This Same Earth by Elizabeth Hunter

My Rating: 3-1/2 of 5 Stars

Last week, I read A Hidden Fire, Book One in the Elemental Mysteries series, and gave it a full five stars.  Originality, plot, excellent writing, and characters who pulled me right in–it had it all. I could hardly wait to read the second book in the series, This Same Earth. I wish I could say I loved it as much, but I didn’t. Oh, it was still good. I’m going to give it four stars because

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Is This A Great Birthday Present, Or What?

COMING SOON!

As if a March 16th trip to a Book Festival in Ft. Myers, with my best friend, and featuring many cool authors available for autographs and Q & A sessions, isn’t a cool enough way to spend the day before my birthday, I just found out the most exciting news! 

A Hidden Fire: Elemental Mysteries Book 1

My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars

I don’t know what to say about this book, except that it wins my award for the most wonderful surprise of the past year, perhaps.  I really don’t know if I can do A Hidden Fire justice in a review. It’s that good.

What Are You Reading Today?

Been a bit under the weather for the past week, but I’m vertical today, and ready to catch up with my blogs again.  I thought I’d start the ball rolling with a quick “What Are You Reading” post.  I’m actually reading two books at once, currently.  I guess lying around all day with no desire to lift a finger to do anything productive in the house or garden means I can read double time.  It’s something I do now and then, anyhow, but feeling “puny,” as my grandmother would say,  gives me a legitimate excuse to indulge in as many books as I want.  That’s MY story, anyway!

I finally started Kim Harrison’s latest Hollows book, Ever After, and, as usual, Harrison’s “Itchy Witch” is involved in yet more trouble as the Mother of All Demons tries

Quote #71 – Anonymous Valentine For You

Please tell if you’ve a loving heart,
For I have come to query,
Ere have I searched both far and wide,
And be both sore and weary.

Do tell if you’ve a loving heart,
For I have come to query,
Give me your heart and be my love,
And I will be your dearie.

–Anonymous

NOTE: I copied this little ditty from a greeting card over forty years ago.  I have no idea who the original author was…possibly a Hallmark poet in some unmarked cubicle somewhere.  But I have always loved it, for some reason. And thus, I send it to all of you tonight (even though it’s a wee bit late) with my heartfelt wishes for a Happy Valentine’s Day.

A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett

My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars

In keeping with my promise to myself to read the four Tiffany Aching stories before starting at the beginning of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, I finished the second Aching book over the weekend. A Hat Full of Sky started a wee bit slower for me than The Wee Free Men, but it began to pick up pace rapidly, and I was soon

The Literary Cat #3

My Literary Cat

‘Abby The Tabby’

“If a fish is the movement of water embodied, given shape, then a cat is the diagram and pattern of subtle air.”

     –Doris Lessing, On Cats

NOTE: I’m not sure Fat Abby is air given shape–unless you are talking hot air balloons. She is a beautifully marked and very sweet brown and white patched tabby, without a brain in her pretty head, I’m afraid.  She only knows one trick: how to find the food bowl. But that one, she has mastered completely. Consequently, she resembles a long-haired basketball when waddling around the house, and nothing I do seems to fix the problem. She’s made it nearly 13 years, though, so I have hopes her excess weight will not cut her life expectancy down by much. And she can still move fast when she wants to.  I recently saw her go from the floor to the top of the porch screen in mere seconds, while in pursuit of a lizard who had foolishly come inside a house with four cats and two dogs, all of which would gladly make a snack of him.

 

Quote #70 – Rita Rudner

“I love to shop after a bad relationship. I don’t know. I buy a new outfit and it makes me feel better. It just does. Sometimes I see a really great outfit, I’ll break up with someone on purpose.”

–Rita Rudner

NOTE: I guess this isn’t really very romantic, but it deals with relationships, and it struck me as funny, so here it is, for what it’s worth.

😀

E-readers: E-ink vs Back-lit

Wondering what the difference is between an e-reader that is back-lit and one that uses e-ink technology? Check out Sharechair’s very simple explanation here:

http://sharechair.wordpress.com/2013/02/06/e-ink-or-backlit-screen-whats-the-difference/?replytocom=5743#respond

The difference, by the way,  is huge, and can impact how much

The Literary Cat #2

My Literary Cat

‘Sgt. Karrin Murphy, alias Murph’

“In ancient times, cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.“

 –Terry Pratchett

NOTE: Murph would be the most unlikely cat ever to be worshipped by anyone, anywhere. After rescuing her and her brother, Harry,  almost two years ago, as kittens merely eight weeks old,  Harry settled into our household and totally totally embraced his role as ruler of the roost. On the other hand, Murphy still dives under the nearest bed or couch when any human approaches her. You’d think she’d have figured out by now that we are mostly harmless and provide all the food and creature comforts she could ask for, as devoted slaves will do, but nooooo. We call her the Skittery Kittery.

The Literary Cat #1

My Literary Cat

‘Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden’

“I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.”

–Rudyard Kipling, The Cat Who Walked By Himself

NOTE: Harry thinks the bookshelves over my desk are the perfect place to walk–and to lie down–by himself. Perfect for surveying his Kingdom.  And for taking afternoon naps, far away from the riffraff, namely the dachshunds, below.

New Release – House Rules

Just a heads up for those following Chloe Neill’s Chicagoland Vampire series…House Rules is here! Some of us who shall go nameless (me!) are totally addicted to this very clever series,

Quote #69 – Rita Rudner

“Before I met my husband, I’d never fallen in love.
I’d stepped in it a few times…”

–Rita Rudner

NOTE:  Just one more way of looking at love for you…..

Odd Interlude by Dean Koontz

My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars

Odd Interlude was originally a three-part ebook, but apparently was so well liked, it was recently released in paperback.  Since Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas is one of my favorite characters, ever, I had to get it as soon as it came out. The ongoing saga of Oddie’s life

Quote #68 – Marisa de los Santos

“There’s a kind of holiness to love, requited or not, and those people who don’t receive it with gratitude are arrogant beyond saving.”

–Marisa de los Santos, Love Walked In

Quote #67 – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.”

     –Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Poem of the Day by Sara Teasdale

The Look

* Sara Teasdale *

Strephon kissed me in the spring,
Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
And never kissed at all.

Strephon’s kiss was lost in jest,
Robin’s lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin’s eyes
Haunts me night and day.

The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars

Where have you been all my life, Terry Pratchett?  How could you have written so many books, and I am just now discovering you?  The bad news is, I have missed out on so much good reading, here.  The good news is,

Poem of the Day by Dorothy Parker

Unfortunate Coincidence

* Dorothy Parker *

By the time you swear you’re his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying,
Lady, make note of this–
One of you is lying.

*

NOTE: Another bit of wry humor from Dorothy Parker, and in keeping with my affairs of the heart theme for this month.