• Fault Line by Barry Eisler: very very good. The romance line was very strong and very well done. He does a HOT alpha hero. Yum! I read somewhere that Eisler feels his books have very hot sex scenes, and compared to most Thrillers/Suspense, I'd have to say that's so. But compared to a romance considered hot - he's on the milder side. But Fault Lines is a very very good cross-over for Romance readers. His involvement with RWA is an astute move. Highly recommended.


• Skinny Dipping, by Connie Brockway. Excellent! More women's fiction than Romance I'd say, but the romance was very sweet. I loved this book and savored the read.


• Lover Avenged, by J.R. Ward. I enjoyed it quite a lot. Revhenge was never my favorite character, so I had my doubts going in. I thought Ward did some masterful problem solving and some really intriguing set up for future plot lines. I won't say much more (even though I want to) because the book just came out and I don't want to spoil anything for people who haven't read it. But Two Thumbs up!


• A book I won't name because I DNF (Did Not Finish). I found it too poorly written to continue, despite the intriguing story. In fact, I am floored that a major print publisher let this slide. I was proofreading my 8th grade son's report on General John C. Fremont when I picked up this book, and at one point when I came back to the story I found myself thinking that I must not have mentally refreshed myself from my son's literary efforts because it struck me that this book was actually worse than my son's writing -- but then I realized I wasn't mistaken after all. The book was about an inch deep in every direction and just flat out badly written. Major disappointment.


• All three of Brent Weeks's Shadow books. I already raved about the first one (The Way of The Shadow) and while I feel the second two were not quite as strong and once or twice channeled Robert Jordan and George R.R. Martin a bit too closely, the bar was set extremely high and even a slight let down leaves all three books up there with some of the finest fantasy I've read. For a while I worried that the story was wandering into the familiar and depressing Fantasy trope about sexually active women being evil and punished with death or celibacy -- but there were at least two strong female characters who did have sex and didn't die or end up as nuns for their sins that I decided I was OK with the one who did suffer, since, obviously, the author wrote women who didn't. Books handed off to father to read. I read these 3 150K plus books in less than a week. Highly Recommended.


• Sherrilyn Kenyon's Night Embrace (Talon's story). Classic Dark Hunter. Recommended, of course.


• Pleasure Unbound by Larissa Ione -- my first by her. Enjoyed it thoroughly. Will definitely be reading more of her.


• Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris. My first by her. I know, I know! I loved this book. What fun!


• Am in the middle of reading Complications By Atul Gawande. Non-fiction about errors and the practice of medicine. I'm enjoying this quite a bit, no surprise, and have gotten some really interesting ideas from it.

Labels: reading