More book reviews.
Jul. 19th, 2006 05:48 pmBack in 1985 when Kay Hooper used to be a romance writer, she wrote a 4-book series revolving around a museum exhibit of an old family's famous collection of precious stones... as a trap to catch a certain thief. Each book was -- as the romance format goes -- about a different couple, but the characters would make cameo appearances throughout the four books. The couple from the fourth book was really my favorite, so I was very pleased that they had a lot of screen-time throughout the first three books.
Now that she's a writer of "suspense" novels she's re-edited and re-written parts of the books and combined the four shorter books into two novel-length ones. Once a Thief and Always a Thief were good; I enjoyed re-reading them even though they turned out to be more like the originals than I thought they'd be. It was nice to revisit the characters, especially since I feel like Hooper developed my favorite couple's personalities a bit more deeply.
I also bought the third book in the Tamir Trilogy, The Oracle's Queen by Lynn Flewelling, but I haven't yet actually started to read it. Coming off of a romance high, I felt like I needed more of a transition.
So I went hunting for another book and bought The Wayfarer Redemption by Sara Douglass. I had read the back of her Wayfarer Redemption series books many times before, but was never interested enough to buy it before. Now, having a bit more experience in how she writes with her Troy Game series and the stand-alone Threshold (although I still feel like they are not necessarily representative of her writing style), I was more willing to take a chance on the first book in this 600-pages-per-book/6-book series. Why? Because they reprinted a "special edition" of the first book at a $3.99 sale price. At half price, I am more than willing to take a chance that I won't want to continue with the series. That's how I initially got into David Weber's Honor Harrington series, (which is loooove♥ in military SF format) anyway.
So I'm now about 200 pages in and it's actually quite good. About which I am very relieved. Although I have come to love her Troy Game series, the first book was kind of irritating, and I had tried to read the first book in her Crucible series, but the beginning at least was too boring to continue with. I may try to revisit it later in case it was my mood and not really the writing itself.
Now that she's a writer of "suspense" novels she's re-edited and re-written parts of the books and combined the four shorter books into two novel-length ones. Once a Thief and Always a Thief were good; I enjoyed re-reading them even though they turned out to be more like the originals than I thought they'd be. It was nice to revisit the characters, especially since I feel like Hooper developed my favorite couple's personalities a bit more deeply.
I also bought the third book in the Tamir Trilogy, The Oracle's Queen by Lynn Flewelling, but I haven't yet actually started to read it. Coming off of a romance high, I felt like I needed more of a transition.
So I went hunting for another book and bought The Wayfarer Redemption by Sara Douglass. I had read the back of her Wayfarer Redemption series books many times before, but was never interested enough to buy it before. Now, having a bit more experience in how she writes with her Troy Game series and the stand-alone Threshold (although I still feel like they are not necessarily representative of her writing style), I was more willing to take a chance on the first book in this 600-pages-per-book/6-book series. Why? Because they reprinted a "special edition" of the first book at a $3.99 sale price. At half price, I am more than willing to take a chance that I won't want to continue with the series. That's how I initially got into David Weber's Honor Harrington series, (which is loooove♥ in military SF format) anyway.
So I'm now about 200 pages in and it's actually quite good. About which I am very relieved. Although I have come to love her Troy Game series, the first book was kind of irritating, and I had tried to read the first book in her Crucible series, but the beginning at least was too boring to continue with. I may try to revisit it later in case it was my mood and not really the writing itself.