A Bit of Reading, Little Internet Wandering

So, it has yet again been awhile since I last posted. This past week has been a bit crazy - Jimmy is now home for Christmas/between-terms break - and it's almost Christmas. I suspect this next week or two might be just as busy/internetless.

I rather quickly finished Irish Cream, partially to find out what happened/get to know the characters better and also because I needed to finish two of the other books I'd checked out by the day after Christmas. I'd gotten the one because the last book (at that time) I'd read in the series contained an excerpt from it, the final book in the series. After actually getting the copy of this book at the library (having them order it and everything), I learned that there was a book in between it and the other one I'd read - and the library didn't yet own it either. Thankfully, library staff was willing/able to order that one as well. Then, while waiting for that book to arrive, the first one was placed on hold by someone else, so now, I was unable to renew it. I'll discuss more on these books later.

I did enjoy Irish Cream, even if many of the temporary characters were a bit hard to like (also, although I didn't like them much, I was still sad at what happened to them at the end). It's been so long (sort of) since I finished this, that it's a bit hard for me to remember much more of what happened and what my impressions were. I do rather wish I were able to see the Day's paintings though - that I do remember.

Having finished that, I dove straight into the two final Vampire Huntress Legend books, both by L. A. Banks. The first book is The Shadows, followed by The Thirteenth. I will discuss these together as they have somewhat blurred together in my mind - something about reading them in a row. I liked how the non-Guardian/civilian characters were brought together and made a part of the action - the family is growing. I also wish I could be on Atlantis with everybody - it would be interesting to meet all those little kids - and I bet they're quite cute. Ayana in particular is impressive - but so are all the others. I was saddened by the end of Fr. Pat's life on Earth, but I did like Uriel's use of his final battle/gift to fool Satan! JL's (I think it was him - sadly, even after this many books, some of the characters blend together a bit in my mind - maybe I need to read them all again) discovery at the beginning of the first book was exciting - I can easily understand the energy he got from it - he was almost bouncing off the walls. I was intrigued by Sebastian's accidental addition of Vlad/Dracula to the Vampire Council.

After reading those, I moved on to a book I found by shelving it (sort of - it only stayed on the shelf for an hour or so). I was intrigued enough by it that I decided to see if we had a different copy of it at all (it was the Large Print version), but as we didn't, I did go back and get it. The Seven Year Seduction by Heidi Betts was about what I expected. It was a rather cute story - that like similar stories, did bring me to tears at a few points (but most stories in which I begin to care for the character(s) at all does that). I enjoyed it I suppose - although it wouldn't win any prizes for Great Literature. Although I could have guessed at most of what happened in the story, I did not expect the miscarriage surprise. This book only took the total of a couple of hours to read - even if it was spread out between Friday night and Saturday.

Having finished that, I continued on to what I'd originally intended to read after Irish Cream, Andrew Greeley's Irish Crystal, which just happens to be the next one in the series. Although I'm not far into it (much of my time today was spent knitting while watching football - with a bit of Christmas shopping as well). So far, I'm rather annoyed at the three or four temporary characters who have been complaining about Maeve and Fiona, the two dogs (Irish wolfhounds), and also Day (who walks them). I like all three of them, and am therefore inclined to dislike any who don't like them.