Marla Mason #2:
Poison Sleep
by T.A. Pratt

The bad girl of the magical underworld is back and badder than ever.
Someone wants Marla Mason dead. Usually that’s not news. As chief sorcerer of Felport, someone always wants her dead. But this time she’s the target of a renegade assassin who specializes in killing his victims over days, months, or even years. Not to mention a mysterious knife-wielding killer in black who pops up in the most unexpected places. To make matters worse, an inmate has broken out of the Blackwing Institute for criminally insane sorcerers—a troubled psychic who can literally reweave the fabric of reality to match her own traumatic past.
With her wisecracking partner Rondeau reluctantly in tow, Marla teams up with a “love-talker” whose dangerous erotic spells not even she can resist. Together they’re searching the rapidly transforming streets of Felport for a woman who’s become the Typhoid Mary of nightmares, infecting everything — and everyone — she touches with a chaos worse than death itself.

Why I Read This
I own the first three novels to this series, and I liked the first book.

First Lines

“The Bentley squealed to a halt at the top of the icy horseshoe driveway before the looming brick face of the Blackwing Institute. Marla leapt from the passenger side and rushed for the front doors, purple-and-white cloak billowing after her in the gusty winter wind.

☂☂☂.5

Marla is just as snipey and down-to-business as the first book, but we see a slightly less-prickly side of her as she gets hilariously smitten over love-talker Joshua, and employs a dying man off the street. The themes dealt with in this book are radically different from the myths and prophecies in the first, focusing instead around the various deviations of sexual attraction and power (though I wouldn't call this "steamy" lol). The twists and bends of character betrayals and deaths keep the story interesting, even if there's less action-packed violence.

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Nightrunner #1:
Luck in the Shadows ♥
by Lynn Flewelling

When young Alec of Kerry is taken prisoner for a crime he didn’t commit, he is certain that his life is at an end. But one thing he never expected was his cellmate.
Spy, rogue, thief, and noble, Seregil of Rhiminee is many things – none of them predictable. And when he offers to take on Alec as his apprentice, things may never be the same for either of them. Soon Alec is traveling roads he never knew existed, toward a war he never suspected was brewing.
Before long he and Seregil are embroiled in a sinister plot that runs deeper than either can imagine, and that may cost them far more than their lives if they fail. But fortune is as unpredictable as Alec’s new mentor, and this time there just might be...Luck in the Shadows.

Why I Read This
Recommended on many blogs/sites as a good glbt fantasy that's a touch less romance and more action.

First Lines

“Asengai's torturers were regular in their habits—they always left off at sunset.
Chained again in his corner of the drafty cell, Alec turned his face to the rough stone wall and sobbed until his chest ached.

☂☂☂☂.5

A great GLBT fantasy that doesn't rush into a storm of UST and smut. Seregil and Alec share a slow-building relationship, from strangers to master-apprentice, to close friends and equals. The relationship plot does not push aside the fleshed-out minor characters and their web of complex motives, while the adventure plot is well thought out, and not overshadowed by relationship angst. A great first novel to a series that promises well-paced action, strong personalities, and a budding romance built on friendship and trust rather than pure UST and lust.

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Parasol Protectorate #1:
Soulless ♥
by Gail Carriger

Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.
Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire -- and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.
With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London's high society? Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart?

Why I Read This
Paranormal steampunk sounded like such an awesome mesh, plus I loved the style of humor on the back cover blurb =D

First Lines

Miss Alexia Tarabotti was not enjoying her evening. Private balls were never more than middling amusements for spinsters, and Miss Tarabotti was not the kind of spinster who could garner even that much pleasure from the event. To put the pudding in the puff: she had retreated to the library, her favorite sanctuary in any house, only to happen upon an unexpected vampire.
She glared at the vampire.

☂☂☂☂.5

It has been utterly too long a time since I've giggled my way through an entire novel - in the good way. This novel is filled with intricate world-building, smoothly blending paranormal oddities within a steampunk setting. The most winning part of all however, has definitely got to be the incredibly quirky, yet sympathizing and adore-able characters, major and minor. There is no cliffhanger ending, but this is the kind of book where you'll be pining for the sequel just to meet the characters again.

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Sherlock Holmes Anthologies #1:
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
by Arthur Conan Doyle

This is a series of short stories about a detective Sherlock Holmes, and his assistant, Dr. Watson. The detective is at the height of his powers and the volume is full of famous cases, including:
"The Red-Headed League"
"The Blue Carbuncle"
and "The Speckled Band."

Why I Read This
Listening to the entire original Sherlock Holmes collection narrated by John Telfer. Even though I read (parts) of this before, I'm still up for a refresher on the details I may have forgotten.

First Lines

“To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position...

(from Scandal in Bohemia)

☂☂☂☂

This is a reread for me, and as such with rereads of mystery novels, it's harder to be surprised. That said, I did deeply enjoy the majority of the stories as I recognized the little clues dropped here and there along the way. I am also continuously surprised at the range of voices Mr. Telfer is able to emulate, it is almost like listening to a full-cast show!

review posted to goodreads

Star Trek Academy #1:
Collision Course
by William Shatner
with Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens

Young Jim Kirk wants nothing to do with Starfleet, and never wants to leave Earth. In the summer of 2249, he's a headstrong seventeen-year-old barely scraping by in San Francisco, haunted by horrific memories from his past.
In the same city, a nineteen-year-old alien named Spock is determined to rise above the emotional turmoil of his mixed-species heritage. He's determined to show his parents he has what it takes to be Vulcan - even if it means exposing a mysterious conspiracy at the heart of the Vulcan Embassy, stretching to the farthest reaches of the Federation's borders. There, a chilling new threat has arisen to test the Federation's deepest held belief that war is a thing of the past and that a secure future can be forged through peaceful means alone. But it is in San Francisco, home to Starfleet Academy, where that threat will be met by two troubled teenage boys driven to solve the mystery that links them both.
In time, the universe will come to know these young rebels as Captain James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock...two of the Federation's greatest heroes. Yet before they were heroes, they were simply conflicted teenagers, filled with raw ambition and talent, not yet seasoned by wisdom and experience, searching for their own unique directions in life - a destiny they'll discover on one fateful night in San Francisco, when two lives collide, and two legends are born.

Why I Read This
Was on a Star Trek high when the 2009 movie came out and proceeded to watch most of the first 2 seasons of the original series. I ended up liking the original series more than the new movie, so I was curious how Mr. Shatner (the actor for the original Kirk) interpreted the First Meeting.

First Lines

“That first night in San Francisco when it all began was cool and gray and thick with fog. Soft billows of it drifted over the Academy, causing its tall locked gates to phase in and out of visibility for the teenager dressed in black, lost in the shadows across Pacific Street.

☂☂☂☂

An unexpectedly intricate mystery is woven neatly alongside the themes of teenage rebellion, institutional corruption, and the slightly overdramatized flashbacks to the murky past of a young Jimmy Kirk. The struggles both teens have to overcome - Spock's search for his place between the Vulcan and human races, and Kirk's reluctant admiration for the very institution he has grown up to resent - urges along character development and the beginnings of a mutually supportive friendship. I am quite disappointed of the less than satisfying portrayals of female characters, as well as the lack of PoC characters, but casual readers should have no problems enjoying this read. I should also mention that, while there are ample descriptions of high-tech settings and props, I found this novel quite accessible for non-sci-fi fans as well.

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Sherlock Holmes Novels #2:
The Sign of the Four
by Arthur Conan Doyle

It is in this, the second Holmes novel, that the great detective comes fully to life - not only as a melancholic and an inscrutable master of deduction, but also as an incurable drug addict.
"Which is it today?" Watson asks Holmes matter-of-factly on the opening page of the novel, "morphine or cocaine?"
"It is cocaine," Holmes famously replies. "A seven-per-cent solution. Would you like to try it?"
Mary Morstan comes to Holmes in the hope that he will be able to solve a mystery. Ten years earlier her father, Captain Arthur Morstan, had returned to London on leave from his regiment in India where it is said that he and one Thadeus Sholto, "came into possession of a considerable treasure." By the time his daughter arrived at his hotel, he had vanished without a trace.

Why I Read This
Obviously, having just finished A Study in Scarlet and fallen in love with John Telfer's narration, I immediately started listening to this second book in the Sherlock Holmes chronicles. A secondary reason for my enthusiasm is probably because this book tackles two topics I never quite gleamed from my first contact with the series those years ago: Holmes' drug addiction, and Watson's (second?) wife, Mary. Mary especially was a character I wanted to know more about because the 2009 film completely glossed her over as the token love interest.

First Lines

“Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel-piece and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt-cuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the velvet-lined arm-chair with a long sigh of satisfaction.

☂☂☂☂.5

I'm glad that Mr. Doyle has understood that audiences did not much enjoy the 5 chapters of criminal exposition (from the first book) as much when Holmes is not there to deduce the hell out of stuff. This second novel of the Sherlock Holmes series delves further into the personal lives of both Holmes and Watson, yet maintains the quality of plot and pacing that the first book had offered.

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Sherlock Holmes Novels #1:
A Study in Scarlet
by Arthur Conan Doyle

In this, the first Holmes mystery, the detective introduces himself to Dr. John H. Watson with the puzzling line "You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive."
And so begins Watson's, and the world's, fascination with this enigmatic character.
Doyle presents two equally perplexing mysteries for Holmes to solve: one a murder that takes place in the shadowy outskirts of London, in a locked room where the haunting word Rache is written upon the wall, the other a kidnapping set in the American West.
Quickly picking up the "scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life," Holmes does not fail at finding the truth - and making literary history.

Why I Read This
I've been a fan of Hound of the Baskervilles ever since I read it as a middle-schooler, but alas I was not particularly well-versed in the concept of "series" then and had thought the book a standalone. By the time I was in high school, I had read a few more Sherlock Holmes mysteries (The Speckled Band, The Red-Headed League) but I had temporarily lost interest in reading. The most recent movie reboot, though rather different from what I remembered from the canon, had resparked my interest in the series and now I'm working my way through the entire audio book collection, read by the amazing voice of John Telfer. Oh, and did I mention all Sherlock Holmes ebooks and audio books (except Casebook in the US) are public domain, meaning they are available for legal downloads at sites like Project Gutenberg and AudioBooksForFree?

First Lines

“In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army.

☂☂☂☂

This introduction of the uniquely gifted detective Sherlock Holmes, seen through the eyes of the humble ex-army doctor John Watson, appeals as both a historical mystery, as well as a deeply entertaining portrait of the eccentric sleuth. It was fun to follow along with the easily sympathized Watson as he struggles to figure out both what Holmes has already been able to deduce from the mystery, as well as the great mystery of Holmes himself. Even though I was not particularly interested in the 5 chapters of the criminal's backstory, John Telfer did an amazing job voicing both an excitable and gentlemanly Watson, as well as a soft-spoken and thoughtful Holmes. So, if you are planning to listen to this series in audio, I highly recommend Mr. Telfer as your narrator of choice.

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Fight Club ♥
by Chuck Palahniuk

The first rule about fight club is you don't talk about fight club.
Chuck Palahniuk's outrageous and startling debut novel that exploded American literature and spawned a movement. Every weekend, in the basements and parking lots of bars across the country, young men with white-collar jobs and failed lives take off their shoes and shirts and fight each other barehanded just as long as they have to. Then they go back to those jobs with blackened eyes and loosened teeth and the sense that they can handle anything. Fight club is the invention of Tyler Durden, projectionist, waiter, and dark, anarchic genius, and it's only the beginning of his plans for violent revenge on an empty consumer-culture world.

Why I Read This
Assigned for my Media Theory: Consumerism class.

First Lines

“Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler's pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die. For a long time though, Tyler and I were best friends. People are always asking, did I know about Tyler Durden.

☂☂☂☂

A psychological thriller with overt critique on consumerism and wasteful spending, as well as the meaning of being a man in a "generation of men raised by women". The narrator is unintentionally funny in the deadpan way, and while the story skips between events and timelines, it is all the more like you are living inside his insomnia-plagued head. The twist at about two-thirds of the way in was very well played, and ties together a lot of the quirks and seemingly innocently repeated lines since the beginning. There are blatant statements of misogyny towards women, but then again this book details all the wrong ways consumer madness can go. Very effective as a critique, but also works as a grossly intricate and thrilling story.

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The Strangler ♥
by William Landay

For the three Daley brothers, sons of a Boston cop, crime is the family business. They are simply on different sides of it. Joe is the eldest, a tough-talking cop whose gambling habit — fast women, slow horses — draws him into the city's gangland. Michael is the middle son; a Harvard-educated lawyer for an ambitious Attorney General, Michael finds himself assigned to the embattled Strangler task force. And Ricky, the devil-may-care youngest son, floats above the fray as a professional burglar — until the Strangler strikes too close to home.
As Joe's mob debts close in around him...and Michael becomes snarled in a murder investigation gone very wrong...and Ricky is hunted by both sides of the law...the three brothers — and the women who love them — are forced to one another's sides. Now, each must look deeper into a killer's murderous rage, into their family's own deadly secrets, and into the one death that has changed each of them forever. As William Landay's electrifying novel builds to a climax, bonds will be broken, the Strangler case will violently unravel, and two mysteries will converge and collide — until a shattering truth is revealed.

Why I Read This
I found this book at a foreign languages bookstore in Xi'an, China while on a roadtrip with my family. It was one of the only books I found interesting, and that was mostly due to the fact that there were brothers in it. I have no resistance against stories with brother-dynamics, and the premise of this - three brothers on different sides of the law - intrigued me to no end. Suffice to say I was expecting them to turn on each other or something at first, but I am just as happy having them work together.

First Lines

“Ricky Daley: In the subway: twenty swaying grief-stunned faces. A man insensible of his own leg pistoning up and down, tapping tat-tat-tat-tat-tat on the floor. At Boylston Street the track curved, the steel wheels shrieked against the rails, and the lights flickered off. Passengers let their eyes close, like a congregation beginning a silent prayer. When the lights came on again and their eyes opened, Ricky Daley was watching them.

☂☂☂☂.5

While the title and setting directly references the Boston Strangler's case, this book is more of a story set in the periphery of the fuss. It explores the brothers' varied relationships with their family, their heritage, and their jobs, as well as both mental and physical struggles and consequences they face as they become entangled in the world of serial killers and mob bosses. The subtle twists and turns impact more emotionally than thrillingly, but that's what makes this story so wonderfully character-centric.

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Marla Mason #1:
Blood Engines
by T.A. Pratt

Meet Marla Mason - smart, saucy, slightly wicked witch of the East Coast...
Sorcerer Marla Mason, small-time guardian of the city of Felport, has a big problem. A rival is preparing a powerful spell that could end Marla's life - and, even worse, wreck her city. Marla's only chance of survival is to boost her powers with the Cornerstone, a magical artifact hidden somewhere in San Francisco. But when she arrives there, Marla finds that the quest isn't going to be quite as cut-and-dried as she expected...and that some of the people she needs to talk to are dead. It seems that San Francisco's top sorcerers are having troubles of their own - a mysterious assailant has the city's magical community in a panic, and the local talent is being (gruesomely) picked off one by one.
With her partner-in-crime, Rondeau, Marla is soon racing against time through San Francisco's alien streets, dodging poisonous frogs, murderous hummingbirds, cannibals, and a nasty vibe from the local witchery, who suspect that Marla herself may be behind the recent murders. And if Marla doesn't figure out who is killing the city's finest in time, she'll be in danger of becoming a magical statistic herself...

Why I Read This
I actually discovered Dead Reign, the third book in the series, as I was browsing for Terry Prachett books. The fact that Marla's face is half-hidden by her cloak on that cover really was sort of an anomaly since many covers use the model's face as a seller. I thought this meant that the main character was not conventional, and I am very glad I was right.
After getting the feel of the premise and reading the first few pages of the second book, I immediately added it and book three (the only ones in the store) to my shopping cart. My friend Ah Yuan of GAL Novelty later got me this first volume from a used book store.

First Lines

“Marla Mason crouched in the alley beside the City Lights book store and threw her runes. The square of royal-purple velvet spread before her on the ground was covered by a scattering of objects -- a garlic clove, a withered cigarette butt, a two-headed novelty quarter, fingernail clippings, and the stone from the head of a toad.

☂☂☂☂

This series is a refreshing look at magic that is tied to the contemporary world and its technologies. The characters are well fleshed-out in their motivations and controversial tastes through an open-minded main character, introducing marginal world-views without bastardizing them. Overall an exciting and thought-provoking read with fast-paced action and a no-nonsense anti-heroine leading the charge.

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Doctrine of Labyrinths #2:
The Virtu ♥
by Sarah Monette

Felix Harrowgate was a dashing and powerful wizard until his former master wrenched Felix’s magic from him and used it to shatter the Virtu — the orb that is the keystone for the protections and magic of the wizards of the city. Felix has painfully clawed his way back to sanity, and his only chance to reclaim the life he once knew is to repair the seemingly irreparable — to restore the Virtu.
Mildmay the Fox was an assassin and a cat burglar — until a curse caught up with him and his life changed forever. Haunted by death, his leg damaged by the curse that should have killed him, he does not know what awaits him in Mélusine, but for good or ill, his fate is tied to Felix’s, by blood...and by magic.
On their journey, Felix and Mildmay will encounter friends and enemies old and new, vengeful spirits and ancient goddesses. They will uncover secrets better left buried. But nothing can prepare them for what awaits their return: Felix’s former master, the cruel and decadent wizard Malkar Gennadion...

Why I Read This
I really liked the beginning of the sane relationship between Felix and Mildmay from the first book and this book seemed like the direct continuation. Then, GAL Novelty, who has also read this series, said that this second book would appeal to my love for Mildmay.
Plus, the cover is gorgeous and I can rarely deny reading a book with a beautiful cover - my love for Mildmay is a bonus - so I began this right away after Mélusine and got through this volume in one day. I was reading through the entire night and had morning class the next day, but it was worth the erratic 4 hour nap I took at noon.

First Lines

“Mildmay: When I opened the door, I could tell that Thamuris was dosed to the gills on laudanum.
"You sure about this?" I said.
Thamuris came drifting into the room like a ghost. His feet were bare, and his hair was down, and he was wearing something that looked basically like a bedsheet. I hoped like fuck nobody’d noticed him on his way here. "I have to," he said, and there was something about the way he said it -- I can’t explain it, but I knew there wasn’t a thing in the world I could say that would mean anything to him. He was past the point where anybody could talk him down. I took a deep breath, let it out, admitted to myself that I was going to get in trouble over this and I was okay with it. Then I shut the door and said, "What d’you want me to do?"

☂☂☂☂

A great improvement since the first book in terms of both writing and characters. This "sequel" feels more like a direct continuation of the previous book and focuses much more on the half-brothers' relationship - and their struggles to define it. Signs are showing of actual character development, as well as a growing mythology surrounding the mysterious cult of the labyrinths. However, there are still gay relationships, and the incest has increased about two-fold (which still isn't much), so read at your own discretion.

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Doctrine of Labyrinths #1:
Mélusine
by Sarah Monette

Mélusine - a city of secrets and lies, pleasure and pain, magic and corruption, and destinies lost and found...
Felix Harrowgate is a dashing, highly respected wizard. But the horrors of his past as an abused slave have returned, and threaten to destroy all he has since become.
As a cat burglar, Mildmay the Fox is used to being hunted. But now he has been caught by a wizard. And yet the wizard was looking not for Mildmay, but for Felix Harrowgate...Thrown together by fate, these unlikely allies will uncover a shocking secret that will link them inexorably together.

Why I Read This
I had been on a rampage looking for books that feature brothers recently and remembered GAL Novelty mentioning this series a while ago. I do admit that some of the tags (incest and lgbt to be exact) made me curious, but cautious too, and I had resolved to put it away if the incest bothered me (er, being a fan of Kaori Yuki's Angel Sanctuary though, it wasn't likely lol). However, I immediately fell in love with Mildmay, and no matter how obnoxious/insane Felix is, I could not stop reading until I saw the brothers complete their journey.

First Lines

“Felix: The Hall of the Chimeras, having no windows, was lit by seven massive candelabra hanging above the mosaic floor like monstrous birds of prey. Their fledglings, twisted iron stands crowned with candles, rose up at intervals along the floor, interspersed with the busts of dead and ancient kings. At the east end of the hall -- not that east and west mattered in the great, labyrinthine bulk of the Mirador -- the Virtu of the Mirador on its obsidian plinth cast its own strange, underwater light, which reached down to touch the steel spearheads of the Lord Protector’s throne, but reached no farther.

☂☂☂.5

While the world and the characters were interesting and vibrant, the writing was hard to appreciate. I have to say though, I was completely pulled in by the 'brothers' premise, and I loved Mildmay very very much, so I may be a bit biased on the ratings here. Also, this book has gay relationships, violent rape and even a dash of incest, so read at your own discretion.

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Kingdom Come
by J.G. Ballard

A gunman opens fire in a shopping mall. Not a terrorist, apparently, but a madman with a rifle. Or not, as he is mysteriously (and quickly) set free without charge...
One of the victims is the father of Richard Pearson, unemployed advertising executive and life-long rebel. Now he is driving out to Brooklands, the apparently peaceful town on the M25 which has at its heart the very shining shoppers’ paradise where the shooting happened – the Metro-Centre.
Then the main suspect is released – thanks to the testimony of self-styled pillars of the community like the doctor who treated Richard’s father on his deathbed. Richard, determined to unravel the mystery, starts to believe that something deeply sinister lurks behind the pristine façades of the labyrinthine mall, its 24-hour cable TV and sports club...

Why I Read This
Assigned for an essay in my Media Theory: Consumerism class.

First Lines

“The suburbs dream of violence. Asleep in their drowsy villas, sheltered by benevolent shopping malls, they wait patiently for the nightmares that will wake them into a more passionate world.

☂☂☂.5

I did enjoy this book as a metaphor-littered philosophical thriller, and it beats the hell out of reading an academic essay on the same topic, but I was a little disappointed in the lack of focus on individual characters/personality.

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