flowers from the Storm" by Laura Kinsale

Page count: 560 pages
Rating: 5 stars

This is considered one of the great examples of romance literature, and it's been in the top 10 of the top 100 romance novels polls on All About Romance since 2000 (in 1998, it was rated 15th). When romance reviewers are asked to name their favourite books, it keeps being mentioned, and raved about, and I just never seemed to find the time to read it. Written in 1992, it's considered one of the works that really changed the genre (away from the frequently No means Yes rapey/forced consent romances into closer to what it is today). It's also a wonderful book to give to someone who claims romance is just trashy escapism for frustrated, sex-starved housewives. This is about as far from 50 Shades of Grey as you can get.

So what is it about then, you ask? Christian Langland, the Duke of Jervaulx is a dissolute rake if ever there was one, but he's also a mathematical genius, which is why Quaker spinster Archemedea Timms comes into contact with him. Her father, another mathematician, is blind, and Maddy (a necessary nickname if ever I heard one) writes out all his notes and takes them to the duke, and in turn reads all the duke's notes to her father. Then they hear that the duke's been killed in a duel, after an aggrieved husband called Jervaulx out. Maddy discovers this isn't true when she arrives at her cousin's posh mental asylum in the countryside, and finds Jervaulx locked up, senseless and in chains. She quickly realises what no one else has been willing to consider, that he's not mad but maddened, and that he's clearly in his right mind, just furious at being unable to communicate with those around him. A modern reader can see that Jervaulx has suffered a stroke, but it's not at all surprising that the duke's relatives would want him locked up and declared insane, so they could take over the running of his estates.

Maddy, despite being deeply uncomfortable with the Jervaulx's position and his dissolute lifestyle, believes herself to have received a calling from God, to help him. She stubbornly convinces her cousin (who for all the horrors of the asylum really is quite progressive, for the time) to let her tend him, and surprisingly rapidly, the duke is calm and compliant and even able to leave his cell on occasion. They grow increasingly closer the more time they spend together, with Jervaulx coming to depend on Maddy entirely. He has no way of communicating the amount of abuse he suffers from the other minders at the asylum, and realises that he can't risk them feeling threatened. He finally recovers enough that they deem him ready for his competency hearing, and take him to London, where most of his family still believe him completely addled. Only his battleaxe of an aunt believes him to be on the way to recovery, but she's worried about the reputation of the family, and wants Jervaulx to marry to secure the title. If he won't agree to matrimony, she'll have him shipped back to the asylum. Jervaulx has no intention of marrying anyone save Maddy, his rescuing angel, but her religious beliefs make such a union completely impossible.

Kinsale is considered a master of her craft, and I can see why in this book. At nearly 600 pages, it's quite a bit longer than a standard romance nowadays, and the relationship between Jervaulx and Maddy is slowly established, as their romance seems impossible. Jervaulx is all that is dissolute, sinful and decadent, and Maddy is a devout Quaker, who spurns creaturely comforts and worldly titles, calling everyone 'Friend' and even refusing to curtsy to the King of England himself. She fights her attraction to Jervaulx from the start, yet deeply respects his intelligence and kindness to her father, and is the only one who fights for him in the asylum. Yet this isn't the story of a selfless woman who through love and self sacrifice heals a broken man. While Jervaulx is initially terrified when Maddy is away from him, and seems incapable of managing without her, he gradually, with the additional help of loyal friends and servants, manages to rehabilitate himself. It doesn't hurt that most people regard him with so much awe and deference because of his title that they don't notice that he leaves out a few words here and there.

I love that Kinsale shows us both protagonists' POVs, and even the broken snippets of dialogue that are the only thing Jervaulx is capable of understanding as he recovers from his stroke. His rate of recovery is clearly shown in the amount of conversation he's able to follow. We also see firsthand Maddy's inner turmoil, and at no point are her devout religious beliefs judged by the author. There are no quick fixes in this book, there are no easy solutions. The harrowing conditions in even a very progressive and forward thinking asylum for the wealthy are terrifying, and I shared Jervaux's terror that he be sent back there, understanding why he might resort to less than honourable methods to win Maddy's hand in order to get his normal life back. While there is a lot of angst and anguish over the course of this book, it was also a deeply satisfying read, and I would heartily recommend it to anyone who thinks romance can't be real literature. I now understand why it's prized so highly among romance readers, and will absolutely be seeking out more Kinsale to read.

#CBR5 Book 113. "The Broken Kingdoms" by N.K. Jemisin

Page count: 417 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This is the second book in the Inheritance trilogy, and while the book can be read independently (I read the first book, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms nearly a year and a half before I read this one, which was fine, once I'd re-familiarised myself with the plot on Wikipedia), you'll probably get a more cohesive and generally better reading experience if you read them in sequence (without waiting 18 months between them).

In the city of Shadow, beneath the World Tree that sprang into existence ten years ago, blind Oree Shoth makes her living as an artist. She does appear to be able to see magic of all kinds, though, and her strange second sight helps her paint. Oree lives with a mysterious, taciturn stranger who she rescued from a waste bin some months back. She doesn't think he's a godling (one of the many minor gods that have started appearing in the city since the World Tree grew), because he only glows at dawn. He's clearly not all human, either, as he keeps killing himself and coming back to life.

When godlings start turning up dead, Oree and her strange house guest, along with Oree's former lover, a godling called Madden, find themselves abducted and held prisoner by a secret religious organisation. They want to keep her friends hostage, to get Oree to cooperate with them. They need her help to kill one of the major gods, the Shadow Lord himself.

This book is set ten years after the end of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and the major characters in that book only turn up briefly in this book, mainly as cameos. So it's absolutely possibly to read the second book without knowing what happened in the first, but I found it added another dimension to know the reasons for the major changes this fantasy world has gone through in the last decade. As in the first book, the narrative is told in first person, this time from Oree's POV. Because it's a personal narrative, it jumps a bit back and forth, as personally recounted stories often do. This, of course, enables Jemisin to put in all sorts of foreshadowing and teases for the readers.

Those who have read the first book in the series, will not be that surprised at the identity of Oree's strange lodger, and I really like what Jemisin's done with this character and that she's built a fantasy universe where it's possible to explore the sorts of things she does. Jemisin is very highly acclaimed out there on the internet, and while I liked the book, I'm still waiting to be blown away by her writing, the way so many others out there seem to have been. Last year, as part of my now annual support of Worldbuilders, Patrick Rothfuss' charity fundraiser, I got the Literary Pinup Calendar, drawn by Lee Moyer. Very fittingly, September's image is of Oree. It's one of my favourite images in the calendar. I really wish I could love the book as much as I love this picture, but so far, after two books, for all that I see that her writing is great, there's just this little part of me that stays detached when I read Jemisin's books. That's not to say this isn't very good fantasy, quite unlike anything else I've found out there. Maybe the next book of hers is the one where I finally get properly hooked?