Category Archives: Series

Review: The Game, by Laurie R. King

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The Game
Laurie R. King
Get it at Amazon >>

When I first realized that The Game was the name of the seventh Holmes and Russell mystery, I thought it referred to a literal game. I knew it didn’t mean XBox, of course, since these novels take place in the twenties. Chess, I thought, might be the game that was…afoot.

I was wrong, and pleasantly so. The game in the title is a double entendre, referring both to the game of observation and spying, and on literal game (wild boar), or, make that a triple entendre, because it also refers to the roles people play when shifting among different social circles.

This novel sees Sherlock Holmes and wife/partner Mary Russell heading to India, where they are to locate one Kimball O’Hara, aka Rudyard Kipling’s Kim. I confess, I never read that Kipling story – though I’ve read others – and I wonder if I’d have appreciated this novel more if I had, but even without that background information, I quite enjoyed this adventure which had Holmes and Russell on a ship, a donkey cart and even, at the end an aeroplane.

As always, King has given us a rollicking good time, and Holmes’ voice rings true.

Review: Justice Hall, by Laurie R. King

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Justice Hall
Laurie R. King
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My Holmes/Russell reading fest draws to a temporary close with Justice Hall, which, while much later than O Jerusalem in terms of internal chronology, is nonetheless a direct sequel.

In this novel, Holmes and Russell are called to the aid of friends originally met in Palestine, Mahmoud and Ali, who are now back home in the English personalities, and dealing with all the angst and politics that large, wealthy families seem to corner the market on. There aren’t any mentions of modern diseases like mesothelioma, but there are hunting parties, hidden relatives, and even a severe case of sepsis.

It includes many of the favorite elements of all these novels – snarky comments from Mary, wry observation from Holmes, a near-perfect period setting, and great disguises. And, like all of King’s work in this series, leaves the reader wanting more.

I’ve noticed that when I read King’s work the Holmes I hear in my head speaks in Jeremy Brett’s voice, and I think that proves the excellence of her work.

Review: Dead and Gone, by Charlaine Harris

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Dead and Gone
Charlaine Harris
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In this, the ninth novel in the Sookie Stackhouse mysteries, and the second to take place post-Katrina (unlike the HBO series True Blood, which takes place entirely post-Katrina), we are given lots of big information that we didn’t have before, and we witness some huge events.

The book opens with the Big Reveal – the national coming out day for weres and shape-shifters, and as it happens on tv, it also happens in Sam’s bar, with him displaying his prowess at becoming a collie.

Of course, this light scene is a tease, because we are almost immediately confronted with the sight of Sookie’s brother’s estranged wife strung up – no not on a column of industrial hand wheels – but on a cross.

Of course, Jason is the prime suspect, but Sookie is sure he didn’t do it, and while she tries to solve the mystery – and preserve her own skin – we are treated to a significant amount of information about her great-grandfather the Faerie, and given more than glimpse into Eric’s backstory.

Of course, it’s all wrapped in the fast-paced, quip-laden action and dialogue we’ve come to expect.

Dead and Gone is a fast read…but a good one.

Review: The Moor, by Laurie R. King

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The Moor
Laurie R. King
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My marathon of Laurie R. King’s Holmes and Russell series reached The Moor last night, and left it this morning. When I’m not sleeping, I’ve been reading, though mainly in fits and starts.

In any case, this book is sort of a loose sequel to The Hound of the Baskervilles, which is, of course canon Holmes, in that it takes place in and near Dartmoor, and involves Baskerville Hall, but it it’s not JUST about that.

Instead, this novel sees Holmes bringing Mary to see his old friend the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould, who lives at Lew House, and is near death (of old age), and wants Holmes to track down the strange appearances of a ghostly carriage and a ghostly dog. Of course this dog and the Baskerville Hound become intertwined, and the investigation involves both Holmes and Mary Russell (who are married by now) getting wet, dirty, and injured.

Need a refresher course on the original story? Since you’re presumably already at your desktop or laptop computer in order to read this, you can click over to YouTube where someone has put up the Granada television series version of The Hound of the Baskervilles in several parts.

Here’s part one to get you started:

Retro-reading: The Beekeeper’s Apprentice

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The Beekeeper's Apprentice
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice
Laurie R. King
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I’ve reviewed work by Laurie R. King in this blog before, but finding a couple of her Holmes & Russell novels at Half-Price Books last weekend, and then finding out that she had a new book in the series out this year has spurred me to re-read the entire series.

I’d forgotten how refreshing it could be to immerse myself in a novel where no one had cell phones, or worried about upgrading their computer memory, or complained about having 500 channels and nothing to watch. As well, re-reading these novels with a slightly more mature eye gives me the ability to really pay attention to some of the nuances I’d missed the first time around.

If you’re not familiar with the series, the first novel, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, introduces us to a character who would be a Mary Sue under hands any less deft than Ms. King’s. This Mary – one Mary Russell – is a teenage girl sent from America to live under the “care” of an aunt, who holds her fortune in trust. One of her neighbors in their remote corner of Sussex just happens to be Sherlock Holmes.

The two form a somewhat unlikely friendship, especially considering Holmes’ oft-noted misogyny, that eventually blooms into a partnership of crime-solving equals. Imagine the tag line: He’s a famous detective who retired and took up beekeeping. She’s a young Oxford student studying Theology and Chemisty. They fight crime!

But the thing is, they do.

Of course, they also bicker, banter, and bargain their way through many adventures, and leave the reader – or at least this reader feeling only that the book has ended too soon.

Teaser Tuesdays: Belladonna, by Anne Bishop

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On Teaser Tuesdays readers are asked to:

  • Grab your current read.
  • Let the book fall open to a random page.
  • Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
  • You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given.

My teasers are:

As she turned away from the mirror, she was drawn to the watercolor that hung on the wall next to her bed. Titled Moonlight Lover, the view was of the break in the trees near Sebastian’s cottage, where a person could stand and see the moon shining over the lake. The dark-haired woman in the painting wore a gown that was as romantic as it was impractical, and looked as substantial as moonbeams. Standing behind her, with his arms wrapped protectively around her, was the lover. His face was shadowed, teasing the imagination to find the details, but the body suggested a virile man in his prime.
~Belladonna, by Anne Bishop. Page 61.

Review: On What Grounds, by Cleo Coyle

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On What GroundsOn What Grounds
by Cleo Coyle
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In the first of the Coffeehouse Mysteries, a cozy series set in the fictional Village Blend coffeehouse in Greenwich Village, we met Claire Cosi, divorced writer, coffee addict, mother of a daughter going off to college, and ex-daughter-in-law of the woman who owns the coffeehouse, whom we come to know simply as “Madame.”

Madame, it seems, is dissatisfied with the most recent manager of the coffeehouse, and she has dangled in front of Claire a carrot that cannot be refused: live in the furnished luxury townhouse above the cafe, and resume the management position she left after divorcing her daughter’s father, Matteo, while earning shares of the company.

Claire agrees, and is reflecting upon all of this as she drives into the coffeehouse one morning. Upon arrival, she finds one of her employees lying near death on the floor, and – convinced it was not an accident – becomes an amateur sleuth in order to find the truth. Along the way, she strikes up a friendship with police detective Mike Quinn, and drags Matteo (who has been offered a similar arrangement, but without the management duties) into her investigation.

The plot is fast-paced, the characters representative of the regulars you’d find in any urban coffee bar, and there is enough espresso lore woven through the pages to make anyone crave a venti skinny vanilla latte while reading. To cap it off, author Coyle has included recipes at the back of the book.

This is the first in the series.
Other titles I’ve read in this series include:
Through the Grinder
Latte Trouble
Murder Most Frothy

Goes well with: A classic cappuccino and a biscotti or two.

Star Trek: Exodus by Josepha Sherman & Susan Schwartz

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Star Trek Exodus
Star Trek: Exodus Book One of the Vulcan’s Soul trilogy
by Josepha Sherman & Susan Schwartz
Get it from Amazon.

Fans of Star Trek have always wondered exactly what it was like when a significant number of Vulcans packed up their belongings like so much Delsey luggage, and moved away to eventually become Romulans. In this trilogy, we find out.

It’s a story that runs in two timelines at once. The first takes place in the days of Surak, and shows us the acts that led up to and caused the Sundering, and the second shows us Spock, Saavik, Uhura, and Chekov rushing off with cooperation from modern Romulans to face down a little known enemy called the Watraii, who are as obscure as they are dangerous.

Both story lines have a mix of action sequences and character sections, which allow us not only to catch up the the characters we know, but also grow to like the original characters we meet.

A further review will be posted when I finish reading the trilogy.

Goes well with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and ice cold milk.

Kushiel’s Scion by Jacqueline Carey

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Kushiel's Scion
Kushiel’s Scion, by Jacqueline Carey
Get it at Amazon.

Re-visiting the world of Terre d’Ange after more than a year since I last read about Phedre’ and Joscelin, and their adopted son Prince Imriel could have been a jarring experience – after all, Imri in this novel is no longer a child, afraid of monsters lurking beneath the bedroom furniture, but a young man about to attain true adulthood.

Jacqueline Carey’s world building is so detailed, however, that stepping back into Montreve, and the various other locations, was just like stepping into the kitchen of an old friend. Well, if that kitchen was in a time hundreds of years before now, and part of a society built on the concept of Love as thou wilt.

In this, the fourth novel of the Kushiel’s Legacy series, young Imriel is caught between being “good” and being true to himself, as a member of Kushiel’s line, and coming to grips with a childhood of abuse, and the darker desires he was born with. Amidst all this teen angst, there is a quest to find the source of a specific school of knowledge, and much ado with the ladies of the Court.

All in all, it’s a rollicking adventure that acts as the lead-in to the next two books in the series.

Goes well with a tankard of ale, hearty fresh-baked bread, and a good sharp cheddar.

STTNG: Immortal Coil by Jeffrey Lang

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by: Jeffry Lang
published by: Pocket Books
published: February 2002

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I originally read Immortal Coil in eBook format on my laptop, sometime last year (I think), but somehow that format just doesn’t do it for me, so when I saw a copy of the actual paperback at Half Price Books, I had to grab it. After all, it’s an EmotionChip!Data story, and there aren’t many of those outside of fanfic.

While I’m not old enough to have watched the ORIGINAL Star Trek in first run, the re-runs were the only show that was allowed to routinely break the “no television before 5 PM” rule in my house, and since my mother was anti-television, I used to watch them on our old black-and-white after school when I was nine and ten. As I write this, I am suddenly remembering an add for a convention in 1979 or 80, in Denver. I was too young, at the time, to know what a con was, or I’m sure I’d have pestered my mother to take me.

I mention this because while, on the surface, this is a TNG story, Immortal Coil is also a sort of quasi-sequel to the TOS episodes “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” and “Requiem for Methuselah,” and while familiarity with them is not totally required in order to enjoy this story, it definitely helps. A lot.

This novel is all about android rights and the definition of sentience, and, more specifically, the distinction between artificial intelligence and artificial consciousness. It opens with Data returning to the Enterprise with the body of his deceased “mother,” Julianna Tainer, whom we know to be an android. He is dealing with overwhelming emotions, and Picard’s suggestion that turning off the chip would be a bad idea, when a call is received from Admiral Haftel – there’s been an issue at Galor IV, and the ship, and specifically Data, are needed.

What follows is part murder mystery (who tried to kill Maddox, who caused the disappearance of another, legendary and somewhat hermit-ish, cyberneticist?) and part romance (new Enterprise security officer Rhea McAdams has the hots for our Mr. Data, it seems) with a good bit of space epic thrown in.

At times cheesy, at other times sweet, it’s a satisfying romp through the Trekiverse, which wraps up several loose ends in Data’s life.

The first time I read this, I went into it with some skepticism, because a Data romance is a very tricky thing – fanfic authors I respect have argued that he cannot have a plausible relationship. I disagree, but as much as I enjoyed this book for entertainment value, I find that the relationship between Rhea and Data was contrived, and the way Data was written didn’t…fee right.

Goes well with a glass of milk and thin mint cookies.