It looks like the T‑SPLOST bill was defeat­ed by a land­slide. I’m so glad! That thing was a total boon­dog­gle. My baby girl and I spent the day togeth­er and one of the very first things we did was go vote against it!

We had a good lunch togeth­er and a frozen yogurt treat. She indulged me, so I final­ly got to go to In Stitch­es, too. They have the most incred­i­ble selec­tion of fibers! I picked up my first Glo­ri­ana silks for a char­i­ty stitch­ing project.

Now I’m exhaust­ed, but hap­py. It was a good day!

Today’s post at Acad­e­my Car­i­tas lists some free online cours­es that look very good. I’m con­sid­er­ing using some of those to get back into the groove of school until I can go back “for real.”

I’m in a good mood, as I’m at the girl’s place and I got to see Steven today. Hap­py day!

Entan­gled by Edie Ramer
My rat­ing: 3 of 5 stars

I picked this anthol­o­gy up because all pro­ceeds go to the Breast Can­cer Research Foun­da­tion, which is a won­der­ful cause. Many of the authors’ lives have been touched by can­cer in one way or anoth­er, some first-hand. The vol­ume is Hal­loween-themed, as well.

I don’t believe I’ve read any­thing but short sto­ries by any of these authors in the past except for Jen­nifer Estep, and I haven’t read the Mythos Acad­e­my series in which her sto­ry is set. I’m more like­ly to read it now than I was before.

“Hal­loween Frost” by Estep and “Ghost­ly Jus­tice” by Alli­son Bren­nan (set in her Sev­en Dead­ly Sins series) were the most pol­ished sto­ries in the anthol­o­gy. Too many of the oth­ers had plot holes, or felt like teasers to get a read­er to pur­sue more of the author’s work. A short sto­ry should be self-con­tained.

Some of the authors let the “romance” get in the way of the plot­ting. If the main char­ac­ter acts like an idiot because she’s dis­tract­ed by the bulge in a man’s pants, why make her the main char­ac­ter of a sto­ry? Espe­cial­ly if, as in “Sin­ful­ly Sweet” by Michelle Miles, you fail to resolve the major plot issue you raise?

While I admire the cause for which these ladies are writ­ing, I can’t help but think a short­er, high­er-qual­i­ty anthol­o­gy might have been a bet­ter bet.

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You are read­ing the blog of the newest board mem­ber of Grants to You, a won­der­ful non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion based in Prescott, Ari­zona. I’m going to be doing a lot of work involv­ing the web site and serv­ing on a new com­mit­tee. I’m tick­led pink!

In oth­er news, I got to intro­duce some­one to the Dres­den Files today! I thought every­body had heard of Butcher’s books, but in case there’s anoth­er fan­ta­sy fan out there who has been deprived: you want to read these, I promise. They’re about Chicago’s only pro­fes­sion­al wiz­ard, Har­ry Dres­den. He rou­tine­ly deals with vam­pires, demons, werewolves—you name it. There was a short-lived tele­vi­sion show that should have been longer, but it died the death of so many great shows (like Fire­fly).

Start with Storm Front, but know that you’ll want to have Fool Moon and Grave Per­il handy.

I love them so much that I keep all four­teen vol­umes (thir­teen nov­els and a col­lec­tion of short sto­ries) on my Nook as com­fort read­ing. I’m eager to read num­ber four­teen, and I can’t think of many oth­er authors who can keep the excite­ment going that long. I’ve nev­er encoun­tered one per­son who does­n’t like these books if they’ve read them, so give them a try!

Dead Reck­on­ing by Char­laine Har­ris
My rat­ing: 3 of 5 stars

For fluff, it’s got some real­ly dark scenes. It does­n’t have enough of a plot to be any­thing more than fluff, though. It absolute­ly does NOT stand alone, so don’t con­sid­er read­ing this book unless you’ve read all that went before it — you’ll be hope­less­ly lost.

Sook­ie has changed so much over the course of this series that she is hav­ing trou­ble rec­og­niz­ing her­self, and is trou­bled over it, with good rea­son. Hav­ing a main char­ac­ter change is good, and I’ll say that some of that change is growth, but I can’t say it’s all growth, or all to the good. (Can any of us say that, though, about the changes we go through in our lives?)

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Tricked by Kevin Hearne
My rat­ing: 5 of 5 stars

That was so good. Just so very good. Like the last three — well plot­ted, with good char­ac­ter devel­op­ment from a fas­ci­nat­ing cast of char­ac­ters. This time most of the mythol­o­gy is Native Amer­i­can (specif­i­cal­ly Nava­jo) instead of Norse or Celtic, but there’s a lit­tle spice from oth­er tra­di­tions thrown in as well. And as before, there are always con­se­quences get­ting involved, even in good caus­es. I think that’s one of the biggest ways this series reminds me of the Dres­den Files by Jim Butch­er.

I am absolute­ly going to be on ten­ter­hooks until Trapped is released!

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I’ve recent­ly got­ten back into the dis­ci­pline of doing morn­ing pages, some­thing that’s a vital part of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. It’s a great way to clear your men­tal caches each morn­ing and pre­pare to write some­thing more mean­ing­ful. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, one writes three pages long­hand.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I have trou­ble with that. The arthri­tis in my hands caus­es ter­ri­ble cramp­ing, and I can’t read what I’ve writ­ten by the time I’m a sen­tence or two on. I get pre­oc­cu­pied by how ter­ri­ble my hand­writ­ing is and so dis­tract­ed that the whole point of the exer­cise is lost.

If I try to use a word proces­sor, I end up writ­ing too much. Blog­ging is no good, because I write too much and I wor­ry about for­get­ting to mark the entries pri­vate.

750 Words is a won­der­ful alter­na­tive. It pro­vides noth­ing but a blank screen and a notice when you hit 750 words (three pages at 250 words each equals 750 words). It’s a free ser­vice! And it will send you reminder mes­sages.

I’m tick­led pink!

Ham­mered by Kevin Hearne
My rat­ing: 5 of 5 stars

Wow. This book has a non-stop pace, for rea­sons that will be obvi­ous to the read­er but can­not be explained to oth­ers with­out spoil­ers. I’ll just say “clear your cal­en­dar” because you’ll not find ANY good stop­ping places.

One of the things that tru­ly impress­es me is that Kevin Hearne does­n’t just show his char­ac­ters doing amaz­ing things, but shows them expe­ri­enc­ing the con­se­quences of their actions—some expect­ed, some total­ly unex­pect­ed. I tru­ly enjoy his views of arche­types and myth, espe­cial­ly com­ing from a char­ac­ter who walks around speak­ing to gods, hav­ing a beer with Jesus and throw­ing down with Thor.

I’m so glad that I have Tricked on hand, but I wish Trapped were out already! At least I have the extra A Test of Met­tle to read, too. I just can’t get enough of Atti­cus.

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Places To Be, Peo­ple To Kill by Brit­tiany A. Koren
My rat­ing: 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this anthol­o­gy more than one might expect from a col­lec­tion of sto­ries about killers, but then I’ve read a cou­ple of vol­umes edit­ed by Brit­tiany A. Koren and Mar­tin H. Green­berg now, and I trust the pair. (Green­berg has turned out so many antholo­gies that I don’t assume any­thing at all when I see his name.)

I had to explain to my fam­i­ly why I kept laugh­ing while read­ing “Exact­ly” by Tanya Huff. I’m a long-time fan of her work, so was already famil­iar with sib­ling assas­sins Vree and Ban­non from Fifth Quar­ter and No Quar­ter. While all of Huf­f’s work includes some humor, this sto­ry is par­tic­u­lar­ly fun­ny.

“Breia’s Dia­mond” by Cat Collins was a mem­o­rable low in the book. In addi­tion to the inap­pro­pri­ate and inept use of romance clichés, it’s all too obvi­ous ear­ly on that the mer­ce­nar­ies are being paid far too much for too lit­tle work by the necro­mancer. That isn’t fore­shad­ow­ing, it’s foreshouting—or just plain stu­pid­i­ty on the part of the mer­ce­nar­ies. They are mur­der­ers for hire, noth­ing else, and I’ve nev­er felt any sym­pa­thy for such. Why would I start now, sim­ply because a sto­ry is told from their point of view?

Bradley H. Sinor’s “Mon­ey’s Worth” has the feel of some­thing excerpt­ed from a larg­er work. It’s good and I enjoyed it, but I think I would have enjoyed it far more in its prop­er con­text.

The only oth­er sto­ry that is mem­o­rable enough to sin­gle out is “The Hun­dredth Kill” by John Mar­co. It is a love­ly jew­el of a sto­ry, one that stands for itself, leav­ing lit­tle to be said oth­er than “read it.” I don’t believe that I’ve read any of Mar­co’s nov­els, but obvi­ous­ly I’ve missed out on some­thing very good. I intend to rem­e­dy that omis­sion short­ly.

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Hound­ed by Kevin Hearne
My rat­ing: 4 of 5 stars

I just can’t say enough good things about this book. It’s well-plot­ted. There’s an excel­lent cast of char­ac­ters, and they devel­op in inter­est­ing ways. The world-build­ing is won­der­ful­ly rich.

I have the same incred­i­ble, bub­bly feel­ing that I did when read­ing the very first Dres­den Files nov­el by Jim Butcher–gimme more! For­tu­nate­ly, there are already three more books avail­able in the series (Hexed, Ham­mered and Tricked) with a fifth (Trapped) on the way.

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