WWW Wednesday. This meme is from shouldbereading, and is cross-posted at planetpooks.
To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?
• What are you currently reading?
I’m reading a library ebook–The Kiss of Deception by Mary E Pearson, and I’m really enjoying it. This is the first in a YA fantasy trilogy. Yes, it’s yet another love triangle and I know that sends a lot of people screaming, people who are over-triangled-out since Twilight started the craze. That part isn’t bothering me yet, though I’m only about 25% in. I find the world-building fascinating and the main character, the First Daughter of the land [which translates loosely as princess, only moreso] is strong and crafty. I had forgotten everything I’d read about the book when I first stumbled across it, and so when I started reading I didn’t know what to expect. I’m glad it worked out that way, because I wasn’t prepared for the unexpected turn of events that started the ball rolling.
Beautiful cover, too.
I’m also listening to a different book, oddly enough, another book about a princess in a somewhat similar situation, though she’s on the run for a different reason–For My Lady’s Heart. Laura Kinsale is a fabulous writer, and Nicholas Boulton is a fabulous actor/narrator, and they are a match made in heaven. I am so loving the story of Ruck and Melanthe, a medieval tale with a wonderful gyrfalcon as a character. I’d never heard of them prior to reading this book when it first was published years ago, and ever since have longed to see one. Instead I’ll share a picture.
The characterizations, as always with a Kinsale book, are complex and rich, and the world she describes is formed by the religious interpretations of the day as well as political intrigues, all twisting and twining their way around two hearts in the best romantic fashion.
• What did you recently finish reading?
I recently read The Firebird by Susannah Kearsley, which happened to win a RITA from Romance Writers of America this year. I have puzzled over this and discussed it with a friend, another writer, and I have very mixed feelings about it. I found the two love stories interesting and even compelling, and yet the magic that binds them fell flat for me. The heroine is gifted with psychometry, meaning if she touches something, she can see images from its past–who held it, where they were, etc. The hero is also gifted with even stronger psychic gifts, and together they are tracking down the provenance of a carved piece of wood that takes them from London to Scotland, across Europe to St Petersburg. I loved the historical sequences, but they are also what left me unsatisfied.
Was it because I wasn’t reading, and was listening? Katherine Kellgren* is another amazing narrator, and I generally love her narration, but that doesn’t mean that perhaps a bit of the “woo-woo” factor didn’t quite come across the way it might have if I’d been reading. The problem? When we went back in time, we were in the point of view of the young girl [and as she aged, woman] who lived then. We are in her head, experiencing everything through her, including her thoughts–and this is NOT the way the psychic gifts are described. The hero and heroine should only be able to observe, not inhabit the mind and body.
Was I, the reader, supposed to read this the way I would any book that tells two stories, and just go back and forth between them, and not expect the pieces of the past to be written as they would have been experienced by our contemporary hero and heroine? Perhaps. But that feels like a cheat. Because everything about the flashes back in time, including when they are interrupted abruptly, is written as if we are really going back and forth WITH them, experiencing it WITH them. Which means, we should not be able to know what the character in the past is thinking and we should not be living those scenes through her.
However, I am in the minority. It won the RITA! Congrats to Kearsley, who wrote an awesome book. I did really enjoy it, for all my quibbles. I may have to pick up some more Kearsleys now. Yeah, I know, I’m late to the party. She’s been a best seller for years.
• What do you think you’ll read next?
Another cool cover, huh? Remember a couple of years ago when I read Fanboy and Goth Girl by Barry Lyga? I really loved it, and just figured out that a sequel came out, Goth Girl Rising. So I nabbed it. But reading the description, I am confused. I don’t remember much about the first book other than loving it a lot. I don’t remember how it ended. And the beginning of Goth Girl Rising talks about something that I don’t remember happening. Maybe it did.
So I am going to have to skim the end of the first book to remind myself what happened so that I’m set and read to read the new one. I really enjoy the YA I’ve read that is written by guys. They bring a different voice to it, and it’s a voice I enjoy. Earlier I mentioned reading My Girlfriend Bites by Doug Solter, which totally fits into the niche and is another book with a voice I loved a lot. Oh, the girlfriend in question is a werewolf, so yeah, she bites.
What about you? What have you been reading lately? Put the link to your WWW Wednesday entry in comments, or just tell us!
