Bloody Good - Georgia Evans

Title: Bloody Good
Author: Georgia Evans
Genre: Paranormal
Rating: 3/5
# pages: 300
Date read: November, 2009

While the sounds of battle echo through the sky, a lady doctor has more than enough trouble to keep her busy even in a sleepy hamlet outside London. But the threat is nearer home than Alice knows. German agents have infiltrated her beloved countryside - Nazis who can fly, read minds, and live forever. They're not just fascists. They're vampires.

Alice has no time for fantasy, but when the corpses start appearing sucked dry, she'll have to accept help where she can get it. If that includes a lowly Conscientious Objector who says he's no coward though he refuses to fight, and her very own grandmother, a sane, sensible woman who insists that she's a Devonshire Pixie, so be it. Indeed, whatever it takes to defend home and country from an evil both ancient and terrifyingly modern.

I know I shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but my initial assumption about this book was that it was trash. The plot sounded intriguing, but the cover is just too tacky for words.

I think the book itself lands somewhere midway between the two expectations. Honestly, it was a refreshing change to read a book where the vampires were closer to Bram Stoker's invention, and I really enjoyed the other paranormal aspects also.

There were situations where I had to suspend my disbelief though - even accepting the universe Georgia Evans created - and though they were few, the VERY gratuitous sex scenes meant that I'd more more likely to categorise this as erotic fiction than anything else.

Bones of the Dragon - Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman

Title: Bones of the Dragon
Author: Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 2.5/5
# pages: 536
Date read: November, 2009

Skylan Ivorson is a sea-raider of the Vindras and eventually becomes the Chief of Chiefs of all Vindras clans, an honor he truly feels he deserves as one who has been blessed by Skoval, the god of war.

But sometimes a blessing is a curse in disguise.

Skoval and the other ancient gods are under siege from a new generation of gods who are challenging them for the powers of creation… and the only way to stop these brash interlopers lies within the mysterious and hidden Five Bones of the Vektan Dragons.

It will be up to the Vindras people, as the dragon-goddess' champions, to undertake the quest to recover all Five. The fate of the Old Gods and the Vindras rests on their recovery--for this is not only a quest to save the world. It is also a quest for redemption.

Despite my enjoyment of fantasy, I've never read a single Dragonlance book, and probably wouldn't have picked this up either, if I hadn't been asked to review it.

It's a fairly interesting start to a new series, but either not terribly well-written, or I'm just way above the target age, because I did find it rather simplistic at times, and during the first half of the book, the main character came across as a gigantic arrogant git. Had it ended there, I would only have given it two stars.

It improved in the second half though. Through tragic events Skylan was forced to make difficult decisions and mostly rose to the occasion. Following his growth made the book worth reading, even if nothing else had. Also, I grew to like several of the other characters and found myself interested in their futures - despite my initial reservations.

The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society - Beth Pattillo

Title: The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society
Author: Beth Pattillo
Genre: Christian fiction
Rating: 4.5/5
# pages: 352
Date read: November 2009, March 2014

On the third Friday of each month, Eugenie, Ruth, Esther, Merry, and Camille meet at the Sweetgum Christian Church to enjoy the two things that connect them: a love of knitting and a passion for books. Their camaraderie remains unthreatened until Eugenie, the town librarian, introduces an angry teenager into their midst. Eugenie also gives them a new reading list: the classic novels of girlhood that young Hannah has never read. Little Women. Pollyanna. Heidi. Books that remind the women of the hopes and dreams they have lost along the way.

With each click of their needles, the ladies of the Knit Lit Society unravel their secrets: A shadow from Eugenie's past haunts the controlled order of her life. Merry's perfect little family is growing again - but will she continue to feel her identity slip away? Camille dreams of leaving town but is bound by ties of love. And the sisters, Ruth and Esther, must confront a lie they have lived with for over thirty years.

As Hannah is reluctantly stitched into their lives, the women discover the possibility that even in sleepy Sweetgum, Tennessee, they can still be the heroines of their own stories.

I read the sequel, The Sweetgum Ladies Knit for Love, earlier this year, not realising that it was a sequel. However, I loved it, and wanted to know what came before.

TSKLS didn't disappoint. I was just as charmed by it as I had expected to be. In atmosphere it could best be compared to Mitford, as the reader is introduced to some of the characters of a small village - none of them perfect, but all of them human.

TSKLS is not a literary masterpiece, but it's a very cozy book that's the perfect comfort read.

My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult

Title: My Sister's Keeper
Author: Jodi Picoult
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 5/5
# pages: Audiobook, ~21hrs
Date read: April 2005, November 2009, January 2020

Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate -- a life and a role that she has never challenged...until now.

Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister -- and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.


My Sister's Keeper was the first Jodi Picoult book I read, and it's still my favourite. The premise is fascinating, and it is one we all can relate to - should a child be required to repeatedly donate blood and organs to her sick sister, and should she go so far as to donate a kidney when it is not even certain her sister will survive the surgery?

As is usual for her, Picoult has written this book from several different points of few. This can get frustrating at times, if you get caught up in one storyline, but Picoult handles it well, and didn't subject the reader to too many cliffhangers. The audiobook I'd gotten hold of had a different reader for each character, which worked well.

And once again, I can conclude that "reading" page-turners as audiobooks is somewhat frustrating at times, because it's just too slow!

I loved the book as much as I did the first time around, and it still holds the dubious 'winner' as being probably the book that's made me cry the most - knowing the ending ahead of time actually just makes it all the more heartbreaking.

(And I still prefer the book ending to the movie ending).