Book: The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson

I've had the first Longmire novel, The Cold Dish, on my wishlist at paperbackswap for months - since I first watched Longmire on A&E's website.

I finally got it in the mail last week, and even though it's been probably more than a year since I read anything in print, I looked forward to reading this book so much that I started it that night. Reading at night by flashlight, reminiscent of my tween and teen reading years, when I had to pretend to go to bed at the appointed hour, and couldn't be caught reading after lights out. What fun.

This book seriously needs a better editor. I mean, really. It's not a poorly edited book, but it's not well-edited. Nope. Maybe subsequent reprints have been updated. I can hope.

Parris Island was misspelled Paris Island. Sight instead of site. Right of passage instead of rite of passage. Deep-seeded instead of deep-seated. Affect instead of effect. Multiple uses of sat instead of set. Grinded. Too many whos and thats making things more complicated, when the idea could have been communicated much more simply without them. A serious overuse of commas, much like I found in the first book I edited for someone who'd used Grammarly for their book edits before finding me. Sheath of papers instead of sheaf. Antiquainted, which is not even a word, instead of antiquated. Freeze de jour. If worse came to worse.

And oh, my gods. The dialogue. Dialogue and actions were mixed into paragraphs, such that I have a hard time sometimes keeping straight who is talking and who is acting, because both are done by different people in the same paragraph. He doesn't much believe in dialogue tags, which might be fine if there are only two people in a book, but there are dozens, and holy cow.

All of this had been making me crazy (er than usual), until I just want to throw the frakkin' book into the wall. Has everyone forgotten the English language, including editors?

Even crazier? I'm enjoying the book despite all those flaws.

Book Walt has a bizarre and twisted sense of humor that makes me laugh. Out loud. I love the relationship Book Vic and Book Walt have with each other - he appreciates her more than the show implies, and Book Vic is much more like a favorite scifi character than Vic is on the show. She's mouthy and independent and brash and competent (not that she's incompetent on the show), and drops the F-bomb a lot, and is more vulnerable and open with Book Walt than she's been on the show (understand that I've never seen the first season, only two and what's aired of three). Book Walt is spiritually-inclined and has a more interesting relationship with Henry Standing Bear - Henry is in many ways Book Walt's conscience. Their relationship is sometimes adversarial and sometimes cooperative, and there are moments that they don't need words to communicate, and underlying everything is a deep and abiding love for each other, in a way that is unusual in American heterosexual men, at least unusual in the sense that they love each other and are never awkward about it.

I'm just enjoying the hell out of this book, and it's been my oasis in the middle of a crisis, editorial mistakes notwithstanding.

Happy Day!

(original post on livejournal 12/18/2012)
Well, you know, as happy as it gets in December.

The roast I put in the crockpot at 0530 is the best roast I ever made.  From now on, I will always make my roast from a brisket cut!  Plus, it was spiced just right, and the juice was just exactly the right thickness that it was good gravy without me actually having to make gravy.  I had to write down how I made it so I can do it again and again and again.

While I was enthusing over my fantastic roast, the mail came, and my BSG Season 3 from swapadvd was delivered!  I inspected the discs, and two might have to be taken somewhere to be run through whatever it is that smooths out the rough edges (so to speak), but the remaining six discs are pristine.  So I am now the proud owner through the end of season three, with only three questionable discs.  I'm in line for the two parts of season four, but I'm kind way down the list.  I did transfer enough credits from paperbackswap so I can get them, so it's just a matter of waiting now.

I have started using Dr Bronner's liquid soap in the shower (Hemp Almond) and it's making my skin smooth.  I like that.  And though it's kind of a strange thing to be happy about, I hardly even have to dry off after my shower.  Also, my dry skin itchies, which used to be pretty severe in the winter, have hardly made an appearance at all.

I feel asleep smiling last night because I happened to fall asleep during a particularly enjoyable John McClane moment during Die Hard 4.  Yes, I love John McClane and I don't care who frakkin' knows.  lol  I am so anxiously anticipating #5 in February.  I conned a friend of mine into seeing it with me for my birthday.  I figured it I asked now, she couldn't say there was anything else on her calendar.  :D

It is too bad that I don't know anybody who needs gifts wrapped.  The only part of the season I really enjoy is wrapping gifts.  Speaking of the season, I got an email from my stepmother, telling me that a cousin and her husband were coming in to town to visit her mom (my step-maternal aunt), and that I was welcome to come over for dinner.  That it would be good to see me.  My first thought was that she only thought it would be good to see me because it's been two years since she set eyes on me and maybe she just forgot that she doesn't really like me.  I am still debating whether or not I can handle all the negative snark aimed my way, or if I should just decline graciously.  It would be good to see my dad and my sister, and my aunt, uncle and cousin, for that matter.  I guess I should just suck it up and go, but gods I hate listening to her putting me down. 

ETA:  I did go to my parents' house for xmas dinner, and everybody except my parents were polite and interacted with me as if I were a person and everything.  My dad said about five words to me, including hello and goodbye, and my stepmother talked to me, was even nice, but avoided me as much as possible.  It was great to see my aunt, uncle, cousin and to meet cousin's hubby.  He's adorable!  And so smitten!

Book Review: Raintree trilogy

Raintree: Inferno / Sanctuary / Haunted




I got this one from my wishlist at paperbackswap.com.

It's an interesting trilogy, with each story about a Raintree family member.  The Raintree and the Ansara are more than human, and each member of each clan has "gifts."  The Raintree believe in using their gifts for good and in helping humankind, though they live as human, with none the wiser.  The Ansara are believed to be more every-man-out-for-himself, and some members of the clan are just plain bad.

The first and second stories come to rather abrupt ends, and the third and final story ties them all together at the end.  If you read and enjoy books with a paranormal twist, you should enjoy these, at least a little.  :)

Inferno is written by Linda Howard. Haunted is by Linda Winstead Jones.  Sanctuary is by Beverly Barton.  All three are fairly big names in the Harlequin world.  Thumbs Up.

Book mini-Review: Casey

I picked up this book at my local Half Price Books, on the clearance rack.  I received nothing in exchange for this review.

Lori Foster wrote a four-book Harlequin Temptation series on the Buckhorn brothers back in the late 90s or early 00s.  According to her blurb in the front of the book, she received many, many requests to write about the fifth brother, Casey, who at the time was just a teenager.  This is that story.  If I read any of the others, it's been so long ago that I don't remember doing so.

We meet Emma, Casey and some of Casey's family at the beginning of the book, when Casey and Emma are just teenagers.  One thing too many has Emma looking to leave home, and she runs to Casey, who she knows from past experience will help her without helping himself to her.  Casey, with the agreement of his dad and stepmom, puts Emma up for the night, only to find her gone the next morning. 

Roll the calendar forward eight years.  Emma's stayed gone, but Casey never forgot her, and maybe just a little, never forgave her for running off in the middle of the night.  She's on her way back to town, to visit her father in the hospital, when her car breaks down on the side of the road.  Next person along the road is Casey, with a date.  Emma's not alone, either....

These two have to reestablish their friendship, and on Emma's part, without revealing too much about why she left town in the first place.  The results are funny and engaging, particularly some of the parts that involve his family.  Parts of the romance were a little too easy for my taste, but I guess that happens sometimes when a couple has history.

Here's what I really liked about this book:  Emma is messed up as a teenager.  When we meet her again as an adult, some of her internal dialogue, and one of her conversations with Casey, lets out that she's experienced, sexually speaking.  She slept with a lot of guys as a teenager and she enjoys sex as an adult woman.  I'm not saying that I condone her teenage behavior, but that it's refreshing for an author to give her heroine that kind of history.  Too many times, the female lead has aspersions cast at her character, only to find out later she's a virgin, or has only slept with one or two guys.  Lori Foster didn't go that way.  She took a young woman living in less than ideal family conditions and let her circumstances take her down a bad road.  The grown up Emma has a handle on her past, for the most part, and has a healthy attitude about it, except when she's talking to Casey, of course.

So, Emma took what life handed her, ran away, used her new circumstances to change her life, and came back to Buckhorn a successful small business owner who only had to overcome her feelings about Casey and his persistent teenage rejection of her sexual favors.

It was fun and flirty, and the secondary story, though much too secondary, was adorable as well.

I'll list this one on my paperbackswap bookshelf.

Book Review: The Bodyguard

I picked up this book off the clearance rack at my local Half Price Books.  I received nothing in exchange for this review.

This is an anthology, a trilogy of stories around a central theme.  In this case, men of paranormal ability who are sent to guard or eliminate a female, who may or may not have some paranormal ability.  The book is billed as erotic romance.

DANGER, DANGER, DANGER!  BAD LANGUAGE AHEAD!

OK, in case you didn't get the message, this review contains a bit of bad language.

Temptation on Ice by Cherry Adair.  Yes, she has a porn name, or what sounds like one.  This is apropos, as her story reads like a porno.  I have to mention that using words like cock, pussy, fuck and the like do not make a story erotic.  They do make it explicit.  Explicit is not necessarily erotic, though it can be.  In this case, it's just bad.  Thank goodness it was the shortest story in the book.  This story rates a solid Poor.

Hunting Temptation by Lorie O'Clare.  OK, her name's not quite so bad.  The story is better, too.  In this case, a human bounty hunter (pardon me, fugitive apprehension professional) is hunting what he learns is a rogue male werewolf.  His first clue, passed along by a long-time informational contact, leads him to a nightclub, where he is distracted by a woman who has eyes for him.  Turns out, she's a werewolf, part of a local pack, which he learns pretty late into the story.  So, in this case, the theme is turned around and it's the woman who's paranormal and the man who may or may not be.  Anyway, the romance seemed a little forced on the woman's side, and the overprotectiveness of the males in her pack got to be more than a little wearing to me, so I'm assuming this is why she felt the need to cut loose a little.  This story rates a marginal Good.

Temptation in Shadows by Gena Showalter.  The third story in the book, the longest by far, and the only one written by an author whose name I recognized (her name is why I bought the book, frankly), is also the best.  It's actually erotic romance, between two people who are grown, not rebelling against anything, not constantly thinking with their sex organs.  The premise of the story is solid, with a clear bad guy, and a heroine who's flawed but not weak.  The romance takes time, and isn't some kind of instantaneous mind-boggling hormone-fest.  Gena includes romance, suspense, action and a little mystery.  The hero's paranormal ability is related to shadows, thus the name of the story, and it's an interesting ability.  This story rates a solid Very Good.

This book is not worth the cover price.  I got it for $2, and still felt a little gypped, until I read Gena Showalter's story.  If you find it and are interested, avoid paying too much for it.  I'll be listing it on my paperbackswap bookshelf.