Ms. Erickson usually writes non-fiction and it shows.
The character is no more sympathetic at the end than at the beginning and it was all rather lifeless and dull. This novel, if Marie Antionette were really like the one in the book, made me wonder how the hell she made it to her 30s–she came across so dim-witted and self-absorbed. It made me not really regret the whole guillotine thing at the end much.
(audiobook)
Yea, I know, I pan audio books, but I enjoyed this one. Whether or not I’ll remember it in a year I dunno…
(an Agent Pendergast novel)
With luck, the LAST Agent Pendergast novel. He is a flat character – all this history and the emotions of a cardboard cut-out–I’d very much like to see them move back to the storytelling they did in “Riptide” or “Ice Limit” or even, yea, though it includes the dread Pendergast, “The Relic”.
(an Anita Blake novel)
I liked this one better than most of the recent ones – only one sex scene and a little actual zombie-raising, something Anita hasn’t done in a book or a few…
(a Rachel Morgan novel)
I just love this series–a similar world to Anita Blake’s, but without so much gosh-darned overplayed sex. I like the smaller cast, and the interactions between the characters who have surprising depth for a series this entertaining.
(a Benni Harper mystery)
Despite the quilts on the cover and the folksy art angle, these don’t read like cozies 
I’ve managed to miss one in the series, the one immediately prior to this one, and will have to go back and read it.
I like watching the relationship Benni and her husband have evolve, and love the subtle, and not-so-subtle theme of redemption woven throughout.
It also had a dramatic climax with a low body count–I like that. Not every good mystery needs to read like a Bruce Willis movie…
9.25
Okay, I only read this, initially, because the author has the same last name as the guy who writes the Thursday Next series.
It’s a romance. That pains me to say because I almost never read straight romance anymore, I outgrew them in junior high, for the most part. I am NOT saying romance fans are juvenile, I just long since stopped appreciating the inevitability of the endings, but lots of people love ‘em, so enjoy!
I surprised myself by likeing this book. It’s an ‘older’ romance, meaning the heroine is over 30 (or, at the start, just shy of 30) and has a ‘history’. Since I am now over thirty myself, some of it felt a little young, but I think only because I’ve been settled a long time… I didn’t care one way or the other about the romance, truthfully, since you know going in where it will end up and only read to find out the path taken from S to F. I did love the character of the godmother, and the dialogue at times was pretty clever–and, I confess, I *like* British novels that haven’t been Americanized for comprehension.
All in all, I’d give it a 7.5.
I loved The Other Boleyn Girl, and enjoyed this one, but not as much. I devoured the early parts, but started skimming when they got to the war bits, and was pissed as hell that it skipped from when Katherine of Aragon became pregnant with Mary to her trial several years later… I’d read The Other Boleyn Girl and wanted to see the same situation from the perspective of the cuckolded Queen, but…
Ok, yea, and an uber minor peeve, but there none the less… Throughout the book Catlina/Katherine is repeatedly described as having red-gold hair, auburn locks, etc. and the girl/woman on the cover is a brunette. Like I said, minor, but it bugged the crap out of me.
A good read, but it’d prolly make an even better audio-book*.
*I say that because audiobooks tend to go in one ear and out the other fairly easily for me… I remember one or two details, but frequently can’t even remember the titles of books i’ve heard. The exception is if I listen to something I’ve already read, then I enjoy the added dimension of the experience. Okay,audiobook speech over.
Not bad, but not stellar, either. A likable protagonist, even though he’s a thug, but a little too much surreal wandering–it felt like I was listening to it rather than reading it.
Not bad, but not good enough to make me want to read anything else he’s written.
I gave up on this. I’ve decided, in light of my recent birthday,to abandon my never-give-up-on-a-book policy; life is too short to read a book you don’t want to unless you *really* have to (work/school).
The title sounds like a cheesy paranormal romance, but it’s not. The back cover touts it as ‘chick lit for the thinking woman’ or some such–I’ve already returned it to the library and am too lazy to shoot over to Amazon and look it up so the quote is more like a vague remembrance.
This was supposed to be a brit/chick lit mystery, vaguely like Bridget Jones but with dead people… I’ve never read BJ, just saw the flicks, but I doubt it read like this or the movies woulda been yawners.
I have no problem with self-absorbed, selfish, inconsiderate heroines–I’m one in my own life after all–I *do* have a problem with heroines of the above type who are like this and know it and just don’t care! This character is so unrelenting self-absorbed she just makes me wish I could grab her like this was a Jasper Fforde book and bitchslap some sense into her.
So, ummm, yea, I didn’t finish this one…
I was pleasantly surprised by this. I’d heard that both Preston and Child are weak on their own–they co-wrote the Agent Pendergast series, and others that are, in my opinion, MUCH better than the Pendergast books they’ve been churning out the last few years…
This was still a bit weak, and lacked the character depth of the older books he wrote with Child, but not too shabby. Geekily enough, I actually OWN a couple of the reference books referred to in the book–I may have to read them now.
