Finished AWAY WITH THE FAIRIES

Again I love these books.  Our heroine is a modern woman in 1928 Melbourne, Australia.  Her lover has been kidnapped by pirates and the police bring her in on the murder of a writer and illustrator of fairy stories.  So she joins the staff of a women's magazine that the deceased had worked at as well as coordinating with the matriarch of the Chinese family her lover is the heir of to try to find out what has happened to him.  So, obviously, a huge amount is contained in a pretty short book even though the writing style never seems hurried, including much dialogue as well as quite satisfactory descriptions of environments, characters and what they wear.

I am now about to start The Faerie Guardian (Creepy Hollow, Book One) by Rachel Morgan.  I kind of got this book by accident since Rachel Morgan is the name of Kimberly Harrison's Hollows series which I read the last book of.  So I saw this and quickly jumped to the conclusiion that this was the start of her new series.  Of course it is not, but, since I have it, I'll give it a try.

Finished THE PASSION OF CLEOPATRA/ RAMSES THE DAMNED

As usual, I enjoyed Anne Rice's lush world where anything is possible.  Her protagonists stay compassionat and human, even while they struggle/rejoice in not being.  Immortal Ramses chooses to resurrect Cleopatra even though not knowing what the consequences might be and then spends much of his time feeling guilty and puzzling what to do about it.  Of course, a villain arises who wants to capture the secret of immortality for his own selfish ends...  (Not that Ramses actions were unselfish...)  A great vacation from reality.

I have now started another Phryne Fisher Mystery, Away With The Fairies, by Kerry Greenwood.  A children's fairy story writer has dies under "suspicious" circumstances.  She lived in a small garden apartment complex where other writers from the same women's magazine she had worked for live.  Phryne takes a job as a fashion writer with the magazine to help her discover a possible culprit.

Finished A DANGEROUS FORTUNE

Every so often Ken Follett creates a character marked by arrogance, stupidity, and greed that has the power to completely infuriate me.  I met them in Pillars of the Earth and World Without End.  There is another in this book, although since this book is shorter, it wasn't quite so disruptive to my equalibrium.  There were certainly characters to like and admire whose history through the years drives the action.  I definitely enjoyed it.

I have now started Ramses the Damned/ The Passion of Cleopatra by Anne Rice and Christopher Rice.  In addition to the title characters, we have met another immortal..Bektaten who looks to be perhaps a thousand years or more older than Ramses.  There are others--servants and thieves, but they were not royalty.  So far, in the present, these have not come in contact with each other.  Ramses believes the newly awakened Cleopatra to have been killed again in a train and car calamity.  The mortal characters are also intriguing.  I always love to enter the Rice world of luxuriant and often luxurious beauty.

Finished KINGDOM OF THE HILL COUNTRY

The "Hill Country" in Texas is the area around Austin.  Eleven years after the nova of Beatlegeaus destroyed every unprotected piece of electronics with a solonoid, and also killed all animal life that was outdoors when the radiation hit, the country has evolved into a number of city-states with no real protection for small towners or farmers.  A culture of bandits has developed who steal what they can use (including women who they rape and leave pregnant), kill or burn everything else.  They are working their way to Austin in huge numbers and so are the refugees from the Hill Country fleeing them.  Can Austin survive?

I love this inventive, scientifically smart, not only YA author.

I have now started Ken Follett's A Dangerous Fortune.  Set at a prestigious boys' school in 1866 England, an elementary age student drowns in a nearby waterfilled quarry.  The young bully who caused it is actually hailed as a hero in the incident.

Read Another Section of WITCHES and A MAN CALLED OVE

While on vacation, TR's computer began to be very unfriendly to me, so I've put off a couple of blog entries until now.  This section of WITCHES began the slowdown of trials and accusations.  I had thought they ended abruptly, but no, they rather petered out and at least one person was executed after "spectral evidence" began to be disregarded.  This was largely because of the beliefs of Increase Mather and other prominent clergy outside of Salem.  It was Cotton Mather's condoning of  this evidence that allowed it to be accepted as long as it was.

I then began A Man Called Ove  by Fredrik Backman.  Set in Sweden, an everyday sort of  man, Ove, is a curmudgeon.  For instance the only car that makes sense to him is Saab.  If you don't have a Saab, you obviously don't have much sense.  Ove is very good with everything mechanical and does not think a grown man is worth much if he is not.  Gradually we learn about this man's past and he learns about his neighbors.  Ove's opinions do not change much, but his actions gradually show us that he (and other everyday plain people like him) might well be worth a great deal.



After finishing that, I have started Kingdom of the Hill Country, by Henry Melton.  I adore this author of science fiction with young protagonists which (I believe unfairly) classifies his work as Young Adult.  It is obviously much more than that.  I wish I were still teaching, because I would definitely enjoy introducing my students to Melton's books. 

This story starts after the supernova of Beatlegeauss has destroyed all machinery that used solonoids in the world and then killed with radiation a huge percentage of the creatures of earth (including people.)  Eleven years after, the Hill Country around Austin and Austin itself are threatened by huge marauding bands of bandits who steal, rape, kill, and burn everything in their path.