Vampyres of Hollywood

Vampyres of Hollywood by Adrienne Barbeau
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I stand by my earlier statement in a review of a vampire book where the author had changed the vampire rules so that they could walk in the sun: YOU RUIN VAMPIRES AND YOU RUIN THE TENSION. There is something deliciously dark (no pun, or maybe, yes, pun intended) about having to live in the night.  Darn it! They are creatures of the night! When you change it, you ruin it.  I'm sorry, that's just the way I feel. Moving on....

So, the rest of this story features a madcap murder mystery that barely holds together.  It is told in alternating chapters by the police detective and the Chatelaine of Hollywood (head vampire and scream queen actress) as they both try to figure out who is killing actors, agents, directors.  There is some language and mentions of bondage and S&M clubs and the sheer brutality and gore of the murder scenes pop this up to 11th grade at least if not a faculty read.

I think the authors traded in a fast moving plot for character development.  I never felt an emotional connection to any of the main characters and therefore didn't care if they lived or died, making it hard to get through the end of the book.  I did finish it, but at the end instead of being breathless at the huge fight, I was ho hum.

And the huge fight at the end?  Doesn't make any sense.  It's not even worth writing a spoiler to try and figure it out.


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Death Comes to Pemberly

Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's tough to take on one of the most beloved books of all time.  Well, at least if you love Pride and Prejudice, you REALLY love it.  So, anyone messing with it had better get it right.


I've tried to read several books that were "sequels" to P&P mostly because I miss those characters so much that I want someone to get it right.  PD James does and she doesn't.  She does what she does best, which is write a mystery.  She tries really hard to stay true to the characters and to move us down the road to finding out what has happened and what is going to happen in their lives and for that I think she deserves some credit because she did do it in a pretty entertaining way.  I was intrigued enough to read the whole book and I am one of those people who will drop a book after the first 50 pages.


I think she also had a vision in mind for Lydia and Wickham (Did he do it? Will he be convicted?) and for that I love her.  You can tell that for all these years the way Austen left Lydia and Wickham in Elizabeth and Darcy's world as their family connection has bothered her and James needed to write out her own version of how to correct it for the Darcy's.  You have to love her for going to this trouble.


However, what is missing from the book is characterization.  We get a lot of plot and little of the entrancing interactions between characters that was so entertaining in P&P.  And that is where my chief disappointment lies.  She tried so hard and obviously had a clear vision of where she wanted to go.  She was thorough in her use of language of the time (although not as gifted as Austen, but who could be), but she lacked the interplay, dialog, scenes and outright fighting and comedy that marked P&P as such a classic.


In the end, it is worth reading to see her unique vision, but it is not a true sequel.  I am still waiting for that to be written.


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Philip K. Dick Award Winner Announced!

My favorite award was announced in April: the Philip K. Dick award. Last year's winner was one of the best books I read for the whole year! They pick awesome books. I highly recommend you go out and get the winners. I'm on my way to pick up this year's winner:

The winner for this year is Bitter Angels by C. L. Anderson.

A description of the book from Amazon.com:

An Imploding Star System.
A Murdered Galactic Spy.
A Woman Seeking the Truth—and Finding the Unbelievable…

The Erasmus System is a sprawling realm of slavery, smugglers, spies—and constant, creeping decrepitude. Here everyone who is not part of the ruling Four Families is a slave of one kind or another. But the Guardians, a special-forces branch inside the United World Government for Earth, have deemed Erasmus a “hot spot.” Somehow, it is believed, this failing colony intends to launch a war upon the solar system.

Ex-Field Commander Terese Drajeske, now a mother of three, has been called back to active duty and sent to Erasmus, ostensibly to investigate the murder of her colleague—and friend—Bianca Fayette. At first blush, the death defies explanation: Bianca was immortal. But beneath that single murder lies a twisted foundation of deceptions. Suddenly Terese is plunged into a vortex of shattered lives, endemic deceit, and one dreadful secret. In this society without hope, someone has put into motion a plan that will cast humanity into chaos. And Terese, who has given up her family and her sanity to prevent war, may be asked to make the ultimate sacrifice….

Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron by Jasper Fforde


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Jasper Fforde has done it again! He has created a totally new series that is startling in its strangeness and while it is lacking in the hilarity of his previous works, it is compelling and thoughtful.

Eddie Russett lives in a world far in the future where lives are defined by the color you see or don't see. There is a power struggle going on, a cruel struggle of those who see color against those who don't see any. It is a world of social order where rules are followed without being questioned and technology is abandoned by order of the government.

But Eddie is a questioner. And there the trouble begins.

This book is quite a departure for Fforde as it is much darker than his other works, but it is an excellent read.

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David Schickler - Great High School Author Visit

Last week we had author David Schickler come and visit our school to talk about fiction writing. He spoke to our AP Lang, AP Lit, Sophomore English and Creative Writing classes and he was wonderful. He was wonderfully interactive with the students and gave them great tips on how to make the writing pop.

While he wouldn't be a good author for younger audiences as he material is definitely upper school material, he was wonderful with the high school students. The AP teachers really liked him, which was quite a coup!

If you haven't read Kissing in Manhattan, here's my review of it. I really enjoy it.

Kissing in Manhattan by David Schickler


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
At first, I was unsure whether I would like this book as I tend to enjoy novels more than short stories. But this book is a bit of odd duck. It is a collection of short stories, but they all intertwine; characters from one story show up in the next and they are tied together by the Preemption Apartment building where the main characters live.

You get a real Sex in the City feel for the first story, but there is a character mentioned, James Branch, who is dining alone and repeating the name of his entree outloud to himself. Something about that one small mention made James stand out for me and so when he popped up again in a charming magical realism story about a pair of opal earrings, I was hooked. James, for me, is the overriding reason to read the book. He is kind and compassionate, although at the end his compassion is a bit hard to comprehend. He is the one you root for, one of those very sweet men that you know if they will just come out of their shell a bit, and if some woman would just give them a moment of their time, magic would happen, love would happen.

Some of the stories stand on their own, and others definitely need to lean on their fellow chapters. Regardless, this is a lovely and well-written book that is a delight to read. And while the negative comments of some of my book club members were that the women are weak and the men are too demanding, I think James Branch silences those quibbles. James and the woman he ends up with (name not given so as not to spoil the book) redeem that dark quality in other stories and bring it all to a hopeful end.

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Skim by Mariko Tamaki


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Amazing graphic novel. Beautiful story about a high school girl named Kimerly Keiko (Skim) Cameron, a would be Wiccan goth and how she is trying to make it through the day, the month, the year. Her best friend is really not so good, she thinks she has found love, but it breaks her heart. There is a suicide at school, drama in the hallway, drama at home and through it all Skim is trying to figure out who she is. This story is beautifully drawn. I highly recommend it.

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The Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Great urban fantasy book! Made me want to run out and find her other books and read them. She has a marvelous way of setting up characters, creating relationships, setting a plot into motion and telling a tale. If the details can get a bit murky, I can live with it. The exact nature of the Aunties and the relationship with the Gale men and wizards is left a bit vague and a bit distrubing, but nonetheless, this is a great read. It has liberal amounts of humor, great characters, awesome dialogue and action.


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Second Skin by Caitlin Kittredge


My rating: 1 of 5 stars
This third book really was a disappointment. Luna needs to do something. She needs to progress and actually move forward. She needs to figure out something about herself and then she needs to change her life. It's called character development. She keeps making the same mistakes over and over again. She keeps doing the same stupid things again and again and the same people tell her not to do it and she does it.

We get no details about anyone else. Most of the other people are mere window dressing. What is the big deal with her family? Why after three books do we still have no details? This mystery should not be coming out so slowly. We don't know enough about the characters to care to keep reading the series. We aren't invested. At least I am not.

I need more detail. I need real development and growth. There is a great world here. There is great potential and it isn't being realized. It's depressing.

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Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a book that everyone should read. It is the story of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and it quite simply is unbelievable, especially to an American who has had a very gentle life and upbringing. I could only read a little at a time because it is so heartbreaking and sad. In spite of the anguish one has at reading about her childhood in Somalia, Kenya and Saudia Arabia, where she endured genital mutilation and was beaten by her mother, grandmother, religious teacher and others, one comes to admire her for her stubborness in achieving great things. For her indomitable will and desire to learn and educate herself, to open her eyes and see what is in front of her and question what appears wrong and false. She was raised Muslim, but ends up renouncing it. The renounciation is not easy, quick or simple. It comes about over time, after abuses in the name of her former religion, at the hands of people who should be protecting her. Her life in the Netherlands shows her a different way to live. While she ends up as a member of the Dutch Parliament, the controversy over her renunciation is such that she must give up her post and flee to the US, where she is today.



If you know nothing of the situation in Africa or of how madrassas indoctrinate muslim youth, this book will give you one person's personal story of those things. It will inform you so that you do not just shake your head at genetial mutilation or at angry immigrants, but hopefully it will give you a small understanding of the confusion that exists in their countries and in their minds so that it clouds their thoughts and actions.



This is a tough book to read, but I challenge everyone to read it.


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Silent On The Moor by Deanna Raybourn

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book is the third in the Lady Julia Grey series. I read the first two books as audiobooks and they were very good, even if it was annoying for them to change narrators. the reviews for the new narrator for the third book were so universally bad that I bought it hardcopy instead. Great decision! Raybourn brings this third book in at 465 pages and I loved every one of them. Lady Julia has determined to go visit Brisbane, uninvited (oh horrors!8-), in the deeps of Yorkshire only to find another mystery centered in the estate he now owns: Grimsgrave.



Raybourn is a master of the gothic romance mystery. This book oozes atmosphere and you can almost feel the cloying moist fog as you try to cipher out the whodunnit. The chemistry between Lady Julia and Brisbane is electric, my only complaint being he has a very small role for the book taking place in his estate. There are some interesting developments between Lady Julia's siblings, but I don't want to give anything away. Suffice it to say, everyone grows and learns from this experience, even Mr. Pugglesworth.



This series is excellent for high school libraries because of the very Austen-esque romance (still to be consumated) and the high vocabulary level. I hope it hasn't ended with this book. While the book came to a satisfactory conclusion, I am still waiting for more.


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Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure by Michael Chabon

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book is a slim, charming read coming in at 196 pages. Chabon is probably better known for his extremely long and dense Pulitzer Prize winning The Adventures of Cavalier and Clay and The Yiddish Policemen's Union. This book is a twist off of what he usually writes. It's an adventure novel, what he calls a Jews with swords book. And it is delightful. Set in the far past, circa A.D. 950, Amram and Zelikman are adventurers who step into a controversy and decide to see it through to the end.



Each chapter begins with a fairly long witty title, the first chapter is called On Discord Arising from the Excessive Love of a Hat. From the titles you get the sense that this is an adventure book with a sense of whimsy. It is also a romantic tale, one filled with black humor and, surprisingly, elephants. There is a tortured hero. His partner is not just a sidekick, but a real partner and friend for life. They truly are Gentlemen of the Road. I recommend this for anyone who enjoys a good adventure novel, but most certainly for those snobs who like that adventure novels can't be good literature. This book proves them wrong.


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