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Showing posts from March, 2011

Pegasus by Robin McKinley ‘…and they were haloed in all thee colours of thee rainbow.’

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A McKinley fan from way back, I’m unsure as to whether I enjoyed Pegasus because I’m a fan or for the story. It could simply be that I realize that I have to wait for the next book to be published and I am in no mood to leave this place. All the right ingredients are here but things seemed a little wordy to begin. We have a story filled with feisty and believable heroes, a Magician’s Guild with dastardly mages like Fthoom, ‘whose eyes glittered-like jewels in sunlight, not like human eyes at all’, pegi shamans; indeed a myriad of aspects colliding in the mystery of time and happenstance, of tradition and what is and what could be. Towards the end of the book I had more questions than at the beginning. I found myself fearful of what the future holds for this amazing world—what wicked plots. It seems an unnamed dread overshadows the pegi-human alliance, possibly its very survival. Overtones point to Fthoom as a key player here. The cross cultural relationships between Pegasus and human,

Serpent in the Thorns by Jeri Westerson

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'announce me to you master...the name is Crispin Guest' Murder and courtly intrigue recalling the people involved in the Tracker’s fall from grace are woven into Book 2 of the Crispin Guest novels including Lancaster, the Abbot of Westminster Abbey, and of course Richard. As a character, Guest has developed further in Westerson’s second novel. He’s rounding out, has substance and feels like an old friend. He’s still being beaten up by the Sheriff, still stiff with pride about being a knight and the inherent differences in class in 14 th Century England , and still quoting Socrates. We glimpse his unbroken ideals when he talks about his philosophy about life to Liveth. She asks him, ‘Why not become an outlaw on the highways? Other knights struck by poverty take to it readily enough.’ Eventually Crispin replies that life is more than climbing out of poverty, ‘…men need a challenge. They need to feel useful, that they fill an important place in the world.’   (p.108) ‘ The Tr

ramblings across readings of renown

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So I've just reread Veil of Lies (thank you local library) by Jeri Westerson as a prelude to reading her latest novel ,  The Demon's Parchment. This has been burning a hole in my Kindle pocket since I bought it before Christmas - as a re a couple of titles. Now to reread Serpent in the Thorns and then start on my Westerson's latest title! Yay! Oh! I did divert by way of Robin McKinley's new title Pegasus , and then of course had to reread The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown. And somewhere in between all that I reread Georgette Heyer's, Devil's Cub (I cut my reading teeth on Georgette Heyer, Rosemary Sutcliffe, Mills & Boon, Barbara Cartland and my mother's True Romance comics, or rather in today speak, 'graphic' novels') Oops! I did digress to Never After that contains 4 short stories by Lauell K. Hamilton, Yasmine Galenorn, Marjorie M. Liu and Sharon Shinn. I had this title on hold at the library as I can't afford to be b