Meeting wrap-up

We were down two people, Lyns and Donna get well soon, we missed you. So as well as DeAnn and Eva's my piece got reviewed as well. I said I suck, apparently I don't suck but then we all took this assignment and made it our own. Eva's vampires, DeAnn's "Obscure" fiction, my three in a storm shelter and Lyns' modern fairy tale. It was really good to do something different and also that agony of coming up with a first line - gone! 'cos it's been done for you. I admit I wrestled with doing this but it shook things up a bit and pulled us all out of our comfort zones.

Last month's assignment

God I really suck at this! We had to pick a good line from one of our favourite books. DeAnn got mine - Jasper Fforde of course - and I got the first line of The Corrections, from her I think. Our brief was to write a 500 to 1000 word story using that first line. Mine's done but I'm not happy with it and it will be interesting to see what the others thought of it. Not expecting good feedback on this.

Seven Deadly Wonders

Holy cow! When they say Matt Reiley does action really really well they are not kidding. This is soooo good and I'm only in the first 20 pages or so. If I didn't have anything else to do today or a writing group meeting to prepare for tonight I would just sit and devour this book. I bought SDW book on spec and I'm glad I did! It's like reading an action movie. Love it!

Scarpetta's Book of the Dead

Hmm. Took a while to get going - all that CSI stuff at the begining really slowed it down and the jumps in tense can make you pull out of the story a little. But, I'd say she's back. Much better than some of her recent stuff.

Kay and her team, including her computer whizz niece Lucy are trying to stop a killer, one who seems to leave no traces. His latest victim, tennis prodigy Drew Martin, killed in Rome. Along with Drew's baffling murder, and the coprse of an emaciated young boy, Scarpetta has them lining up to run her out of her new home of Charlestown, South Carolina. Funeral Home Directors with agendas. A coroner with secrets pretty close to Kay's home. Marino's reaction to her recent engagement to Wesley is so far over the top that he may regret his actions for the rest of his life and back spinning her deceitful web is Dr Marilyn Self who dropped off the airwaves with a family emergency right after Drew's murder. Self is out to torment Kay by hurting the people she loves, including Lucy and Benton. And then there's another murder.

Will be buying it in softback.

Carping about Carpe and books for this week

My brief flirtation with Latin has ended. That LNF title turned into a textbook half-way through and I really don't want to have to perform the mental gymnastics it takes to master a dead language. Been there, done that, got the 89% pass mark to prove it.

New Patricia Cornwell, Scarpetta too, coming out in October. I'm really excited about this one, hope it lives up to my expectations. Also Matt Reilly's Seven Deadly Wonders, yes - the Ice Station guy. This was the title that cracked the NYT best-seller list for him. We've got an ARC for his next one Six Sacred Stones but have to read SDW first. (New trend a countdown in every title?)

Books that aren't out yet

One of the perks of the job is getting ARCs (advanced readers copies) after all we have to have read the book before it comes into the store other how can we recommend it to anyone? I read a lot of Nicci French back home and up until now I hadn't twigged that "she" is actually "they" a husband and wife team - her first name and his last. The new one is called Losing You and it doesn't come out until April next year but I read it over the weekend and it's a gripping ride. I'll review it in full when it really comes out but its the kind of psychological thriller that stays with you long after you've read it especially if you have teenage children - I don't.

Still working my way through Making Money the new Terry Pratchett, still laughing my socks off.

I'm right in the middle of a LNF title called Carpe Diem which when it was published in the UK did for Latin what Eats Shoots and Leaves did for grammar. Now I learned Latin at school - for my sins - and it is scary just how much I absorbed - verbs, declensions (who knew there were more than that 3!) Interesting but we'll see if it takes off over here.