Winter is here. After a December of spring-like days, we’re now paying for it with cold, gray days filled with rain and ice. Yippee. Time to hibernate with some toast and hot cocoa and read. The library is back open for a while, so I was able to lay in some cold weather reading.
In other news, I may be adding a novella to my Broken Fate series. I had to remove a lot of material from book two, but that material concerns one character and it may be time to give him his own small book. Time will tell.
- See How They Run, by Ally Carter. This is the second in the Embassy Row YA series which is part mystery, part political thriller. I didn’t find this book to be as good as the first. The main character is even more whiny in this one and there’s a lot of navel gazing as opposed to action. The twist ending sets up the next book nicely, though, and it will be interesting to see where the series goes from here.
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The Geography of Genius, by Eric Weiner. I’m always up for a book on creativity and this one is an interesting take on the subject. Weiner examines why certain areas like Athens, Florence, Silicon Valley and others churn out large numbers of creative geniuses at a specific point in time. What is it about these places and times that make them fertile creativity centers? This isn’t a practical “how to be creative” guide, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
- Only the Stones Survive, by Morgan Llywelyn. I’ve never read any of Llywelyn’s books and, to be honest, the only reason I checked this one out was to see how close it was to a work I have in progress. The blurb sounded like it might have similarities to my work, so I wanted to check before I continued on with my book. Thankfully, it seems to be completely different. At any rate, it’s a fictitious take on the Celtic mythology of the Tuatha de Dannan and what happened to that race of people.
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens, by Alan Dean Foster. This is the novelization of the movie script. I just had to see if there were any differences between the book and the movie. (And relive the movie again without paying $$$ for a ticket.)