In the pursuit of reading material

[mercy_angel_09]

As a general rule, I'm kind of cheap. I'm usually pretty good about being able to discern if I need something or if I just want something. Most of my reading material falls into the "want" category, and so instead of constantly downloading new books to my Nook, I usually just get the freebies off of Barnes & Noble or the classics from Project Gutenberg. This isn't to say that I haven't bought books for my Nook - I was so impressed with the freebie by Julie Klassen that I bought her other three books, as well as Isabel Wolff's A Vintage Affair and On the Night of the Seventh Moon by Victoria Holt. Likewise, I've been pleased with Karen Witemeyer's work (her first book was offered as a freebie) so I've been debating about buying her other two books.

I was also going through some of my other favorite authors, trying to determine which books that I wanted to get - I know I have a couple by Dianne Mott Davidson that I am as yet to add to my collection, as well as the most recent "-Hunter" books Sherrilyn Kenyon. Since both of those are long runner series, I'm thinking that I'll just get the rest of the books in eBook format so I don't have to keep making room on my shelf.

Obviously, some books you just have to have a physical copy of. I'm still planning on buying a copy of The Hobbit - though there are multiple editions to choose from. Further more, I'm going to be getting the rest of the Patricia Briggs's Mercy Thompson series in physical form because 1) she's a local author and I'm all about supporting local anything and 2) since she's a local author, going to book signings is easy and I want something she can actually, you know, sign.

At any rate I'm itching for some new reading material, so I may just have to buckle down and get the other two Karen Witemeyer novels. They're historical novels with Christian themes, but not so overtly preachy that I wanted to throw the Nook across the room in disgust. And, to be fair, most of the Christian themes in the book were completely period appropriate. I'm a non-denominational Christian, but that doesn't mean I don't get twitchy over that evangelical, overly preachy bullshit. On more than one occasion I've stopped something half-way though when it becomes obvious what the real motivation is. Thankfully Witemeyer manages to avoid that whole overly preachy tone and overall I found her work enjoyable. I'm willing to give the rest of her work a try. I may just start with her second book and if I like it, then I'll get the third one.

Comments

[humoresques.livejournal.com]

Those book sound good! What are they about?

[mercy-angel-09.livejournal.com]

Were there specific books you'd like me to tell you about, or do you want basic info on all of them?

[humoresques.livejournal.com]

The basics are fine. :)

[mercy-angel-09.livejournal.com]

Let's see..

So the Julie Klassen novels are all set in the Regency and all of the heroines are upper-middle class. However all of them are dealing with the prejudices against women and the double standards of the time. Two novels deal with "fallen" women, another with a daughter who is secretly doing her father's work even though a woman doing so is a very serious offense, and the last has a girl who believes that she has killed her father and flees to another town to hide. Romance ensues, but almost never like one expects it. The Apothecary's Daughter actually kept me guessing until the last five chapters or so, because just when I thought I knew who the official couple was, Klassen threw a wrench in the works. The other three books are a bit more obvious in who the official couples are.

Karen Witemeyer's novels are all set in 1850s Texas, at least to my knowledge (at least the one I read was, still need to read the other two). The one I read A Tailor-Made Bride had a couple of different themes, mostly Christian in nature, but one of the more interesting ones was the idea of a woman running her own business in a frontier town when it was very uncommon and how the town responds to that. Romance ensues is a more or less typical fashion. A light and enjoyable read, granted you're looking for some light entertainment.

A Vinatge Affair was an impulse buy and one I don't regret at all. After a personal tragedy, a young woman gives up her job at an auction house where she used to appraise vintage couture gowns to open up a vintage clothing store that deals mostly in couture gowns and suits from years gone by. Most of her stock comes from estate sales and donations, and one afternoon she gets a call from an elderly woman who says that she's downsizing her possessions and wants to donate some clothes if they meet the requirements. Through their own tragedies and clothes they begin to heal their hearts and deal with the ghosts of their pasts. I found the inter-generational friendship at the core of the story sweet and endearing, and even if it's not something you want to buy, you should at the very least check it out from the library.

[mercy-angel-09.livejournal.com]

On the Night of the Seventh Moon is pretty typical fare from Victoria Holt. Set in the Victorian Era in Prussia (soon to be unified as Germany), a young woman at school meets a dashing man who claims to be a baron after getting lost in the woods. After one mysterious night in his hunting lodge, she resigns herself to the fact that they will never meet again...until Fate seemingly steps in and reunites them. They are married and spend two blissful weeks together in matrimony before he takes off to deal with official business, leaving her alone at the hunting lodge where they first met. However something is afoot and one night the lodge catches fire and burns to the ground, and suddenly her world is turned upside down as she is told that she was never married and that her baron does not actually exist. But Fate steps in again and she discovers that she's to have a baby, and yet her happily ever after seems far away. After the death of her child shortly after birth, she returns home to England only to wind up going back to Prussia and discovering that not only is her baron real, but they were actually married! Now she struggles to find out why they were split up and who has marked her for death. ...So yeah, pretty typical fare from Victoria Holt, but I love her work anyway. Most of her work follows a pretty typical romantic suspense plot line, but each are different enough that it's not "Recycled, the Novel." Further more the research she did was top notch and the history in the novels is fantastically accurate. The novels range from being set in urban London to the wild moores, to sun kissed Australia and untamed India. I've read almost all of the novels by Victoria Holt (some more than others, XD) and I love them all.

The books by Diane Mott Davidson are "culinary mysteries" as the heroine is a caterer with a knack for solving mysteries. All of the books are tied together more or less with over arcing themes of family, friendship and Goldie's catering business, AND they include recipes. If Goldie's getting busy in the kitchen, expect the recipe to pop up in the next couple of pages (except in the most recent books, which put all of the recipes in the back). They're fun, and more than once I've started drooling over the food porn. Never actually made anything from the books, though.
The "-Hunter" series by Sherrilyn Kenyon are urban paranormal romances with a serious case of "Our Vampires and Were-wolves/cats/birds/bears/dragons Are Different." And dream gods, too. So far there are 18 books (soon to be nineteen) in the "Dark-Hunter" series (which generally includes the Were-Hunters as well) and four or five "Dream-Hunter" novels. This is not including the short stories and novellas in the anthologies, of which there are at least ten. And this is not including her young adult series centered around the character of Nick Gautier who pops up in the very first official (though there is a sort of "prequel" novel that's set in the same world set before the first official novel) story and then is more or less a reoccurring character until he becomes serious business. Fans aren't sure if this was intentional or character derailment. Anyway, they're trashy paranormal romances but they're funny. Really funny. The first one I read I actually had to put down because I was laughing to hard to be able to focus on reading.

That brings me to the Mercy Thompson series. They're classified as urban fantasies set in some little backwater town in Eastern Washington. We locals lovingly call it "Fintucky." But it's close enough to the Tri-Cities proper that it's not entirely backwater. But close. Anyway, Mercy is a "walker" meaning that she can shift between a human and a coyote at will. There are were-wolves and vampires and ghosts and the Fair Folk (on a reservation between the Tri-Cities and Walla Walla), and plenty of mention of real places and events (most of which I've either been to or know of). Being that I'm more or less a Tri-Cities native (I wasn't born here, but I've been living here for 22 years), I probably connect to the books a lot better than most. Also, it doesn't hurt that I knew the author's son when we were in junior college together and they used to live within walking distance of me.