2015 Reading, Books 37-42

37. An Invitation to Sin by Sarah Morgan

Harlequin Presents aren't my usual thing, but I do love Sarah Morgan's because she's so good at writing heroines who can stand up to the powerful, rich, sexy alpha heroes required by the line. In this one I enjoyed how the heroine's toughness and confidence upended all the hero's stereotypes and expectations about women without ever crossing the line (IMHO) into the dreaded "I love you because you're nothing like other women" trope.

38. What Matters in Jane Austen by John Mullan

A recommended read for anyone with at least moderately high familiarity with the Austen canon. (If you haven't read the books or maybe read Pride & Prejudice once 20 year ago, you'll be lost and bored.) Over 20 chapters, Mullan looks at how Austen handles topics such as marriage proposals, money, and characters' reading habits across her novels, along with aspects of her literary technique in point of view, dialogue, etc.

39. Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder

When the South Dakota Historical Society Press decided to put out an annotated version of the autobiography that became the root of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series, apparently they expected it to be of interest to a few historians and scholars, and then had to rush to print copies for all the people like me who read their Little House books into tatters as children!

And if you were also such a child, you should read this book. It's interesting to see how Wilder streamlined her real life into the fictional account. The real Ingalls family was less iconic--e.g. De Smet in the novels seems a lot more isolated than it really was. (Except during the Long Winter. The trains really couldn't get through the snow for months, the settlement really was that unprepared due to the early onset of that year's snows and the fact it was newly settled and therefore no one had managed a large crop that year or had much livestock, and you get the impression people did come damn close to starving. I even wonder if Laura was so very short as an adult, 4'11", partly because of enduring such an experience during her prime growth spurt period in early adolescence, though she probably would've been petite regardless.) But in some ways the real Ingalls family struggled more, since in the novels Wilder left out the worst of the poverty they occasionally fell into, the death of her baby brother, and sundry other incidents that wouldn't seem right for a kids' book.

40. Rose Sees Red by Cecil Castellucci

A YA novel set in the early 80's at the height of the Cold War (and HOW weird is it to see my own youth become an era that gets the retro treatment) about a teenager depressed over her childhood best friend's betrayal who goes out adventuring one night with the Russian girl next door (the daughter of Soviet diplomats). A quick, engaging read.

41. Promise of the Wolves by Dorothy Hearst

First in a fantasy trilogy about a young wolf 14,000 years ago destined to become a bridge between wolfkind and humankind, and by extension between humanity and the natural world. While I wasn't absolutely blown away by it, I did enjoy it and was sufficiently intrigued to put the second book on hold at my library.

Incidentally, I thought of buying this book as a birthday present for my 11-year-old daughter. It's not YA per se, but it's a coming-of-age story, the reading level is well within her above-grade-level capacity, and she loves animal fantasies.

However, the Kindle edition is $13.99. I'm not normally one to whine about ebook pricing--to me, it's about the content, not the format, and I'm happy to pay the same price I would for a print edition, or very slightly lower because I can't give the ebook away or donate it to the library when I'm done, which lowers the value somewhat. But for a book that's been out since 2008, I don't want to pay more than a normal MMPB price, say $5.99 or $6.99 or so. Maybe I'm somewhat biased by the fact that before I was an ebook reader I was a MMPB reader for almost anything that wasn't a new release by an absolute favorite author--and even then I was willing to wait for the paperback or wait out the hold list for the library hardcover unless the prior book had ended on a cliffhanger. But that still seems high to me.

42. The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers

This was a re-read of a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery I'd only read once, so many years ago that at first I barely remembered any of the plot, though it came back to me as I went along, enough so to give me the pleasant sensation of being ahead of the sleuth for a change. :-) Not my favorite Lord Peter book by a long shot--the story gets bogged down in the minutia of fen drainage and bell-ringing, IMHO--but a lesser Lord Peter book is still better than most of what's out there.

Closing the book on 2014 reading and starting my 2015 reading

I spent last week visiting Mr. Fraser's family in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Between travel time and the odd quiet moment, I was able to finish 6 books--3 in 2014 and 3 in the new year:

The last of the 2014 reading:

140) Lighting the Flames by Sarah Wendell


A Hanukkah romance set at a Jewish summer camp trying to make a go of a winter break camp to build enthusiasm between terms. The hero and heroine have known each other since childhood, but almost exclusively as campers and then counselors. They're now in their twenties, just stepping into their careers and feeling out a newfound attraction and what it means in their outside-of-camp worlds. Definitely the first book I've read where the hero is a mortician, and by the end of the book I found his career awesome rather than off-putting.

141) Yours Forever by Farrah Rochon

A fun, quick romance about an aspiring politician who wants to keep family scandals going back generations buried and a history professor who needs his family records to keep her faculty position.

142) Ancestral Journeys by Jean Manco

The simple summary: People have constantly been migrating, as DNA increasingly reveals. A little on the dry side, but worth a read if the topic is of interest to you.

And the first of 2015:

1. Yes Please by Amy Poehler


A generally entertaining and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny memoir (though it gets a bit rambly at times). The chapters on focusing on creativity above career had a lot of resonance for me.

2. The Resistance Man by Martin Walker

The latest in Walker's endearing, food-porny mystery series. I pretty much guessed the murderer--at least, I suspected him before the sleuth did, which left me feeling clever.

3. Gunpowder Alchemy by Jeannie Lin

A really excellent steampunk alternative history set in 1840's China. Plenty of adventure and a nice thread of romance.

It's already feeling a bit late to do a "best reads of 2014" list, but I might do one anyway sometime in the next week for the sake of reviewing the year and in case anyone is looking for some recommendations and, like me, doesn't have any particular compulsion to read new books the instant they appear. (Unless they're sequels to books that ended on cliffhangers, in which case GIVE GIVE GIVE NOW NOW NOW.)

For 2015, my reading goals are the same as always--read a lot, and read a good variety of genres and topics.

2014 Reading, Books 136-138

136) The Devil's Cave by Martin Walker

Another entry in a series I've become fond of because, as with many of my favorite mystery series, the discovery of a corpse serves as an excuse to visit the sleuth and his friends, enemies, and lovers again. Sure, there's a mystery to be solved. But more importantly, Bruno has a new puppy! And is still torn between Isabelle and Pamela, though I'm starting to suspect he might end up with someone else, like maybe Florence. (FWIW, I'm Team Pamela. So I guess I ship Bramela. Or maybe Pamuno.) Oh, and there are many delicious meals. I can hardly wait to get to the Dordogne region next summer myself so I can eat a bit like that myself.

137) Faith Shift by Kathy Escobar

Not quite a memoir, not quite a self-help book, and not quite a book of theology, this book explores the kind of faith crisis many Christians, especially those from an evangelical or fundamentalist background, go through when we/they discover that the world doesn't necessarily match up to their carefully held, carefully taught beliefs. I wish I'd had it when I was first beginning to go through my own faith shift, and even now it felt a bit freeing to be given permission to doubt, question, not got to church EVERY Sunday, etc. That said, for someone trying to avoid Christianese, she sure talks about "seasons" a lot for stages/phases. (It's total Christian-speak: "I'm going through a season of doubt/joy/grief/etc. right now," where "season" has nothing to do with its conventional calendar/climatological meaning.)

138) A Bollywood Affair by Sonali Dev

This book has been getting a lot of raves in the romance blogosphere of late, and I'd say those raves are deserved, though I'm not sure yet whether it's going to make it onto the Top 10 list for 2014 reads that I'll be making sometime next weekend. But it's a book that manages the neat trick of being laugh-out-loud funny without being at all slight, the characters are human and relatable, and reading it felt a bit like being an invited guest at an Indian wedding.

2014 Reading, Books 127-129

127) Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends by David Wilton

A quick, fun read that debunks almost everything you've ever read on Facebook about the origins of words and phrases. E.g. "Ring Around the Rosie" is not based on folk memory of the bubonic plague, a word which I will politely leave untyped (on Twitter I'm wont to use "rhymes with yuck!" when things go poorly for my chosen sportsball teams) is not an acronym of For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, etc. Little of it was new to me, but it was an enjoyable read nonetheless.

128) Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal

The first book in Kowal's Glamourist Histories fantasy series is very much a Austen pastiche--down to using old-fashioned spellings like "chuse" for "choose" and "shewed" for "showed." The characters and situations feel very similar, too. The heroine's parents are very Bennet-like, the villain reminds me of both Willoughby and Wickham, etc. I found myself wishing it was less Austenian in spots, since the voice made the occasional small anachronisms stand out more. That said, I enjoyed this book and plan to continue with the series.

129) Bruno and the Carol Singers by Martin Walker

A Christmas short story in the Bruno Courreges mystery series set in the French countryside. As a story it's quick, slight, and straightforward, but it was a pleasant visit with the characters and setting (these things are straight-up food and rural French living porn--reading them made me add the Dordogne to the itinerary for our Europe trip next summer). It also reminded me to search for any new full-length entries since I last read the series. There are two, and I'll be reading them soon.

2013 Reading, Books 109-111

109) Through the Evil Days, by Julia Spencer-Fleming.

After two and a half years, finally another entry in one of my favorite mystery series. I loved it, and was especially impressed how Spencer-Fleming switched POVs among five or six characters without ever tempting me to skip ahead to the next section featuring my favorites. (I tend to do that with George RR Martin, and with Herman Wouk's Winds of War and War and Remembrance it was years before I went back and read all the stuff about the Pacific theater of the war, I was so much more interested in Natalie Jastrow and whether she survived than any of that submarine and battleship stuff.) That said, she ended on ANOTHER cliffhanger, and how many more years will I have to wait before I know if Clare's, um, how to say this without being spoilery, health situation works out OK?

110) Od Magic, by Patricia McKillip.

This is a lushly lyrical fantasy--really MORE lush and lyrical than my usual reading taste that follows several characters through a crisis in how their kingdom manages magic. It's not a big, epic war and/or quest fantasy (which I confess to a certain partiality for), nor does it focus tightly enough on any one character that I connected to the story as much as I like, but I'm glad I read it nonetheless, variety being good for the brain and imagination IMHO.


111) Oh Myyy! There Goes the Internet, by George Takei.

A light, fun look at George Takei's current life as an unlikely septuagenarian internet celebrity. It was the perfect relaxing read for a day when I was home with a bad shoulder and feeling sorry for myself, but it's not pure fluff. Takei doesn't hide his activist side WRT gay rights or building awareness of Japanese-American internment during WWII, and he also has some good thoughts on Facebook and Twitter for those of us who use social media for publicity.

2013 Reading, Books 97-99

97) Deadly Heat, by "Richard Castle."

This series continues to be enjoyable meta-fun for fans of the Castle TV series, though I doubt I'd find it particularly interesting if I didn't watch the show. This particular entry got a little convoluted for my taste, but it was still a quick, entertaining read.

98) Pauline Bonaparte: Venus of Empire, by Flora Fraser.

My research book collection, purchased to aid me in my fiction-writing career, fills a tall bookshelf and spills onto a second one. This would all be very well were it not for the fact I've only read maybe half of its contents. It's not that I don't spend a lot of time researching my manuscripts--I do. It's just that I'm greedy when it comes to used bookstores, bargain book catalogs, and the like, and I'll pick up anything even vaguely related to something I might want to write about someday. The new acquisitions get alphabetized neatly by subject, then all but forgotten about, given how busy I am.

Only lately I've been working out three times a week in front of my main research bookshelf, which happens to be right next to the computer I'm using to stream exercise videos. And all those unread research books are TAUNTING me, I swear. So one evening after my workout I made a quick list, divided into six loose subject categories, of my research TBR pile, leaving out books that aren't really designed to be read, like map collections, who's who lists, and the like. I plan to draw random books from each list, rotating through the subject divisions for variety's sake, until I've either made it through the collection or given up and accepted the lack of world enough and time to Read All the Books. While I'm shooting for two books a month, it isn't a hard and fast schedule, since some of these books are far longer and denser than others.

My first unread research book turned out to be a quick read. Pauline Bonaparte would've fit right in to a certain niche of modern celebrity culture. If she hadn't been Napoleon's sister she would've lived and died in obscurity, not having any particular greatness, intelligence, or accomplishments in her own right. But she was extremely beautiful by the neoclassical standard of her day, not to mention as well-connected as it was possible to be while her brother's power lasted. And for the most part she was just a shrewd, selfish party girl. Today she'd be all over People and Us Weekly, being famous for being famous.

I don't think I would've liked her even a tiny bit, but her life was a window into the upper echelons of Napoleonic society, and who knows when that might come in handy as I write?

99) Midnight Blue-Light Special, by Seanan McGuire.

I loved the first book in this series so much I didn't wait long to read the next one. This one expands the focus a bit away from Verity alone to include more about her family and the paranormal community of New York, especially her adopted cousin Sarah, who looks human but isn't. I enjoyed it, though I missed All Verity All the Time, and my anticipation of the next book in the series is muted a little now that I've learned the focus is to shift from her to her brother, whom we haven't met on the page yet.

Favorite reads of the year so far

Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans! I'm off from the day job today, but I have to work Friday--which, looking on the bright side, means this week feels like it has two Fridays. I'll be having a low-key celebration with my family. Mr. Fraser is making waffles for breakfast, a tradition for almost every holiday we're not traveling, since they taste just as good on Labor Day or Presidents' Day as they do in July. Then we'll grill hot dogs and I'll bake Miss Fraser's favorite cake, which has white icing transformed into an American flag with strawberry stripes and blueberry stars.

It just occurred to me that the year is half over. (Insert ritual "How did THAT happen?" comment here.)  That means it's time to post my top ten reads of the year so far, in the order I read them:

1) Julie's Wolf Pack

Third in Jean Craighead George's beautiful YA series about a young Inuit girl who finds refuge among a wolf pack and keeps ties with them even after being reunited with her family, this one is almost all from the POV of the wolves themselves, and it works surprisingly well. She doesn't quite anthropomorphize them but still makes them extremely relatable, somehow.

2) Libriomancer, by Jim C. Hines.

First in a fantasy series with a really clever concept for its magic--basically, books make magic by the collective belief of readers in the stories' worlds, and libriomancers can pull objects out of those books temporarily. This doesn't give the unlimited power you might think--among other things, too much magic use wrecks both the libriomancer and the book, and you can only pull out objects that would fit through an ordinary-sized physical copy of the book. E.g. if I were a libriomancer carrying a copy of a book from the Sharpe series, I could pull out Sharpe's sword or the telescope Wellington gave him, but a cannon wouldn't fit. The story and characters are as good as the concept, and I'll be eagerly awaiting the sequels. I've already preordered the sequel, Codex Born.

3) A Year of Biblical Womanhood, by Rachel Held Evans

I'm easily hooked by the type of memoir where someone spends a year trying to live a lifestyle that's foreign to them, cooks their way through a famous cookbook, or whatever. This one was both hilarious and unexpectedly moving. Evans comes from a background almost identical to my own--I'm ~10 years older, but we grew up within 40 or 50 miles of each other, and the biggest obvious difference between our good Alabama Baptist families is that mine roots for Auburn in college football while hers supports Alabama. (I was really disappointed that the month she was trying not to be contentious was October 2010 rather than November of that year, because she talked about her struggles during the South Carolina game rather than the epic Auburn comeback. And yes, I know Bama has since won two more national championships. 2010 was still awesome.)

Anyway, Evans is also like me in having wrestled with the increasing conservatism of the evangelical church, though AFAIK she hasn't yet gone as far as I have in running away from it--I'm now Episcopalian, which I suspect has some of my Baptist ancestors spinning in their graves. So for this book she spends each month of a year trying to live out one of the biblical commands to women literally, both to show the absurdity of a hyper-literal approach and to find God in unexpected places. She also talks a lot about women's power and strength, in the Bible and through history to the present. I think what will stick with me most is her discussion of the Proverbs 31 woman, which I was taught to think of as the perfect homemaker--someone I hoped to become during my more conservative days and now rebel against. But Evans discovers that in the Jewish tradition, that text isn't used prescriptively, but as praise for whenever a woman shows courage, generosity, integrity, and like virtues. In Hebrew the words the King James Bible translates as "a virtuous woman" are "eshet chayil"--a woman of valor. I'll never be a Proverbs 31 homemaker, but on my best days I can be a woman of valor.

4) Miss Jacobson's Journey, by Carola Dunn

This one is a traditional Regency, with a PG, kisses-only sensuality rating, but with a decidedly non-traditional heroine and setting. The heroine, Miriam Jacobson, is an English Jew who's been living on the Continent with her doctor uncle for nine years after having become estranged from the rest of her family by rudely rejecting the suitor the matchmaker brought for her. Now she wants to go home, but at the height of the Napoleonic Wars, journeying from France to England isn't a simple task. She and her maid/duenna are recruited by Jakob Rothschild to help two men smuggle gold to Wellington in Spain, with the promise of help getting home once she completes her mission. Naturally, one of the men in her party is the suitor she rejected all those years ago, and he's grown and matured in the intervening years into a far more attractive man than she ever would've dreamed possible...

From the time I started reading traditional Regencies in high school, I've always loved any non-traditional setting. (Not that I don't love a nice country house party or London Season tale, too.) Following the drum in the Peninsular War? I'm there. Congress of Vienna? Fascinating. Canada? More, please. Brussels just before Waterloo? Wonderful! America, before, during, or after the War of 1812? Why not? So this book had me halfway to hooked from the beginning because of the setting, and the story delivered on its promise. I enjoyed all the characters, the sweet romance worked beautifully for me, and I've already bought more of Dunn's backlist.

5) Whose Names Are Unknown, by Sanora Babb.

I heard about this book while watching Ken Burns' Dust Bowl documentary. It was originally written and accepted for publication in the 1930's, then rejected after The Grapes of Wrath came out because the acquiring editor figured there wasn't room for TWO Dust Bowl/Okie migrant stories. (Which is so laughably different from today's market, where every hit spawns a dozen imitators.)

I'm glad I read this book. It's more literary than my usual taste, but it has a kind of subtle, deceptively simple beauty, and it sort of rounded out my understanding of the Dust Bowl era, I think, in the way that good fiction can bring the past to life better than documentary alone.

6) Things I Can't Forget, by Miranda Kenneally.

I've been a Kenneally fan ever since I read the query letter for her first YA romance, Catching Jordan, (her agent posted it on a blog as an example of an effective query), but I think this book may be my favorite so far just because I identified with the heroine so much. I've been told that's a simplistic reason to enjoy a book, but oh well. I was Kate when I was 18, and for several years afterward. Painfully good, afraid to break the rules, convinced that my beliefs were the only right ones and therefore pretty dang judgmental even if I was better than Kate at keeping my mouth shut about it. So I enjoyed watching Kate begin to come to terms with life's complexities and ambiguities, and I loved seeing a character like her (and my younger self) grow and change.

7) Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, by Anne Lamott.

Anne Lamott's books don't always work for me, but this one blew me away. The Thanks and Wow chapters in particular helped me remember to stop and revel in the Eternal Now of the current moment, instead of always straining toward a longed-for future when I might be able to quit my day job and write full-time, or else flinching away from the inevitable future in which someday I must die. I found myself reveling in the life all around me, even in the spring pollen that makes me sneeze and coats my pretty black car with an unsightly yellow film. I remembered my favorite lines from For I will Consider My Cat Jeoffry:

For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.

...and also quoting one of my favorite lines from a character in the Vorkosigan saga: "Every day is a gift. Me, I tear open the package and wolf it down on the spot," not to mention, of all people, Bon Jovi: "I just want to live while I'm alive."

So I guess you might say the book made an impression on me. Thanks, Anne Lamott!

8) Sacred Games, by Gary Corby.

Third in a series of light, fun, yet richly researched mysteries based in Periclean Athens. This entry is set at the Games of the 80th Olympiad in 460 BCE, and our sleuth, Nicolaos, a fictional elder brother to Socrates, has to pair up with a Spartan to investigate the death of a star Spartan athlete the night after the opening ceremonies. (The primary suspect is an Athenian, and everyone agrees the only fair solution is to have one man from each city investigate, because at that point in history there was no such thing as a neutral city in any dispute between the two rival powers.) Corby does an excellent job bringing the bloodthirsty, superstitious, and quirky aspects of Greek culture to life, while simultaneously making his characters and their world human and relatable. I recommend this especially for fans of Lindsey Davis's Falco series, as the tone is quite similar.

9) The Strange History of the American Quadroon, by Emily Clark.

The book that made me withdraw a submitted manuscript so I could fix its utter historical inaccuracy. See more detail here.

10) The Ides of April, by Lindsey Davis.

First in a new series of mysteries set in Ancient Rome, this book is linked to the Davis's Falco series, but it takes place about a dozen years after the last one, and we never actually see Falco and Helena. The sleuth is their adopted daughter, Flavia Albia, an independent young widow who's taken up her father's old profession and lives on her own. Falco and Helena are evidently doing fine, and Albia drops in to visit regularly--it's just that all those meeting are told rather than shown. Hopefully that won't be the case throughout the series, though I can understand wanting to establish Albia as an interesting character in her own right.

The book got off to rather a slow start, and I might not have stuck with it were it not for my long-standing love for the Falco series. But about 40% in, the story took off and I started caring about Albia for her own sake. I guessed the whodunnit fairly quickly, not to mention the love interest, though there was a sort of mini-mystery about the latter I must confess to being totally oblivious to until it was spelled out for me. In any case, I'm looking forward to book two next year.

(Incidentally, this one wins my favorite cover of the year to date. So pretty!)

2013 Reading, Books 52-54 (wherein Susanna decides to withdraw a manuscript from submission)

52) Sacred Games, by Gary Corby.

Third in a series of light, fun, yet richly researched mysteries based in Periclean Athens. This entry is set at the Games of the 80th Olympiad in 460 BCE, and our sleuth, Nicolaos, a fictional elder brother to Socrates, has to pair up with a Spartan to investigate the death of a star Spartan athlete the night of the opening ceremonies. (The primary suspect is an Athenian, and everyone agrees the only fair solution is to have one man from each city investigate, because at that point in history there was no such thing as a neutral city in any dispute between the two rival powers.) Corby does an excellent job bringing the bloodthirsty, superstitious, and quirky aspects of Greek culture to life, while simultaneously making his characters and their world human and relatable. I recommend this especially for fans of Lindsey Davis's Falco series, as the tone is quite similar.


53) 2K to 10K: How to Write Faster, Write Better, and Write More of What You Love, by Rachel Aaron.

I bought this on a whim a few days ago (since one can afford to be whimsical with $0.99 e-books), because I'm always interested in ways to improve my writing efficiency and generally make better use of my limited time. And I happen to be sort of between projects, waiting for my editor's feedback on a recently sold novella while researching two new ideas, so it's a timely read.

I've been known to disagree vehemently with writing advice, since there is no One True Path, but I'm going to try Aaron's methods with my next story. I tend to be what's known as a "pantser"--i.e. I just sort of plunge into my first draft, flying by the seat of my pants, with a lot of backtracking and rewriting upon discovering my first idea or two doesn't really work. The opposite type of writer is a plotter, whose techniques I've always found off-putting, at least in the extreme versions, like the writing class I heard about where the instructor wouldn't let the writers start actual drafting until they'd produced fifty-page outlines.

Aaron is a plotter, but not at the extreme end of the scale. She seems to take an organic approach to plot and character development, letting them sort of feed off each other, which feels right to me, like an extension of how I already write the last quarter or so of my manuscripts. There's usually this point I describe as "And DOWN the stretch they come!" (you have to imagine this in an excited, racetrack caller voice), where I can suddenly see everything that needs to happen between where I am now and the end. I jot down every scene, every emotional turning point, on post-it notes, slap them on my office door, and write them, one after the other. I know exactly what I need to do and do it FAST, but it doesn't feel robotic or paint-by-numbers at all. Aaron's advice feels like it might give me a way to write entire manuscripts in Down the Stretch They Come mode. I just need to get past my self-identity as a pantser, along with my bad habit of thinking that only time spent drafting is Real Writing, even if spending a particular hour researching or planning would've enabled me to write faster and better the next day.


54) The Strange History of the American Quadroon, by Emily Clark.

This is by the same author who wrote Masterless Mistresses, which I read at the beginning of the month. I stumbled across this brand-new book--I'm the first person to check out the UW Library's copy--by accident on Amazon, and I'm glad I did. You see, I started a manuscript set in the aftermath of the Battle of New Orleans whose heroine was a free woman of color, a fourth-generation native of the city, and I made her a placee (i.e. a white planter's mistress with a long-term contract for an almost marital relationship) who had followed in her mother's footsteps in adopting such a life. I'd heard about such arrangements all my life, and I found info in my initial research that seemed to confirm what I'd been told. So I started writing, figuring I'd research as I wrote to flesh out my setting and my character's background.

I went ahead and submitted a proposal (i.e. opening chapters and synopsis) to my publisher, but the more I researched, the more nervous I felt about my heroine's placee status. While there were plenty of interracial relationships going on in 18th and early 19th century New Orleans, I just wasn't finding anything that matched the backstory I'd written for my heroine. And this book turned out to be the final nail in my manuscript's coffin. By the time I'd read a few chapters, I knew I had to withdraw my proposal from consideration, and I emailed my editor to do so. Because it turns out the whole placee system is little more than an urban legend, and insofar as it existed at all, it wasn't a long-established local tradition in 1815. And while I don't claim perfect historical accuracy (what novelist could?), I'm not so brazen as to try to tell a story I know couldn't have happened, especially not when the false foundation is a lurid, titillating, racist stereotype.

What really happened? Well, there were quite a few life partnerships, marriages in all but name, between white men and free women of color in early New Orleans. Both groups had skewed sex ratios, with white men far outnumbering white women and free black women outnumbering free black men in similar proportions, so such pairings were all but inevitable. But there wasn't a formalized system for how the relationships were managed, and the women didn't groom their daughters to follow in their footsteps. If anything, as the sex ratios started to even out among the free black population, they encouraged them to marry and live in middle-class respectability with free black men--all the more so as American inheritance law made it harder for white fathers to leave property to their illegitimate mixed-race children from 1808 forward. There was an uptick in concubinage and high-class prostitution among free black women in the early decades of the 19th century, but it mostly took place among the Haitian refugees who came to the city starting around 1809--another group where women outnumbered men, and one lacking the long-term connections within the city and dowries to make them desirable brides. It still didn't look quite like placage as it's been handed down to us in fiction and legend, but it was close enough to start that legend--and by the middle of the 19th century to create in a self-fulfilling prophecy a particularly unsavory sort of sex tourism. E.g. if you were a slave dealer in, say, Virginia, and you happened to have in your inventory a beautiful, light-skinned young slave woman, why would you sell her locally when she'd fetch a far higher price in New Orleans?

I'm still going to write a post-Battle of New Orleans story, and its heroine will still be a free woman of color. But I'm aiming for a far less stereotypical portrayal--I'm thinking I'll take advantage of those troublesome inheritance laws--and will hopefully write a far better book as a result.

Five favorite books you've (probably) never heard of

A couple of weeks back, fellow Carina author Veronica Scott challenged me to a Five Favorite Books meme. Since I find it all but impossible to narrow it down to just five for all time out of all the books I've ever read, I toyed with various ways to limit the list. Five Favorite Historical Romances. Five Favorite Non-Historical Romances. Five Favorite Classics. Five Favorite Kids' Books. Five Favorite Research Sources. Etc. (And now that I think about it, I can do just that for future posts, whenever I'm stuck for something to blog about. Win!)

But for this challenge I decided to do Five Favorite Books You've (Probably) Never Heard Of. OK, it's not like I'm the only literary omnivore out there, so you may have heard of some of them. But if anyone else out there has read and loved all these books, you're my long-lost sister or brother, and I want to compare libraries with you next time I'm stuck for what to read next.

1) In This House of Brede, by Rumer Godden.

I'm a married Episcopalian romance novelist, so you wouldn't expect me to be the target market for a book about a woman who leaves behind a high-powered career (at least, by 1950's standards) in her 40's to become a Benedictine nun. But this is a gorgeously written book whose characters and their community spring to life on the page. I've re-read it more times than I can count, and I expect to go back to it again and again in the years to come.

2) The Jennie trilogy, by Elisabeth Ogilvie.

• Jennie, About to Be
• The World of Jennie G.
• Jennie Glenroy

This trilogy, sadly, is out-of-print and unavailable as e-books, but there seem to be plenty of affordable used copies on Amazon. I read and adored the first two books from my hometown library when I was in high school and later picked up the whole trilogy at a library book sale. 

If you like my books (and maybe you do, since you're reading my blog!), there's a good chance you'll like these, even though they're historical fiction with romantic elements rather than romance. They're Regency in time period but not in tone, the heroine is gentry rather than aristocratic, and the hero...well, I'm not going to give you spoilers! The first book is largely set in Scotland, and Scottish culture pervades all three. 

3) Wellington: The Years of the Sword, by Elizabeth Longford. 

My favorite Wellington biography. (Between being a military history geek and research I did for the alternative history that's my book-under-the-bed, I own several. I know. I'm quite aware what a big geek I am.) It's a beautifully written, human portrait of a fascinating man.

4) The Old Buzzard Had It Coming, by Donis Casey.

This one you can buy for your Kindle or Nook, and right now it's only $0.99 as an e-book! First in a mystery series set in rural Oklahoma in the early 20th century, with an amateur sleuth who's the mother of nine children on a farm. It sounds too unlikely to work, but IMHO it does. The voice is lovely, with lots of historical detail and texture.

5) Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales, by Nathan Hale (and yes, that's his real name).

One Dead Spy

Big Bad Ironclad

Donner Dinner Party (available for preorder)

These fall into the select category of books Miss Fraser and I love equally, though at age 8 she's the one in their target market. They're graphic novels about American history, with the conceit that Nathan Hale (the spy one, not the author) as he's about to be hanged is taken up into a history book, where he sees what's to come for the new nation. With his newfound knowledge, he delays his execution by telling stories to his hangman and the British officer there to supervise. They're equal parts hilarious and historical. I'm not sure I'd recommend them if you don't have a kid (or niece, nephew, grandchild, etc.) to share them with, but if you do, buy them now.

2013 Reading, Books 16-18

16) The Accidental City, by Lawrence Powell.

This was research for one of my works-in-progress, which isn't yet contracted but I hope will be a first half of 2014 release. My book starts in the aftermath of the Battle of New Orleans, and my heroine is a fourth-generation native of the city, so this book on New Orleans' first century of existence was extremely useful research and reasonably interesting to boot. If nothing else, I learned a lot more about French and Spanish 18th century imperial concerns than I ever knew before, not to mention some ripple effects of events I already knew well--e.g. a big part of the French population of New Orleans originated not from the original 18th century settlement, but from early 19th century refugees from the Haitian Revolution. They'd gone to Cuba first and were welcome there until Napoleon invaded Spain and set his brother on the throne, at which point French nationals were persona non grata in Spanish colonies, so they fled to the culturally familiar but by then American-held refuge of New Orleans.


17) The Caves of Perigord, by Martin Walker

An unusual book, sort of a braided novel set in the present (well, really around 2002, when the book was published), in the spring of 1944, and 17,000 years ago. It opens with a 30-something British officer, the son of a WWII veteran, turning up in an art auction house with a small rock painting of a bull he found among his late father's effects. The ancient art specialist recognizes it as being of the style and on the same type of stone as the Lascaux cave paintings, but no known cave is missing such a painting. As the modern characters investigate the mystery, we go back in time to see how the bull was painted and how it came to be in the possession of a British war hero.

I enjoyed it, but the interwoven story lines had the strange effect of slowing my reading by making it easier to put the book down between chapters, somehow. Though at the 2/3 point I did skip forward just to see how the prehistoric plot line would come out (semi-spoiler: not as tragically as I feared, but not happily enough to please my romantic side, either), then going back to catch up the two more modern threads.


18) The British at the Gates, by Robin Reilly.

More research for my work-in-progress, a detailed study of the New Orleans campaign of the War of 1812 and a solid general overview of the war as a whole. I liked this book because it seemed more sober and grounded in reality than most sources I've read on the battle--mostly they run to very pro-American, very eager to lionize Andrew Jackson as a human being as well as a general (which, American that I am, I still tend to gag on because of his role in Indian removal and the Trail of Tears), and to portraying the British as a bunch of bumbling incompetent idiots. (Which doesn't make much sense, because then where would the glory be in defeating them?)

This book's more measured approach left me far more willing to acknowledge that Jackson managed the defense of the city brilliantly. As for the British...well, the soldiers didn't lack for courage, and there are a few times where with 20-20 hindsight, one can imagine them winning. But what it comes down to is there are only so many brilliant commanders around at any given time, and I'd say Britain and America had one apiece in 1815. America's was in New Orleans, while Britain's, fortunately, was right where he needed to be in Europe, since Waterloo was a hell of a lot more important for Britain to win.

2013 reading, books 4-6

4) The Natchez Trace Historic Trail in American History, by William R. Sanford.

I'm working on a not-yet-contracted book where, among other adventures, my hero and heroine will travel up the Natchez Trace in 1815. I just figured out this part of their journey last week, so I promptly reserved all the books on the Trace I could find from the Seattle Public Library. Since this one is a short, basic introduction that looks to have been designed for middle or high school students doing research papers, it's where I started. It's a simple history, but it did give me enough of a sense of what challenges my characters might encounter on that part of their journey to flesh out my synopsis. I trust the other two more detailed books I brought home today will flesh out the actual book. :-)

5) The Crowded Grave, by Martin Walker.

I'm now caught up on everything from this series that's been released in America, though I understand the UK is a book ahead of us. As usual, it made me wish myself in France RIGHT NOW, and because of these books I've added the Perigord to my tentative itinerary for the big European trip I'm planning for the spring/summer of 2015. (I mean to be at Waterloo for the 200th anniversary of the battle, and before and/or after to spend some time in France, Spain, and Portugal, and hopefully England, too. Oh, and I'd love to go to Italy, but I'll probably have to save that for a different trip.) Anyway, this book ended in a darker place than previous entries in the series, and I really wish I didn't have to wait for the next one.


6) Wyrd Sisters, by Terry Pratchett.

I decided to give Pratchett a try after enough of my friends expressed amazement that I hadn't already read and loved all his works. And I enjoyed it very much, but it was more a matter of liking, admiration, and extreme amusement than love. I read it with my head rather than my heart, basically. I expect I'll read more Pratchett, but I'm not feeling the same frantic hunger to read the whole series NOW that I got when I finally gave in and read the Vorkosigan books (to name another set of books my friends were always urging me to read, but I put off because surely no books could be THAT good).

Best reads of 2012

When I looked over the 109 books I read in 2012, I couldn't come up with a tidy top ten. Instead, here are some books I especially enjoyed and would recommend to anyone who likes the genre in question. Note that few of them are 2012 releases. Except in a few cases, e.g. a new book by a favorite author in a series I love, I don't make it a priority to read books immediately after release.

Favorite Historical Romance (New)
My Fair Concubine, by Jeannie Lin (2012). My Fair Lady in Tang Dynasty China, and my favorite of Lin's books to date.

Favorite Historical Romance (Old But Now Available as an Ebook)
The Wives of Bowie Stone, by Maggie Osborne (1994). The hero is the most heroic and admirable bigamist you'll ever meet.

Favorite Contemporary Romance 
Doukakis's Apprentice, by Sarah Morgan (2011). I'm not usually a Harlequin Presents reader--I'm just not into wildly rich, wildly alpha heroes outside of SF or history, and even then I want them to be extra-awesome, brave, honorable, and brainy--we're talking Aral Vorkosigan or the Duke of Wellington here. But I've enjoyed Morgan's medical romances, and this book came so highly recommended that I tried it anyway. And I'm glad I did, hence its placement on this list.


Favorite YA Romance/Debut Book
Catching Jordan, by Miranda Kenneally (2011). Just a well-written book all around, and one of the few sports-themed romances I've read where I came away convinced the author thoroughly knows and loves the sport in question.

Wildly Popular Book That Actually Didn't Disappoint Me
The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins (2008). No need to say more, since I figure y'all have already heard of this one...


Favorite Mystery Discovered Randomly When I Heard Its Author Interviewed on NPR
Bruno, Chief of Police, by Martin Walker (2009). Lovely, leisurely-paced mystery that will make you wish yourself in France.

Favorite New Entries in Long-Running Series
Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, by Lois McMaster Bujold (2012). A lovely science fiction romance, albeit one that I doubt would have the same impact for readers lacking a long history with the characters and their world. Those readers should go grab Shards of Honor or The Warrior's Apprentice and start building that history!

The Scottish Prisoner, by Diana Gabaldon (2012). I really appreciate how Gabaldon writes soldiers. Jamie Fraser and John Grey remind me of the officers in my family and the ones I meet in my historical research in a way military heroes in historical romances often do not.

Most Useful Psychology/Self-Help Book
The Willpower Instinct, by Kelly McGonigal (2011). Explains why it's so hard to change and ways you can make it easier.

Best Food for My Inner History Geek
Moscow 1812, by Adam Zamoyski (2004). Gripping tale of Napoleon's invasion and retreat.

Guest of Honor, by Deborah Davis (2012). Race relations 100 years ago viewed through the lens of Teddy Roosevelt and Booker T Washington.

1493, by Charles C. Mann (2011). A history of the Columbian exchange and how it altered the course of the world in the past 500 years.

The Worst Hard Time, by Timothy Egan (2006). If you watched Ken Burns' The Dust Bowl and want to learn more, go here.

Final reading update of 2012

Favorite reads of 2012 to follow in a separate post...

106) Black Diamond, by Martin Walker. Third in the Bruno Courreges mystery series, which like its predecessors makes me want to hop on a plane for France asap. This one involves rival Chinese and Vietnamese gangs, buried state secrets, truffle market tampering, and some particularly sordid goings-on that appear late enough in the book that mentioning them here would be a spoiler. But for all that, it's still a fairly cozy and leisurely mystery, and the biggest surprise for me was that it introduced yet a third potential love interest for Bruno.

107) Dream More, by Dolly Parton. I admire Dolly Parton for her guts, sense of humor, and the fact she's used her brains, talents, and all-around gumption to build a successful life from an unpromising background (and one not unlike my own family's, though I think compared to the Partons we were a relatively rich and educated bunch of hillbillies. This book, based on a commencement address she gave at the University of Tennessee a few years ago, made a nice read for reflecting on the year that's ending and the new one about to begin.

108) The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by N.K. Jemisin. This fantasy novel was recommended to me by any number of readers whose taste I trust, and I have to say I found the worldbuilding original and compelling, and I was intrigued enough by the plot to finish the book in a day. Yet for all that, the characters didn't quite come to life for me, so I never developed that undefinable connection that makes me want to revisit fictional places ranging from Terre d'Ange to Barrayar to Anne Shirley's Avonlea.

109) Julie, by Jean Craighead George. These are just delightful books, though I get depressed thinking how the Arctic environment they're set in is being wrecked by global warming.

I have a title! (And also a reading update)

My 2013 interracial historical romance novella now has a title--A Dream Defiant. I just finished my first round of edits, and I'll have much more to say about the story as its July 29 release date draws closer.

I've been busy with edits and Christmas prep, but I've managed to squeeze in a little reading time, and now that I'm off work till Jan. 2, I plan to fit in a lot more before the new year. Tune in 12/31 for my last reading update of the year, plus my top ten reads of 2012.

101) The Nine Tailors, by Dorothy Sayers. I read this once before, years ago, but I didn't remember the details. Not the best Lord Peter book by a long shot, and I kinda skimmed most of the bell-ringing arcana, but an enjoyable read. Right now it's available as a Kindle book for $2.99, so a good deal if you're looking to fill out your digital Wimsey collection.

102) Tim Gunn's Fashion Bible, by Tim Gunn with Ada Calhoun. A combination brief history of most commonly worn articles of clothing and guidelines on choosing appropriate and flattering modern versions of said articles.


103) The Worst Hard Time, by Timothy Egan. I recently watched Ken Burns' Dust Bowl documentary and wanted to learn more, and this book was highly recommended. It's a gripping, horrifying read, and it's stunning to think such a disaster, both ecological and economic, happened in my country less than a century ago, within my parents' lifetimes, albeit barely (Dad was born in 1929, Mom in 1932). And while my parents grew up in rural poverty, at least they had the blessing to grow up in a place (central Alabama), that's actually endowed by nature with a climate suitable for farming and rich, quick-growing forests. It also gave me a better appreciation, not that I ever truly doubted it, that FDR and the New Deal saved this country and that we ought to be using the current downturn to reinforce and strengthen the safety net, not tear it down in pursuit of debt-cutting and austerity that any sensible reading of our own history, not to mention the current state of much of Europe, shows would only make things worse.

Sorry. Got a little political there...

104) The Betrayal of the Blood Lily, by Lauren Willig. Book 6 in the Pink Carnation historical spy-romance series, which are always great fun, though I often find myself skimming past the modern framing story. I particularly enjoyed this entry, since I'm fascinated by late 18th/early 19th-century India.

105) Ichiro, by Ryan Inzana. A graphic novel about a boy with an American father and Japanese mother learning about the Japanese side of his heritage, considering questions of war, peace, and atrocities committed by both nations, and, oh, getting pulled into the spirit world. Not my usual reading, but thoughtful and beautifully illustrated.

Book 100 at last, Random Cookbook update

I was beginning to think I wouldn't make it, but I finally reached Book 100 on the year:

100) Frozen Heat, by "Richard Castle": I enjoy this series as part of my Castle fandom--it's fun to pull out all the meta references to the show and so on, and little gems like the pair of detectives who help out on this case named Malcolm and Reynolds. How well they'd work for anyone not a fan of the show I couldn't begin to tell you, since I haven't read enough contemporary police procedural-type mysteries to judge.

I haven't abandoned my Random Cookbook series, but it's on a temporary hiatus, at least through the month of December. Mr. Fraser and I have gone on Weight Watchers together, in large part because he's been diagnosed as pre-diabetic and quite likely also has gall bladder issues. (Tests to confirm that and determine whether or not surgery is necessary are on his schedule.) So for now we're focusing on getting on the diet and sticking to it. Once we're in a good groove and immediate health issues are under control, I'll feel steady enough to go back to cooking randomly again.

Blog tour, reading, and no more NaNo

Just a few stops on the blog tour this week, since I'm taking the four-day Thanksgiving weekend off from promo:

• Today I was at Reading Between the Wines.
• Monday, 11/19 - TBQ's Book Palace
• Tuesday, 11/20 - Cecilia Grant's blog

In other writing news, my 2013 novella now has a release date--July 29.  That's a bit earlier than my editor and I had been anticipating, which is entirely a Good Thing. Between my shoulder and hand issues and my full-time day job, I'm just not going to be the world's fastest writer, but I'm trying to put myself in a position where my new releases are no more than 8-9 months apart.

However, it also means editing the novella is now my highest writing priority, with completing a proposal for its sequel a close second, so I'm abandoning my goal of 25,000 new words this month. One of the hardest lessons I've had to learn as a writer is the importance of flexibility, of being able to change plans when your circumstances change. In this case it makes no sense to pursue an arbitrary goal at the expense of focusing my energy on what my publisher needs next from me.

One personal goal I am continuing to pursue is that of reading 100 books this year. Here's what I completed this week:

94) The Dark Vineyard, by Martin Walker. Second in Walker's mystery series, and while I didn't like it quite as much as the first book, Bruno, Chief of Police, I expect I'll keep reading these, if for nothing else to see what happens to Bruno and his assorted friends and lovers and to take more mental vacations to the Perigord.

95) The Wrong Hill to Die On, by Donis Casey. Sixth in a series of mysteries featuring early 20th century Oklahoma farmwife and mother of many, Alafair Tucker. While this isn't my favorite of the series--that would be either Hornswoggled or Crying Blood--I still enjoyed visiting the familiar characters again.


96) A Case for Solomon: Bobby Dunbar and the Kidnapping that Haunted a Nation, by Tal McThenia and Margaret Dunbar Cutright. 100 years ago, 4-year-old Bobby Dunbar disappeared on a family camping trip in Louisiana swamp country. Though the most logical explanation was that the child drowned or fell prey to an alligator, no body or sign of a struggle was ever found, so the grieving parents clung to the possibility that he'd been kidnapped instead. Then, many months later, a little boy who looked a bit like their son turned up in the company of a wandering piano tuner and repairman, so the Dunbars claimed him as their own.

I'd heard a version of this story on This American Life, so I already knew the outline and what a DNA test on the boy's descendants would bring to light. But I enjoyed reading the more fleshed-out version, though it's for the most part just a detailed history that leaves it to the reader to draw conclusions about the motivations of all involved and the role politics and class divisions played.

97) Marathon, by Boaz Yakin and Joe Infurnari. A graphic novel account of the Battle of Marathon and the legendary messenger whose feats gave rise to the race that bears that battle's name. I enjoyed it, and was glad to see a story of the Greco-Persian Wars where Athens gets her due--I'm sick of it being all about Sparta and Thermopylae, when Athens managed to be pretty dang badass without having to be a completely militaristic state to do so.

Reading Update - Memoir, Mystery, and Romance

Still inching toward 100 books read on the year...

86) Evolving in Monkey Town, by Rachel Held Evans. Memoir about how a girl who grew up in the airtight certainty of conservative Christianity discovered she didn't have all the answers after all and learned to live with a faith that has questions and uncertainties. At the risk of talking about religion more than I normally do on this blog...I can relate.

87) The Book of Mormon Girl, by Joanna Brooks. An interesting book to read right after Evolving in Monkey Town, since it's also the story of a woman raised in a conservative religious background who struggles with her faith while deciding to stay within it. I think what struck me most, surprised me, really, was her sense of connection to the history of the Mormon faith. To my eyes, it's an awfully short history--I mean, my native state (Alabama) wasn't even one of the original thirteen, and it's still older than the Mormon church. But I can see how if you're actually descended from people who made the trek to Utah with Brigham Young, it wouldn't be the kind of thing one could lightly walk away from.

88) Bruno, Chief of Police, by Martin Walker. A delightful mystery set in a village in the South of France. It has an unfashionably leisurely pace--the dead body doesn't show up till the end of Chapter 4--which IMHO worked well by mirroring the peaceful, timeless lifestyle Bruno values and strives to protect. I was also impressed with the way Walker balanced the overall loveliness and humor of his story with the darkness of the murder plot (the corpse is found with a swastika carved on his body). I look forward to reading the rest of Walker's fiction and quite possibly some of his nonfiction, too.

89) An Illicit Temptation, by Jeannie Lin. A short novella (or long short story--I'm never sure where these lines are drawn) featuring a secondary character from My Fair Concubine. Like Lin's other books, it's set during the Tang Dynasty, though it takes place among the nomadic Khitan people. (The heroine is a Chinese woman, purportedly royal, on the way to the Khitan ruler as a treaty bride.) A quick read that nonetheless feels satisfying and wholly fleshed out.

Any book I post about on this blog is one I liked enough to finish and therefore enough to recommend...but books #88 and and #89 were especially good reads, contenders for my top ten on the year. If you like mysteries or historical romance, give them a try.

What I've read so far in 2012

LibraryThing has a 75 Books in 2012 Challenge. Before I went back to work full time when my daughter was 18 months old, I used to read 125-150 books a year. Since then, I haven't counted, because I've been afraid the number would depress me with its smallness. But this year I decided to shoot for 75. Surely that's doable.

Anyway, here's what I've read so far in 2012, shamelessly copied from my LibraryThing thread. Lest you think, "Of course you'll make 75. You're on pace for around 200," I was home sick with a bad cold for a good chunk of last week and had more reading time than normal.

1) Chain Reaction, by Simone Elkeles. It's the third book in a YA trilogy. Unusually gritty, sexy, and violent for its genre, but in a good way--at least to read. When I reflect that my daughter will be the age of the main characters in just 10 years, I hope that her life, like mine, will be tame, peaceful, and boring by comparison!

2) The Hundred Days, by Edith Saunders. This is only one of several Waterloo books I plan to read in the next couple months, since my current novel-in-process is partially set there. Saunders takes more of a big picture view than a lot of the Waterloo books on my shelves, so you don't get a play-by-play of the battle, but she includes more of the behind-the-scenes political machinations in France before and after the battle, which gives you a better sense of the context. And during the battle sections, she does a good job of showing what was happening with the Prussians, the French under Marshal Grouchy, etc. throughout the day, so you see their impact on the final outcome. She's no great lover of Napoleon, but neither am I, so that didn't bother me.

3) How Few Remain, by Harry Turtledove. An alternate history of a world where the South won the Civil War that held my interest, though somehow the characters (all real historical figures re-imagined) never quite hooked me. I don't know if there were too many point-of-view characters and plot threads or what, but instead of looking for the next book in the series, I was satisfied to find plot synopses online to see how Turtledove's version of the world plays out.

4) Heat Rises, by "Richard Castle." Castle is my current favorite TV series (mm, Nathan Fillion), and I've enjoyed the three "Nikki Heat" tie-in novels for all the meta references to the show. Obviously not the deepest book I've ever read, but in my view there's nothing wrong with reading purely for entertainment (I won't call it a guilty pleasure, even, because AFAIC there's nothing to be guilty about), and this was a perfect read for a day spent curled up in bed between doses of DayQuil.

5) Eat that Frog, by Brian Tracy. As a writer not yet in a position to quit my full-time day job, I tend to collect time management books. This one, picked up on the cheap a few days ago as a Kindle Daily Deal, is nothing I haven't heard before, but it was a quick read with some useful tips. Its focus is on identifying your most critical tasks and doing them first, since you really DON'T have time to finish everything.

6) Waterloo 1815 - Captain Mercer's Journal, by Cavalie Mercer, edited by WH Fichett, introduction by Bob Carruthers. Almost every nonfiction work on Waterloo I've read contains quotes from Cavalie Mercer, a British artillery captain with a gift for vivid, descriptive writing who took part in the battle. I didn't realize when I bought this book that it's an abridged version of his journal, and I'll probably keep digging around until I find the whole thing. For research purposes I was hoping for more details of day-to-day life in the weeks and days leading up to the battle than the abridgment provided.

2011 - my year in reading

I guess I'm a little late to the party for my Best of 2011 list, but that only fits, since over half my list is books I read in 2011 with earlier copyright dates. I've never been very good about reading books the instant they come out, unless it's an ongoing series whose last book ended on a cliffhanger or one of my handful of A+++ most beloved authors.

It was a good reading year for me. Here's hoping 2012 will bring some awesome new discoveries, since it looks like something of a drought for cliffhanger/best-beloved books. Diana Gabaldon's Written in My Own Heart's Blood probably won't appear till sometime in 2013, likewise for Julia Spencer-Fleming's next Russ/Clare book. No Sharpe or Starbuck in Bernard Cornwell's pipeline that I'm aware of. I haven't heard anything about a release date for the Ivan book Lois McMaster Bujold is supposedly working on, and I'm in serious Barrayar withdrawal! Jacqueline Carey is at least on a break from and possibly done with Terre D'Ange, and I think the same may be the case for Lindsey Davis and Marcus Didius Falco (though Master & God looks interesting). And let's just say I hope George RR Martin gets his next out before the TV series catches up with it. Before my daughter starts high school is probably more realistic (she's in 2nd grade).

Don't get me wrong, none of these authors need to write faster or write what I want instead of what their muse gives them. I just don't have anything preordered months in advance right now, and I kinda miss it.

Anyway, back to 2011.

Favorite Debut Book

No Proper Lady, by Isabel Cooper. Fantasy romance that gets the balance between the two genres just right, IMO.

Favorite 2011 fiction

A Lily Among Thorns, by Rose Lerner. Solomon is one of my favorite romance heroes ever--the genre could use more brainy betas like him.

Unveiled, by Courtney Milan. Beautiful, character-driven romance.

One Was a Soldier, by Julia Spencer-Fleming. Another stunning entry in the series that won me over to contemporary-set mysteries.

Captive Bride, by Bonnie Dee. A gem of a historical romance that makes its unusual setting (1870's San Francisco) and interracial love story work.

Favorite fiction published before 2011 I just now got around to reading

The Mischief of the Mistletoe, by Lauren Willig (2010). Just a delightful, frothy Regency romp.

Linnets and Valerians, by Elizabeth Goudge (1964). Children's fantasy set in early 20th century England. I think it would appeal to readers of anything from Narnia to Harry Potter to A Wrinkle in Time to Anne of Green Gables.

Lady Elizabeth's Comet, by Sheila Simonson (1986). Traditional Regency that feels especially grounded in the voice and values of the time.

Can't Stand the Heat, by Louisa Edwards (2009). Contemporary romance after my foodie city-girl heart.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, by Helen Simonson (2010). A refreshing, subtle love story with older protagonists.

A Clash of Kings, by George RR Martin (1998). After getting hooked on Game of Thrones on HBO, I glommed the entire series, but I think this second book is the strongest.

Memory (1996), Komarr (1998), and A Civil Campaign (1999), by Lois McMaster Bujold. The brightest jewels in the sparkling crown that is the Vorkosigan Saga. I can't say enough about how much I love this whole series, but these are the ones I'd take with me to the proverbial desert island.

Buried Treasures

Just in time for the last-minute holiday shopper (or anyone looking for a good airplane read), I thought I'd do a post recommending some of my favorite buried treasures. This isn't a Best Reads of 2011 list--I'm saving that for January, since I typically get a lot of reading in over the last two weeks of December between long plane rides and being away from work. These are just books I think deserve more buzz and a wider audience.

I didn't give myself any hard and fast rules for what constitutes a buried treasure. Most of them are little-known books by little-known authors, but I threw in a few lesser-known works by popular or classic authors, especially when my favorite isn't the book or series that gets all the buzz.

However, since this is meant to be a shopping guide of sorts, I limited myself to books readily available new in either print or electronic form, priced no higher than $12 or so. Which meant saying no to Clyde Edgerton's Raney, though I love his Southern voice and reading it is like stepping back into my 70's and 80's Alabama childhood. It also ruled out Pat of Silver Bush and Mistress Pat, though I swear everything else LM Montgomery wrote is readily available.

In no particular order:

Assiniboin Girl, by Kathi Wallace
Buy for Kindle

This book was originally published by the now-defunct Drollerie Press, but it looks like Wallace has re-released it as a self-published Kindle book. It's a YA coming-of-age story about a Native American girl who's grown up in New York knowing little about her heritage, but, after being orphaned and sent to live with an aunt and then her extended family on the reservation, develops a deeper connection to her past. With a certain amount of what I guess could be described as magic realism. It's a difficult book to describe or categorize, and it's not the most polished work I've ever read, but I couldn't put it down.

No Quarter, by Broos Campbell
Buy for Kindle
Buy for Nook
Buy the paperback from Powell's (though the price is above my target range)



Age of Sail (1799, to be specific), but in the American navy. First in a series following Matty Graves, a young midshipman just setting out on his career. Campbell has a wonderful American historical voice and a way for bringing little-known corners of history to light. I'd love to see the three books that are out so far become big hits so he can keep writing and follow Graves all the way through the War of 1812. If you like Patrick O'Brian or Bernard Cornwell (very different voices, I know, but Campbell's voice is different from both), do give this series a try.

And, doesn't the second book in the series, The War of Knives, have a gorgeous cover, in a badass war story way?

In This House of Brede, by Rumer Godden. (not available in ebook)
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Buy from Powell's

If you looked at the rest of my bookshelf (or even just the rest of this list), you'd never guess that one of my favorite books of all time is this quiet, rambling story of Benedictine nuns in mid-20th century England. But it is. Almost all my favorite books share a strong sense of place and communities of characters who seem so real to me I feel like I could step into the story and know how to fit into its world. Brede Abbey and Dame Philippa, Sister Cecily, Sister Hilary, Dame Catherine, and the rest are one of those communities to me, just like Narnia, Barrayar, Terre d'Ange, Peter Wimsey's London, or Marcus Didius Falco's Rome.

Captive Bride, by Bonnie Dee
Buy for Kindle
Buy for Nook
Buy from Carina Press



(Speaking of covers, isn't this one a beauty?)

I will always at least try a historical romance with an unusual setting, and this interracial romance set in 1870 San Francisco worked for me. Dee made me completely believe her hero and heroine found true love and deep knowledge of each other despite lacking a common language at first, and also that they would find a way to make their cross-cultural relationship work despite all the challenges they would face in their place and time. Also, I would love to see more historical romances set on the West Coast, as opposed to the conventional Westerns with deserts and cowboys. Give me more of the early days of places like Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco, please!

Eight Cousins/Rose in Bloom, by Louisa May Alcott
Both free for Kindle.
Or $0.99 for both for Nook
Or you can pay a little more for the paperbacks

Not that obscure a pair of books, obviously, but I think fewer people have read them than Little Women or An Old-Fashioned Girl. They're actually my favorite Alcott books, I think because they're the only ones in which the heroine marries the same man I would've chosen myself.

The Golden Key, by Melanie Rawn, Jennifer Roberson, and Kate Elliott (not available for Kindle)
Buy from Amazon
Buy for the Nook
Buy from Tattered Cover



This book blew my mind when I first read it over a decade ago. You mean fantasy isn't just swords and sorcery? Fantasy cultures are allowed to evolve and change technologically and politically just like real ones? You mean magic could take a form other than potions or wands and spells? (In this case, paints.) Now that I've also discovered Guy Gavriel Kay, Jacqueline Carey, George RR Martin, and Lois McMaster Bujold, to name just a few, it no longer seems so unique and revolutionary, but it's still an excellent book.

The Winter King, by Bernard Cornwell (print only)
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Buy from the Tattered Cover

Don't get me wrong, I love Sharpe and wish Cornwell would get back to the Starbuck series. But I think his Arthurian trilogy, which begins with this book, is the best thing he's ever written.

Lady Elizabeth's Comet, by Sheila Simonson
Buy for Kindle
Buy for Nook

One of the many traditional Regency romances that's gained a new lease on life as an e-book, and the most delightful and freshly written one I've found.

The Old Buzzard Had it Coming, by Donis Casey
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Buy for Nook
Buy the paperback from Powell's

First in one of my all-time favorite historical mystery series. The heroine, Alafair Tucker, a farmer's wife in early 20th century Oklahoma, is a surprisingly effective amateur sleuth, and the books have what I always love in my historical fiction, a vivid sense of place and time. The first book is only $0.99 for Kindle and Nook, so if you enjoy mystery at all, give this one a try.