Who Knew? And a strong recommended read

You know, in the great scheme of things, a broken wrist isn’t exactly some huge event, but wow, can it screw with your life.  After my emergency room treatment and twice having the wrist set and two hard casts put on, I figure, “OK, now in six weeks all will be well.”  HA!  Man plans and the gods laugh.

While still in a hard cast, the wrist broke again 10 days later.  It was – and remains – an ‘unstable fracture’.  So the orthopedic doctor sent me to a hand surgeon.  Saw him on a Wednesday and Thursday morning, 2 weeks after I broke the damn thing,  at some totally ungodly hour, I had a plate and screws put in my wrist to stabilize the fracture.  Let’s just say the whole thing had more drama than I’d care for, including recovery room issues and a whole lot of blood soaking everything, but a week later I was in a splint style ‘soft cast’.  I also learned that despite the plate and screws, the break was located in such a way that it wasn’t fully stabilized.  Oh good, all this for partial success.  The incision got infected – or I had some massive allergic reaction (2 doctors, 2 very different opinions) and I enjoyed a 10 days or so of complete misery and antibiotics.

Now I am willing to admit I am not the world’s best patient.  OK, so I’m in the bottom 20%.  I have a high pain threshold and a very low bullshit and attitude threshold.  I figure I endured two rounds of closed reduction setting, surgery, that infection/allergic reaction, and multiple visits to 2 different orthopedists, the family doctor, and 2 different hospitals, enough x-rays to glow in the dark, more attitude than enough and I was entitled to be better NOW!  Patience is not one of my virtues and frankly, turning a 20 minute shower into a 90 minute tour de force of wrapping, taping, bagging, taping, and then unwrapping and cutting tape to keep the lower arm dry, and then attempting to things like wash my hair one handed, got really old, really fast. Frustration was a constant companion.  Did I mention my complete lack of patience?

I am a klutz.  Well, obviously.  That’s how I ended up tripping in my own house and breaking the damn wrist to begin with!  Thing is, I am also ferociously independent.  Having to rely on others to drive me places drove me nuts.  Finally having enough control over my left hand, even with the splint, I was allowed to drive (ME: When can I drive?  DR: (Strange look)  Anytime you want.  ME:  I drive a stick shift.  DR:  (long pause followed by sarcastic)  Of course you do.  (eyeroll – then goes thru the motions of driving a shift and thinking about it.)  You should be able to drive since your right hand is OK and your left fingers can hold the wheel steady, but take it easy. [There is a notable lack of enthusiasm in this.]) it was HUGE.  Until the car battery died.  In a parking lot.  (Thank heavens I DIDN’T buy the ice cream!)  It was entitled.  It was really old.   The timing, however, sucked.  (I had a grey haired, pony-tail wearing biker guy in hysterics when I started swearing at the car when I managed to get it started 3 minutes after calling for a tow.  At least I made someone’s day.)  That was taken care of, but it kind of piled on the whole ‘fed-up with this crap’ thing I have going.

Well, I had work to do, (You know, the stuff you get PAID to do?), so I did it.  Now mostly I sit and type technical documents, talk panicked customers thru technical problems, or answer their questions – for the 4th or 5th time, and deal with various independent labs who have their own questions and problems.  Painstaking, and usually very long, it hours of meticulous work and requires a damn good memory for facts.  After several days of slaving away earning a living, (the self-employed don’t get paid sick days) I noticed a problem.   My left hand kept turning blue.  OK, the light tinge of blue didn’t bother me, but when it looked like I was joining a band of Pict warriors or just tattooed my hand denim, I got worried.  I called the surgeon’s office and got absolutely no response.  I figure, OK, I can deal. I know it’s a problem with arterial blood flow – hey, 30 years working in pharmaceuticals you learn a lot.  If it gets bad again, I’ll go to emergency because an orthopedist doesn’t deal with this anyway, a vascular surgeon would do the work.  I cannot tell how thrilled I was at the thought of ANOTHER DOCTOR!

Back in the stupid splint I go.  The blue gets better, but most mornings, it’s a scary dark blue again.  I sleep without the splint, but started putting it back on early mornings.  It seems to help.  Then 2 days ago I roll over in bed to my right side and use my left hand to pull the sheet over – a no stress kind of thing – and all of a sudden I hear CRACK – like I just stepped on a dry twig and pain flashes thru my wrist.  Two days of icing the thing down and it feels a bit better, but it’s obviously not as strong as it was.  Come Monday, I see the surgeon – who combines relative youth, minimal people skills, and a tendency to patronize,  just the thing to annoy a Maxine clone like me.   If you never hear from me again, look for the headlines about an irate patient being arrested for attacking her doctor.

Just in case, Grave Dance by Kalayna Price is EXCELLENT and gets a rare A- from me.  Complex world building, great characters, very original story line, and the writing is so good, it’s hard to put down.  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   You absolutely MUST read Grave Witch first or you’ll be lost.  I’ve got a bunch of short reviews started and hopefully, next week, I’ll b able to start posting reviews again.  Unless I’m in jail.  Let’s hope for the best.

A Seasonal Special

It’s nearly Mardi Gras time.  That means time for me to re-read books set in New Orleans or one of the other major Mardi Gras cities.   This year, it will be Kiss and Tell by Linda Howard, a good romantic suspense novel, and then the Witches Knot series by Lauren Dane.  Triad, Thrice United and Vengeance Due are especially evocative.  So what do you plan to do to celebrate Mardi Gras?

I often find I’m moved to read books that I associate with certain places either at specific times of the year, or based on a seasonal event.  I’m not big on holiday anthologies, regardless of genre.  Instead, I like books that echo of certain locals and lifestyles.  John D. MacDonald, Carl Haaisen, Randy Wayne White, Jonothan King, and others for when I visit Florida, Tony Hillerman, Michael McGarrity, and many others for the Southwest.  Some writers just imbue their works with an intense feel of the surroundings.  So many good mysteries, carry their setting as a virtual character, not a backdrop, but an living breathing entity the seeps into the very pores of the book.  Hillerman is a master of that, so is Lawrence Block with his Matt Scudder books.  The very best fantasy writers create whole worlds – look at everything from Lord of Rings to Harry Potter.  Those worlds are as real as our own.  That’s the great thing about books, they contain more than characters, they hold entire worlds.

So grab a book and travel to a time and place of your choosing.  Me, I’ll spend a few days in the Crescent City before I move on.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Between shopping, errands, and way too much reading, I haven’t had much time to do any reviews, but after Christmas I promise I get to a bunch of erotic romance I just read – brand new ebooks and some older print books from Ellora’s and Samhain.  Haven’t found anything at Loose-Id or Siren for awhile.  Too many ‘novellas’ and shorty stories at high prices and too many m/m that I’m not fond of.  Not worth it to me.  So I have read a few good ones, a few so-so ones, but no completely ghastly ones – so far.  There’s still plenty of time to find rock bottom.

The first anniversary of this blog will be in February and I feel like I’ve done more with my reading this year usual.  I’ve enjoyed exploring new genres, new authors, and new-to-me authors.  The folks over on PaperbackSwap’s Mystery/Thriller virtual box have been a wonderful group and offered great ideas for new reads.  I even found readers with tastes much like my own – and an intense dislike of the too-cute-for-words cozies that are overwhelming the market.  Makes one long for another Raymond Chandler.

Christmas for me is a time for family.  We don’t vacation over the holidays, though some years have found me in places like New Zealand, Singapore or Japan.  I found vacationing over the holidays away from family wasn’t much fun.  Older and maybe a little wiser, though not much, I do spend Christmas with them these days.  There are far fewer of us now.  The older generation has died and we find ourselves in the vaguely surreal position of being the ‘older generation’ – a sobering thought.  The only time I really feel older is when my arthritis flares up – or I look too closely in the mirror!  But there it is, the circle of life.  So I will travel to Massachusettes and have a white Christmas.  I’ll do the cooking – though I no longer do the elaborate food orgies I did in my younger years when many generations gathered for Christmas.  Back then, I’d start cooking Thanksgiving week and not stop still after New Year.  I’d rather set my hair on fire than do that today!  Yes, I still enjoy cooking now and then, but not like I used to.  Life changes. Now our goal is trying to prevent going into a coma from all the goodies we consume as we play games and engage in a kind of competitive construction of a Lincoln Log village.  We have acquired thousands of logs from the ’50′s to the ’70′s, though we try and keep them as early as possible.  We let our imaginations run wild and construct buildings and stories to go around the finished buildings.  From modest beginnings, it now takes us about 20 manhours.  We takes photos, show it off and tear it all down and store the logs again for next year in 4 days.  It keeps us amused, out of serious trouble, prevents arguing (OK – mostly we just argue about the construction), and keeps me from have a football withdrawal seizure.  Why am I the only real football fan in the family????????  Then we break for pie, ice cream and old Charlie Chan movies on DVD.  Later it’s cards, Yahtzee!, or Clue.  Repeat previous day and throw in more food, chocolate and dessert.

I’m sure you have your traditions – old and new.  Visits to relatives, or sitting on a beach with palms trees and umbrella drinks, or racing down a ski slope.  Go forth and enjoy!  Make memories – large and small.  Don’t worry about that disaster, it will be one of those things that you’ll remember later and say, “Well, it couldn’t be worse than ………………”  It’s not about the gifts, it’s about enjoying your friends and family – or at least not smothering them in their sleep.  It’s about putting the cheap Christmas tree balls at the bottom of the tree so the dogs and the kids won’t break the expensive ones from when you were a kid.  It’s about wrapping gifts at 2AM and getting up again at 5AM with excited kids.  It’s about ohhhhing and ahhhing over ugly handmade gifts that are all heart and no talent.  It’s eating too much, not sleeping enough, leftovers that last for days and staying upwind of the aunt who who wears too much perfume.

So to anyone who drops by here, I wish you a Happy Holiday – for whatever holiday you might be celebrate.  Be safe and happy, I hope you enjoy your friends and family – and a good meal!

Somebody Hit the Snooz Alarm

I feel like I’ve been swimming in a sea of mediocre books lately.  It isn’t limited to genre either.  There are a slew of mysteries due for release in January – hardcover, of course – that I’m lusting for, but right now I’m just depressed over my inability to find an excellent read.  Over on PBS (Paperpack Swap) they mentioned a big book sale at Bookcloseouts.com.  Oh wow, did I go nuts.  No, the books I wanted the most weren’t there – big surprise – but a lot of others were.  I went crazy twice.  Once doing mystery/thrillers and whatever paranormal books on my wish list that I could find.  Then I went back and ran amok in the fantasy section – or wizards and nonsense as my brother dubbed it years ago.  Raymond Fiest, Robert Jordan and many others.  Soon, over 30 new hardcovers cost $2-3 dollars each will add to my alarming pile of to-be-read books.

In Retrospect – Part Two: The Keeper Shelf – The Price of Cleaning

My taste in books is widely eclectic, even though it seems I review a lot of erotic romance.  I think I do it because the usual romance sites largely ignore it, other than a few authors, in favor of mainstream romance and those dreadful ‘category’ romances from Harlequin that are so very popular.  Or maybe that’s because the vast majority are quick easy reads – or so tedious I skim.  The year is far from over and the fall is a big release period for publishers looking to cash in on people’s holiday spending, but I’ve been editing my selves.

I have hundreds of books, mostly hardcover, on my bookshelves.  Hundreds more piled about.  I need space, so time to edit the keepers and reference books I haven’t used in over a decade.  Cookbooks are rarely on the discard pile, but history is, along with literature and many old series – from David Eddings’ The Mallorean to Stuart Woods’ Stone Barrington novels – I have no interest in rereading.  Keeper shelves are mostly a matter of taste, and tastes change, or the reader’s wants change, and books get dated or supplanted by something even better.  I find I have to edit my keeper self, but I confess I have enough book selves (a whole wall) that I keep far too many.  I hate getting rid of books, but it MUST be done.

In Retrospect – Part One: Looking Back at Reviews

Like most people, or maybe unlike, I go back and revisit my ideas to see if they’ve changed.  There’s almost no way to keep personal likes and dislikes out of review.  If something makes you mad, or upset, or just violates your principals, maintaining an emotional distance just doesn’t happen.  In my work I deal with data and form my opinions based on facts, but even there two people can look at the same data and see different things.  If opinions vary when dealing with numbers and facts vary, it’s inevitable that reactions will vary even more widely when forming opinions on books – after all, a book is intended to elicit a reaction from the reader.

So I went back and revisited some of my reviews to see if I still felt the same way – positive or negative – about some of the books I’ve reviewed.  To do this, I looked primarily at those I like the best and the least.  I don’t give many A reviews and even fewer F reviews, so the lists aren’t long, but I did include a few B books that might be deserving of a second look.

The Pecuilar Morality of ‘The One’

You see it time and again in romance novels, ‘The One’, a Heart Mate, ‘Life Mate’, an inescapable destined mate – and more often than not, there can be only one.  Werewolves do it on an almost universal basis.  Dragons do it, especially shifter dragons.  Vampires do it, though it’s less universal.  Even some cats do it, though more often than not cats with just one mate are seen as the family oddball. (Nik Vorislav in Shelly Laurenston’s hysterically funny Here Kitty, Kitty)  But the morality around securing ‘the One’ seems to get a bit flexible.

The idea that a male has one true mate to exclusion of all others and is destined to monogamy with that One is remarkably attractive to women.  That makes it a very attractive trope in paranormal romance.  It might not insure they’re loved for themselves, but it does insure a faithful, caring male.  In the majority of the books I’ve read, the ‘One’ is often the only one capable of acting as breeder as well.  Occasionally, breeding is separate, but it is usually an exclusive right of the One. So now you have a male (on rare occasion a female) with a biological imperative that’s two fold, the need to secure a desirable mate and the need to procreate.  This makes the female irresistible.  It also provides the stability and emotional security for the female – the guarantee he will remain exclusively yours and value you as the prize you are.  A seductive idea with great appeal, but one that often comes at a price.  To reap the benefits, your mate must be a True Mate or Life Mate, as opposed to a mate (lower case), because otherwise it might well go the way of broken marriages in the human world.

Mental Meanderings

I regularly cruise blogs and forums on books and recently joined GoodReads.  It’s interesting to see how differently people view a book.  I made a HUGE exception to my ‘No Silhouettes Desire’ and got The Tycoon’s Rebel Bride from PaperBack Swap.  Why?  How could I be suckered in like that?  Simple – Maya Banks.  I can now plainly state that even in the able hands of one of the better writers out there this series is trite, formulaic, and unoriginal – in short, exactly what Silhouette and the Desire line readers wants.  On Good Reads it had anywhere from 5* to DNF.  I gave it 3*, mostly for the quality of the writing, not the plot or the characters.  I’m sure Ms Banks is being well paid for her trilogy, of which this is the middle book – and she should be.  Like many popular authors of full length novels, she has a living to make and these short books are perfect.  The story lines are constrained by the publisher so little innovation is possible, or welcome by readers, so they are far easier to write, yet sell well – if briefly.  Desire is and has been a hugely popular Silhouettes line for exactly that reason, so they’ve found a niche and authors and audience alike get to enjoy it.  Except for some of us who sit and wonder how anyone can read more than one of these a decade.  Naturally, the folks who DO read Silhouettes Desire line wonder how the hell I can slog my way through hundreds of pages of murder and mayhem, so to each their own I guess.

I hate to do this but ………………….

The June Erotic Romance will be a bit later than usual.  Between work and family obligations I haven’t had time to get to writing anything up.  I am half way through Crouching Vampire, Hidden Fang and finished several forgettable erotic romance ebooks.  Among the books to be reviewed are the Lunar Mates series by Loribelle Hunt from Cobblestone Press, Bitten in the Bayou by Selena Blake also from Cobblestone, Riding Double by Evie Adams for Siren, To the Victor Go the Spoils by Nia K Foxx, Wolfen by Madelaine Montague and several more.  (Just looking down that list, I’ve been on a werewolf kick lately.  I guess I’m Vamped out a bit – or a bite.)

May was a good month for mystery and suspense thrillers, and too many books that I started and just couldn’t get very interested in, including the erotic stuff.  Maybe I’ll catch up with some that I read before and didn’t review, thinking, “Oh, I’ll do them later.”  Somehow ‘later’ never comes.

I pre-ordered the new Daniel Silva Gabrial Allon assassin/spy novel and the third book in the Her Royal Spyness series by Rhys Bowen.  I got book 2, A Royal Pain in hardcover thru paperback swap.  I’ll have to do another update on my experiences with that as it’s improving a LOT!  I’ve learned how to avoid the low end traders and find nicely kept books, incuding some older ones that I wanted to read again.  I’m rapidly approaching 100 swaps and it took a fair amount of dedication to find the right people to trade with, but I’m still having some issues – new ones are cropping up too.

I’m sitting here with a TBR pile that’s 200 books and growing.  Now I need some time – a lot more sleep!  See you next week!